Almost got to see my baby brother last night

[dreamshark]

He lives in Reno, and I haven't seen him for a couple of years at least. Last night I got an unexpected text that he was stranded at the MSP airport and might need a place to stay for the night. We had a big pot of basil lemon chicken and it would have been perfect. He was trying to get to International Falls (no, really). Actually, he was trying to go to someplace even more remote (Baudette - look it up) but International Falls was as far as Sky West would take him. And last night the wind was so fearsome that his flight was cancelled. 

But strangely enough, they managed to get him on another flight 3 hours later to Bemidji, so we didn't get to see him after all.

His job is helping people set up brewing equipment. And apparently somebody in Baudette was so impatient to get their microbrewery up and running that they had to fly him up there in the middle of February and were happy to drive to Bemidji in the middle of the night to pick him up. They must be really bored in Baudette.

He also has a planned layover in Minneapolis on the way home, 8 days from now. So if that goes off as planned we'll see him then. Looking forward to it. And relieved to hear that his little plane cruised smoothly to Bemidji last night. 

Comments

[pameladean]

The wind was supposed to drop fairly abruptly last night, and I guess it did. I'm sorry you missed seeing your brother.

As for Baudette, hey, I've been there. They have two hotels! Cameron and I wanted to attend the Williams Wildflower Day (Williams has no hotels) and that's where we stayed. Williams may have no hotels, but when Rudy Perpich forgot he'd promised them that when Highway 11 was renovated, MNDOT would not dig up the wild native orchids between the road and the railway, essentially the entire town turned out to dig up all the orchids along the richest stretch and plant them in people's yards and in the town square instead. When the road removal and attending destruction was done, they put most of the orchids back.

I wish I had a good story about Baudette, but we mostly just slept there and ate at a Waffle House.

P.

[dreamshark]

Wow, that's a GREAT story about the Williams Orchid Rescue. Wow. And just having been to Baudette at all is sufficiently astounding for a travel story. I doubt I know anyone else who has been to Baudette (except my brother, now). But I have minor aspirations in that direction myself. Zippel Bay is on my list of state parks I would like to visit, and once you've driven all the way to Lake of the Woods you might just as well stop in Baudette to take a picture of their giant fiberglass fish. And maybe stop at the microbrewery that will surely be in operation by next summer.

[pameladean]

We did visit Zippel Bay. It was gorgeous but very very buggy.

I forgot to mention that the Williams Orchid Rescuers also over-wintered some of the orchids and other rare wildflowers in their basements. Those people were hardcore.

We are not good tourists and did not even know about the fiberglass fish, which I bet was already there in 1998. But I'm sure there was not a microbrewery.

P.

[maruad]

Very cool. My wife's family lived across the river (on the Canadian side) and up the road a bit from Baudette. I have driven through it several times and have I even ate there once... though cannot remember the name of the place now. It was decades ago.