Troll Hunting!!

 I have finally completed a task that took me twelve years to accomplish and I must admit I am rather proud of myself for completing it. 

I have now camped in all of the states in the “Lower 48” of the United States of America! This last road trip allowed me to knock off the remaining four states – Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. Yay Me! This also means that since I've been to Alaska and Hawaii, I have been in all 50 of the states. What is next? Maybe the U.S. Territories? Probably not, I think I will just rest on my laurels.

All Filled In!

Since I'm going to be hanging around Minnesota for a while, I'm thinking that I should start seeing what my home state has to offer. Minnesota has sort of gotten a short shrift in my travels and it is a little embarrassing. I think most people tend to discount sights and adventures next door in favor of the more exotic locales. I'm going to try to make an attempt to see what I've been ignoring.

Day Trip: Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Eau Claire is about an hour and a half southeast of the Twin Cities. I've driven by it a lot, but I never got off the freeway to look at it. Eau Claire happens to have the self-proclaimed “#1 Largest Sculpture Tour In The Nation”. They have over 120 sculptures scattered throughout the town. I packed up a friend and we headed out to check it out. Of course the day that we picked happened to be one of the rainiest days of the week. This might explain why Eau Claire seemed like a ghost town with hardly anybody on the streets. We only managed to see maybe 20-30 of the sculptures before we decided that being wet and cold was not particularly conducive for art appreciation.

Window Dressing
Tim Banks

American Black Bear
Don Gabor

Victory Garden
Lee Leuning Sherri Treeby

Rising Sun
Patrick Shannon

The Visitor
Chris Kilbane

Chicken Farmer
Dale Levis

Celeste
Crysten Nesseth

Road Trip: Detroit Lakes, Minnesota

Detroit Lakes is about a four hour drive northeast of the Twin Cities. I wanted to take a longer trip because I have an electric car and I wanted to see if access was going to be an issue. I only had one issue with a charger, otherwise it went fairly well. I learned a lot about how to manage my electrical needs.

The more important reason to go to Detroit Lakes was that we were going to go TROLL HUNTING! There is a Danish artist (Thomas Dambo) who has created over 100 trolls all over the world. Detroit Lakes had five of these trolls, three portals and a magic golden bunny. These are no ordinary trolls, these are trolls made out of recycled wood and they are huge – maybe 30-35 feet tall. Each of these trolls has a story associated with them, along with their name. There are maps available to find the five trolls, and each of them have a necklace with a code on it. You need to keep track of the code, match it up to a 'troll' alphabet which gives you a clue on how to find the golden bunny. There were purple and yellow birdhouses along the trails to mark your way.

One of the portals was in the town of Perham. 
I did not know that Perham is the Turtle Racing Capital.

This was one of the portals

Alexa's Elixir

Ronny Funny Face
I think he might have been my favorite

Togetherness
Jim Dolan
This was on a trail to one of the Trolls.  Detroit Lake is in the background.

Barefoot Frida

Jacob Everear
 They tell the children to climb on him, whisper in his ear and tell him a story. 
 He was the only troll that you could climb on. 

Long Leif
When I stood next to him, I did not even come up to his knees. 
 He was one tall sucker.  

And here is the Golden Bunny - child for scale.  

Mashaal The Mammoth
Zach Schumack Leonic Collective
Mashaal was by the children's play area

Mashaal's Inners
There was a stair going up one of Mashaal's legs. 
 His tusk and body also light up at night.