So I woke us this morning with one of the worst hangovers I’ve had in a long time. Not the best start to the day, but what cures a hangover better than driving in a hot car for many hours? Well, I can think of a lot of things and one of them is the little town of Hibbing, MN.  I stopped there to see the town that Bob Dylan grew up in and then abandoned for the Big Apple.  Maybe its not the most interesting place but it had its own charm nevertheless.  It’s a really small town with pretty much one main drag;  Howard St, I believe was the name of it.  I hadn’t eaten all day so I popped into a little dive called J & B’s cafe for some fried fish. I’ve been told that fried Walleye is the signature dish up here so I figured I’d give the fried fish a try no matter what kind it was.  The menu had it listed as fried pollock, whatever type of fish that is.  So I sat at the counter hoping to hear some of the locals talk to find out what people do in Hibbing. It was Friday so there was some chatter about going to one of the lakes for the weekend and other things like that.  And also the guy next to me ordered some pop.  Somewhere along the way, I think in Wisconsin, soda stopped existing. So after that I found a bench on Howard St and decided to do some people watching.  It seemed like people were looking at me as if they knew I was from out of town.  Could it be that they know everyone in town and I knew that I was not one of them or did I just have that out of town look to me?  Or maybe they were just looking at me like I was looking at them; just looking to see what I was doing.  I eventually got up and headed back to the car to get on my way. After all what’s a day without a solid 5 or 6 hours of driving?

    So I left Hibbing and headed towards Route 2 which is my new westward passage.  It runs north of Interstate 94 and is more scenic.  I think I saw about 1,000 of the proclaimed 10,000 lakes of Minnesota along the way.  The MN license plates claim “10,000 lakes” although I’ve heard the real number is well in excess of that. So I started heading heading west not knowing exactly where I would be stopping for the night.  I thought I would stop somewhere in Minnesota but wasn’t really sure where.   As route 2 passed through the various towns of Minnesota it would name the town and its population.  Some were as low as 700 or even 150.  A town with 150 people sure has to be interesting. Well, either that or maybe just really uninteresting.  So I consulted one of my travel books which talks about a cross country route along route 2.  There weren’t many Minnesota towns listed, besides Duluth, but it did speak highly of Grand Forks, North Dakota.  Apparently, it is one of the top 10 ‘Most Livable’ cities in the US.  I don’t know exactly what ‘most livable’ actually means but I was willing to try to find out.  Plus I knew if I made it to Grand Forks I would have the satisfaction of entering another state I’ve never been in.  So I arrived in Grand Forks and have secured some lodging for the night.  I just went downtown and got some pan fried walleye with wild rice. It was delicious of course.  I’m going to take it easy for the night (i.e. no drinking).  I’m also thinking about staying in Grand Forks for another night so I can explore it more tomorrow and take a break from driving for a day. We shall see.