Rush Hour Rambling

Weather: Still wet and (getting less) wonderful.

Frogwing, in his natural element, near New Prague, Minnesota.

Sitting here, listening to the mellow jazz soundtrack of The Weather Channel, I’m watching the radar as another green blob of rain oozes over our sodden Twin Cities. I’ve just come in from under that mess, and it feels good to be home.

Last night, instead of riding straight home in the rain, I decided to do a little rambling. That is, after all, the object of this blog. Frogwing was tuned-up and ready to go. No way a little rainstorm was going to stop us.

I’ve been meaning to explore Minnesota State Highway 13, as it runs south and west of the Cities, for a long time. The northern terminus of this road is called Annapolis Street, and it is located just a couple of blocks from my house.

The southern terminus is in Albert Lea, just north of the Iowa border. We certainly couldn’t make it that far on an after-work ramble, but we could probably get a little taste of the old road’s character with a jaunt of a hundred miles or so.

Frogwing fired right up when I pressed the starter, and I shook my fist defiantly at the gloomy grey sky. Just to pump up my spirits a little bit, I let out a war-whoop as we accelerated out of the parking lot. To quote George Clooney’s character in “From Dusk `till Dawn”…

All right you ramblers, let’s get ramblin’!

Of course, we had to negotiate several miles of rush-hour traffic before we got to Highway 13. The less said about that, the better.

Established in 1920, Minnesota 13 was what they called a “Constitutional Route”. Part of the Babcock Amendment, the layout of such routes could not be changed except by an amendment to the state’s constitution.

Back then, it stretched from Albert Lea north, to a beautiful little town called New Prague. In 1933, they extended it through what are now the dense-packed, bedroom suburbs immediately south of the Twin Cities. For our little ramble tonight, I determined we should at least make it through that newer addition and follow it to old northern terminus at New Prague.

This would be a trip of ninety-some miles, which isn’t bad for an after-work ramble in the rain.

Rush hour finally petered-out south of Prior Lake. We had a pleasant, though wet, ride down to Jordan, Minnesota.

Jordan is a small town of some four thousand people. It was established in 1854 by two families, the Holmes’ and the Varners, on 160 acres of prime river-bottom farmland. Some thirty miles from the southern edge of the metropolis now, Jordan is turning into another generic Smalltown, USA… Looking at it from Highway 13, I saw the same strip-malls and condos that mark every other suburb these days.

I’m sure there is still a precious core of the old town somewhere, but it was raining hard at that point, and I didn’t feel like looking for it.

Rolling through the farm country now, Frogwing and I passed mile after mile of gently winding road. We stopped to take the photo at the top of the page somewhere in there. Those corrugated steel barns say so much about our modern America, and even those are rusting now.

Arriving in New Prague, the rain was falling harder than ever. Old brick buildings lined both sides of the street, and I began to feel a bit better about the future of our history. I pulled Frogwing up in front of a promising establishment: The New Prague City Club.

Inside, some young gents were enjoying a game of poker while the ceiling fans turned slowly overhead. Two other fellows were playing pool over in the corner. The old, ornate tin ceiling had been painted over, but that only served to brighten the room. Overall, it was a welcome place to take shelter from the storm. I took a seat at the ancient mahogany bar and ordered a pint. Then I settled in to soak up the ambience of this old-tyme saloon.

Some of these gents are a bit out-of-focus. I wonder if that affects their luck with the cards…

Soon, however, it was time to saddle up and go home. The rain had let up a little while I was taking my refreshment, and Frogwing was eager to return to his nice, dry garage. We followed Highway 13 all the way home. Rush hour was over by then, and traffic moved along smartly.

We rolled into the driveway, and I shut off Frogwing’s engine. Sitting there in the darkness, I listened to the rain falling over my peaceful neighborhood. Then I opened the garage door and put Frogwing to bed for the night. Smiling, because I just couldn’t help it, I walked slowly into the house.

My daughter Emily was asleep by the time I got home. This would be a perfect opportunity to test that “Nightshot” feature of our digital camera, I thought. Tip-toeing into her bedroom, I switched the camera on in the night mode. An eerie green glow showed me what must have been the reflection of infrared light from the camera. Suddenly I was haunted by shades of long nights, with the goggles, on guard duty…

Tonight, however, I used this technology to focus on my Emily’s face in total darkness, and take this picture:

Sleeping Beauty, in night vision green.

Sometimes technology can be a Good Thing.

After a couple of warmed-over enchiladas, I settled in for some TV news with the Missus. Then it was off to bed, to prepare for another workday, and maybe dream of other roads to explore. Not a bad ramble, if I do say so myself. We will have to do this again… soon.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Ride To Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.