I’m still only around 70% but thought I would start a journal as I progress toward 100%. Unfortunately that means most of the cool roads are already done, but I’m still finding some things to write home about. I won’t be the first documented 100% completer, but it’s still something I’ve gotten a little more fired up about lately.
This weekend I was in Ely for a getaway and used some of the time to fill in some areas that are generally out of my day trip range, in central/northern St. Louis and Koochiching counties. I hoped to make it to International Falls to wrap up US 53 in Minnesota, but a late start on Sunday plus time spent on other activities, and finally a closure in downtown I-Falls that I wasn’t sure if it was a hard closure or just a dissuasion for through traffic led me to put the last stretch on the side. I spend enough time in Duluth that that shouldn’t be too much of a challenge in the late fall.
US 53 is kind of a cool route in central and northern St. Louis County, with the old iron towns and the scrapes against lakes north of the Range. I turned off at MN 217, which was the wrench in this entire process before I ditched the idea of finishing 53 because I couldn’t figure out a method of doing everything I wanted without driving 217 twice, and I found it’s not worth a second drive anyway.
From 217’s west end I made the short jaunt up MN 65 to US 71, then back down 65. This is some of the most remote road in the state if not the most. I didn’t see any other cars for 90 minutes. As the afternoon faded into evening, it almost felt eerie as the trees grew bigger and inched closer to the road. Officially it’s about 95 miles from US 71 to the first gas station on 65 itself (you can detour on 217 into Littlefork, or I believe into the Nett Lake tribal center for gas). I haven’t clinched 65 yet, but all that’s left to clinch now is between the US 169 south junction and MN 200’s north split.
Next weekend if it works out I hope to clinch either MN 76 and/or add miles on US 14 east of Rochester.
