The Buzz Saw do their thing in Minnesota.

Howdy Roc Travelers, I’m here to report about RocBunyan as the leader of a group of forest pounding, backpacking and long range hiking in the back country of Minnesota. In the depths of bitter cold, big Lumberjack RocBunyan leads his packs of adventurous visitors on dog sledding rides thru the north woods of Minnesota. “Mush, mush,” he cried out to teams of huskies running thru the new-fallen virgin snow leaving fresh paw print trails for miles and miles.

But, in the summer RocBunyan and his Rock Band does nothing but fish for trout, Chinook salmon, walleye, steelhead and rainbow trout in the largest freshwater lake in the world. His meals are fished out of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota where one morning he found a bottle at the river’s edge. In the green 7-up bottle was a message he couldn’t erase from his mind. While sitting around his glowing campfire that night roasting marshmallows, he opened the message to read it again. Slapping one of the millions of mosquitoes that seem big enough to literally carry you away, he read it aloud. It went like this:
“Help! I’m searching for the perfect vacation location. I love the outdoors but, I am also a sophisticated traveler and need my fill of the arts, as well. Please write back. –Rock traveler.”

Determined to help out his new pen pal (who wants to join the Buzz Saw group), RocBunyan stowed away his fishing rod and packed up to blaze an itinerary that might entice his anonymous traveler. Curious to experience animal encounters, he starts out on foot, hiking for miles and miles until he comes eye-to-eye with a deer. He’d seen moose and even bears before in the boundary waters canoe area but, deer, he thought were the most fascinating. For what seemed like an hour, he was hypnotized by the gentleness of the deer and half a dozen others that gathered to eat. Then RocBunyan moved on to a section of the Mississippi River in Itasca State Park where the river begins and you can walk on stepping stones that take you all the way across the narrowest part of the river.

In the town of Little Falls, he stops to visit the boyhood home of the great aviation pioneer, Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly around the world solo. Admiring the courage of Lindbergh, he wonders what he will do to make his mark on the world.
The next day, RocBunyan picks up a 20-speed bike to ride past some of the 12,000, yes; there are 12,000 lakes in Minnesota. More than 400 miles of paved bike trails along former railroad beds take him past pine, maple, oak and birch trees, wildflowers, lakes, farmland with miles of corn stretching to the sky and cows grazing peacefully. It’s an eyeful and he’s certain his pen pal will see things he’s never seen before and smell the freshness of nature served up thanks to the absence of pollution and overcrowding of people. White laundry blowing gently on a clothesline reminds him of a gentler time when bed sheets put you to rest at night with the fresh scent of the outdoors.

Before long, RocBunyan finds himself in the Twin Cities where Minneapolis and St. Paul are divided by the river, but, united by the pride of people who’re descendents of the early settlers from Germany, Norway and Sweden. It’s a tapestry of cultures, including the Italians and Finnish who came to work in the mines in the early days.

To rest his legs, he takes a ride from Harriet Island in St. Paul aboard an authentic Mississippi river boat. It’s a leisurely excursion.

Still craving more water adventures, he takes a plunge in a virtual submarine ride at the Mall of America. There he walks thru the 1.2 million gallon aquarium trying to name of the species of some of the 4500 sea creatures living there.

Stepping out of the aquarium, he finds himself walking around the largest fully-enclosed retail and entertainment complex in the United States. It’s world-class shopping at more than 500 retail and specialty stores and 14 movie theatres. “If that doesn’t suit my pen pal,” he thinks, “maybe he’ll like the spinning roller coaster in Camp Snoopy, also at the Mall of America, the largest indoor theme park with 7 acres of fun. It’s mind-boggling.” RocBunyan checks out the bowling lanes and the simulated stock car racing at the NASCAR speedway and stops to eat at one of the 60 eateries. A friendly diner, offers him a ticket to that nights Minnesota Twins baseball game at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. He’d only been in the stadium one other time when he joined the hundreds of indoor roller blading enthusiasts who use the warmth of the indoors at the Metrodome during days of winter sub-zero weather.

The streets of downtown Minneapolis are connected by glassed-in skyways for shoppers and businesspeople wanting to get around the city on foot without having to brave the record-breaking cold elements.

The Twin Cities are dotted with historic sites, museums, theatres, concert venues and casinos and you could spend a month exploring them all. Minnesota’s own Garrison Keillor hosts live radio broadcasts of, “A Prairie Home Companion,” a variety show of music and humor from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul. Art lovers will find joy in exploring the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center and outdoor sculpture gardens. RocBunyan is taken a back by a baffling site smack dab in the middle of the hi-rise city of Minneapolis. It’s a gigantic silver spoon with a cherry on it, the size his grandfather, Paul BoulderBunyan would have needed. Oh, I didn’t mention, our travel guide is related to the famous Minnesota lumberjack and his blue ox, did I?

He travels down to the Wabasha Street Caves. He goes inside imaging the words once spoken in the famous cave made into a nightclub in the early 1930’s where John Dillinger and his gang wined and dined. He exits, makes his way to the banks of the Mississippi where fur traders once wound their way down the waters. He drops the green 7-up bottle into the waters with a note he’s written that reads:

“Visit the land of 12,000 lakes, the memories will last a lifetime.”