We’re up at the crack of dawn to join a birdwatching walk at Bearhead State Park, it’s just a few miles off Mud Creek Road, but we’ve never been there. We’re in the Bayliner at 6:10 and we get to the park office in plenty of time for the announced 7:00 AM start. We meet the Master Naturalist Gloria who is leading the group, also Rita and David the Campground Hosts and expert birders…add the two of us (amateur birders) and it’s a small group! It’s rainy and chilly, and the mosquitoes are nasty – by the time we make it to the lakeshore toward the end of our walk they’re hovering around our heads in huge, dense clouds! Even Gloria finally admits it’s too much, and she has a jacket with mosquito net over its hood (Jan covets that jacket!). However, we do get to see quite an array of warblers (we learn that 26 of North America’s 52 warbler species breed in NE Minnesota!), also woodpeckers, ravens, and ducks. But it’s so gray and dismal that George never even takes his camera out of the bag.
Then we head off to Cook at the western end of the lake. We had read in the local paper that they’re having their annual Timber Festival this weekend and some of us were eager to see “Miss Timber Festival” crowned. But we learn that the festival was last weekend…we didn’t notice it was last week’s paper. Not to worry, we stop at the Montana Cafe and have a nice breakfast. We ask why it’s so crowded and are told “resort change out day”, the weekly rentals end on Saturday, checkout time is 9 AM and there’s no breakfast at the resorts, so the Montana Cafe is really packed. We’re served at the counter by mom, daughter is waiting tables, son is washing dishes. The taciturn young man sitting next to us orders his breakfast in two words: ”Six eggs.” We’re kind of curious to see him actually eat them, but we end up leaving before he gets served.
We visit the town’s Farmer’s Market and score some leeks, radishes and beeswax soap. Then we walk down the street to one of Cook’s main attractions, the old Comet Theatre which now houses a chic shop offering theater memorabilia, antiques, clothing, snacks, espresso and gifts.
Comet Coffee & Antiques...nice old building.
But the building is also Minnesota’s oldest continuously operating cinema, the theater is still intact and doubles as a display area for some of the shop’s merchandise.
...and the theater.
Turn out the lights, be careful not to trip over the clothes racks, and the movie’s on. Today’s matinee is “X-Men”, but we give it a pass because we want to find Homestead Mills.
Homestead Mills is an amazing place, a huge barn housing a shop with every kind of grain, flour, spice, seed, feed, coffee, knives, baby chicks and ducks….and a log cabin that’s used as an office. Some years ago the owner was tearing down an old shack on his family’s property, and when he took off the board siding he found that it was covering this ancient log cabin that had been built by his grandfather, with all hand-hewn logs. He took it apart and moved it inside the Homestead Mills building, log by log, and it continues to serve after all these years.
On the way home we take a detour onto the road to Moccasin Point to visit a permanent flea market that we had stopped at a couple of years ago. We’d seen a rocking chair we regretted not having bought at that time – unfortunately it’s long gone. But we do luck out and find a small anchor. The one at our cabin seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, and we’ve been looking for a replacement since we’ve been up here.
Our new $10 anchor.
In case you’ve never seen an anchor before…