Donna and Gary's RV Adventures: Pequot Lakes, Minnesota

We left Steinbring Motorcoach on Thursday morning after thanking all the staff for their help and support. Everyone, from Jon Steinbring, the owner, through Chase, his son and finance manager, and Lee, the sales person who guided us through the process, was extremely generous and supportive. The service manager, Ed, and Randy, who gave us our walk-through and orientation were always willing to stop what they were doing and help us or answer a question. The Jill-of-all-trades, Karen, was more than happy to assist us as well. We'll miss them all, and highly recommend this business to anyone looking to move into a motorhome, either new or used.

One last picture before we hit the road:

Our destination was The RV Resort at The Preserve at Pequot Lakes, MN. The journey was short, only about 110 miles northeast of Garfield, via County Road 14 out of Alexandria to MN 210, just north of Parkers Prairie. From there it was due east to MN 371 north to Pequot Lakes. This area, known as The Lakes, is home to about a hundred of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, and is a favorite weekend and summer vacation area for Minnesotans. The lakes are dotted with summer cabins and the highways are lined with boat shops, bars, restaurants, water parks, and pirate themed amusement parks. Typical tourist stuff, eh. The lakes in the northern midwest were formed when the ice age glaciers retreated, leaving huge chunks of landlocked iceberg, some many miles in diameter and hundreds of feet thick. These eventually melted in place, and were surrounded by gravel, rocks and dirt disrupted by the glacier, creating a lake. Voila!

The RV Resort is well landscaped and sparsely populated. The lots are for sale, and some owners have erected garages, and outdoor kitchens. Each site is over 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, and faces a nice little pond.

After setting up on a concrete pad with a table and patio, we started looking at the info the office provided so we could map out Friday's journey. We decided on a trip to a local lake that Donna's brother had once mentioned.

Friday morning we headed south to Brainerd, MN, and then east to Mille Lacs Lake. This is one of the largest lakes in the area, and is only 100 miles or so north of the Twin Cities.

Our first stop near the lake was at a park in the town of Garrison, where we encountered a really huge Walleye. This particular specimen is said to have been hooked by Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Paul struggled to land the fish for three days, and finally wrapped his line around Babes horns and Babe pulled the fish out of Lake Mille Lacs and up onto Garrison Beach. I believe every word...