Back on the highway, Doc and I followed the Mississippi as it curved wide and muddy between skyscraping bluffs sculptured by glaciers and smoothed by wind and water. We passed through Wabasha, where posters remind visitors that the town was the setting for the “Grumpy Old Men” films and the National Eagle Center offers tips for birders who flock to the surrounding bluffs to watch bald eagles make their seasonal migrations.
At Lake City, where the Mississippi widens into Lake Pepin, strollers on a two-mile riverfront walkway can look out upon waters where an 18-year-old Ralph W. Samuelson is said to have “discovered” the sport of water skiing in 1922.