Sunday, August 23, 2009
Central Park, Crookston, MN: Aug 13-15
This was sort of a "surprise" stop. We found this park listed in a tourist guide, and it sounded appealing, a quiet place to spend a few nights, so we rearranged our itinerary to include it. We found out that our stay coincided with their annual celebration, Ox Cart Days. We thought it would be just a small-town festival that wouldn't matter much. Wrong! It was a HUGE 4-day festival that coincided with a classic car show and the Miss Crookston Scholarship Pageant. We got the last campsite with electricity in the park, and then the place was inundated with more campers who parked every-which-way because they were part of the car show or there for the festivities in some capacity. We were the only people there who "just happened by". It seemed fun to have the events happening so close to us, although we had been warned that the music for the Teen Dance might be a bit on the loud side. Well, you can't even imagine how loud it was -- and how unappealing! It was like sitting inside one of those boom-boom cars for 3 1/2 hours. But we were good sports and suffered through it (until midnight!) and through the adult dance with a D.J. the following night (until one am!), enjoying some of the other activities anyway.
Ox Cart Days comes from the history of the Pembina Trail, on which goods were hauled through this area from Pembina to St Paul, opening up the area to the early settlers. The Pembina Trail was essentially started by Joe Rolette in 1842. The ox carts were unique to this area, and the sound of their wooden wheels rubbing against the wooden axles could be heard for miles across the prairie and was said to "make your blood run cold" (so the Teen Dance fits that spirit perfectly!). The ox carts were used from 1842 until 1871, when the railroads took over. In their time, there were as many as 5000-8000 ox carts traveling across the state at one time. Each one was driven by one man, drawn by one ox, cost about $15 each, traveled about 1000 miles a year, and carried from 800-1000 pounds at a time.
A particular highlight of Ox Cast Days for us was the WoodPicks, a bluegrass group from nearby Thief River Falls, who performed outdoors on the local college campus. The University of MN Crookston is a 4-year college that has a lovely campus on the north side of town. We enjoyed the music and also enjoyed walking through the beautiful flower gardens on the mall (think commons, not shopping) area.
Unfortunately, Saturday morning it started pouring rain, and many of the activities had to be cancelled, postponed or moved to other venues. So we didn't get to see the classic cars in the nice grassy field just behind our campsite; we had to drive to the high school on the other side of town to see them. There were some great cars there, including several that shot flames out their tailpipes. Unfortunately, the loud music did not get moved or postponed!In spite of there being another day of festivities, we decided to stick to our "plan" of leaving Sunday. We were hoping by heading west to get out of the rain and into the sunny weather again.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:31 PM 
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