Traces of Minnesota History
"It was some years ago that my wife and I and our friends first began to catch on to these roads. We took them once in a while for variety or for a shortcut to another main highway, and each time the scenery was grand and we left the road with a feeling of relaxation and enjoyment. We did this time after time before realizing what should have been obvious: these roads are truly different from the main ones."
1Mi East of Maple Lake MN is where we find traces of road history. This dirt road is probably a portion of the original (very first) road that came out to in this area of Minnesota. This section of that old road, had to curve between a Maple Lake (shown in next Photo) and around the slough (swamp) seen as cattails and tall grass by the highway with the red car at left. The newer, straightened (~1955?) “two-laner” and "beat-up concrete highway" Rt55, traveled by Pirsig and friends was built straight through and over the swampy part. Of course, the even newer I-94, some 12 miles to the North, found a different (more expensive way?) through the marshes and lakes northwest of Minneapolis.
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(Photo = 102-0265 ...... ZMM Page = 005...... WayPt = 001ef = same location as next photo.)

Route 55, Second Roadside Picnic Area Out of Minneapolis.

"The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different. They’re not going anywhere. They’re not too busy to be courteous. The hereness and nowness of things is something they know all about. It’s the others, the ones who moved to the cities years ago and their lost offspring, who have all but forgotten it. The discovery was a real find."

1Mi East of Maple Lake MN This roadside picnic area (2nd from Minneapolis) has lake and stream, but no water pump, or evidence of a previous installation. Since this Picnic Area is only 35 miles out of Minneapolis, it would probably have been too early for John & Sylvia to decide to stop here for a rest. (If you are aware of other good photos of scenery, marshes etc along MN Rt55, please let me know.)
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(Photo = 102-0260 ...... ZMM Page = 005 ...... WayPt = 002 = same location as previous photo.)

A View Of Minnesota Farmland, From Elevated Railroad Overpass.

… "I’ve wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn’t see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I’m looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." NOTE:: "Seeing truth" and "Not seeing truth" are an emphasized and recurring theme in ZMM. Thus this passage introduces us one of many "ZMM Master Motifs" as explained in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. ".

Rt55 Railroad Overpass 3 Mi West of Kimball, MN. As a person travels Rt55 Northwest from Minneapolis the scenery is mostly flat, swamp land, with an abundance of trees; it is hard to get a good landscape photograph. The Rt 55 RR Overpass raises the traveler high enough to see the surrounding land. For this reason, I took advantage of the modest increase of elevation here to attempt my first (ever) 360 deg full circle panorama. RIGHT CLICK AND SELECT “NEW TAB” => After this Gallery Albums Page Comes Up, read the instructions, Then Click On => “Album 360 Degree Panoramas for Book "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", And again after you read the instructions, Then Click On => The first narrow strip photo =>You can “Click&Drag” the SlideBars Bottom & Rignt, to See More Off Your Screen Edges. ….
(Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture)
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(Photo = 102-0270 ...... ZMM Page = 005 ...... WayPt = 003`|x|' 1212ft)

Spring Blooms Along Rt-55 Some 84 Miles Northwest Of Minneapolis, MN.

…"But once we caught on, of course, nothing could keep us off these roads, weekends, evenings, vacations. We have become real secondary-road motorcycle buffs and found there are things you learn as you go. .. We have learned how to spot the good ones on a map, for example. If the line wiggles, that’s good. That means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town to a city, that’s bad. The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker.”

2Mi West of Eden Valley, MN. Flowers along the route are often mentioned in ZMM, especially in the mountains of Montana. For this reason I started the practice of stopping where-ever I encountered flowers.
…Thus I stopped here to photograph these red clovers, yellow flowers, and white daises. As I knelt to focus my camera, the pungent odor of wet, old, mowed hay rose from around the roots of these spring blooms.
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(Photo = 102-0279 ...... ZMM Page = 003 ...... WayPt = 005w)

Ever Cautious Red-Winged Blackbirds Keep Their Distance, Eden Valley MN

…"There! A huge flock of red-winged blackbirds ascends from nests in the cattails, startled by our sound. I swat Chris’s knee a second time-then I remember he has seen them before. .... Unless you’re fond of hollering you don’t make great conversations on a running cycle. Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you’re in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you’re losing time."

Photo needed for RWBB in Eden Valley MN & Paynesville MN area. Notes: The two photos in this "Photo Stitch" were taken to show best the Red-Winged Blackbirds in this marsh. Several trees on the horizon are rendered hazy because I moved laterally between the two shots in a futile attempt to move closer to these play-it-safe modern day dinosaurs. *************************

(Photo = 102-0285+0286 ...... ZMM Page = 006 ...... Photo actually at WayPt = 010k 4Mi West of Lowry MN. Duck hunting slough with cattails & Redwing blackbirds and nests.)

Route 55, 3rd Roadside Rest Area Out of Minneapolis
"Up ahead the other riders, John Sutherland and his wife, Sylvia, have pulled into a roadside picnic area. It’s time to stretch. As I pull my machine beside them Sylvia is taking her helmet off and shaking her hair loose, while John puts his BMW up on the stand. Nothing is said. We have been on so many trips together we know from a glance how one another feels. Right now we are just quiet and looking around. … The picnic benches are abandoned at this hour of the morning. We have the whole place to ourselves. John goes across the grass to a cast-iron pump and starts pumping water to drink."
2Mi East of Paynesville MN is the location of the 3rd Roadside Rest Area (~75 Mi) from Minneapolis and thus is the likely place for their rest-stop. See additional confirming evidence next picture.
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Route 55 3rd Roadside Rest Area Out of Minneapolis (2nd photo)
"Chris wanders down through some trees beyond a grassy knoll to a small stream. I am just staring around."
2Mi East of Paynesville MN As shown in this photo and the previous, this rest area is definitely a "knoll" and has big White-Oak shade trees everywhere in the rest area. Only near the road where there were other types of trees, such as, several Cottonwoods, a Hickory, and an Elm. A web based topographical (topo) map, shows that this rest area is on a finger of dry land surrounded by swamps. A cast iron water pump and a knoll are here, but I don't recall a stream; I must check. Time has passed; the old sturdy concrete block pit toilet buildings have been boarded up & replaced with a flimsy plastic port-a-potty.
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Spring Scenery and Traffic 2Mi West of Kimball MN.

"It was all those people in the cars coming the other way," she [Sylvia] says. "The first one looked so sad. And then the next one looked exactly the same way, and then the next one and the next one, they were all the same." .. "Well, you know, work," I repeat. "Monday morning. Half-asleep. Who goes to work Monday morning with a grin?" "It’s just that they looked so lost," she says. "Like they were all dead. Like a funeral procession." (Sylvia Sutherland is one of the four main characters in ZMM.)

I travel ~2Mi West of Kimball MN. before I suddenly realize I should photo a Rt55 sign. Although out of travel sequence, it is appropriate for this passage from ZMM. So here it is! (However a photo of Rt55 in-coming Minneapolis rush hour traffic, complete with bored faces, is really needed. Do you know anyone who can help with this?)
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(Photo = 102-0266 ...... ZMM Page = 008 ...... WayPt = 002k)

The Humid Air Is Not Evident In This Photo, But the Grass Is Green, the House Fresh-White, and the Air Free of Smoke!
"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha—which is to demean oneself. That is what I want to talk about in this Chautauqua. ... We’re out of the marshes now, but the air is still so humid you can look straight up directly at the yellow circle of the sun as if there were smoke or smog in the sky. But we’re in the green countryside now. The farmhouses are clean and white and fresh. And there’s no smoke or smog." [End Chapter 1]
Photo substitution for somewhere after Eden Valley, MN. The grass was just as green and homes just as white along Rt 210. West of Fergus Falls, MN. This was a home by a road side rest area near Battle Lake, MN. The Narrator's poetic chapter ending reinforces his fresh clean thoughts for his Chautauquas. These are his philosophy presentations of his entire book which we are now starting off on.
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(Photo = Summer2006 0188 ...... ZMM Page = 16 ...... WayPt = 002m)

Tall Dandelions Color the Roadside

…"The road winds on and on - we stop for rests and lunch, exchange small talk, and settle down to the long ride. The beginning fatigue of afternoon balances the excitement of the first day and we move steadily, not fast, not slow. .. We have picked up a southwest side wind, and the cycle cants into the gusts, seemingly by itself, to counter their effect."

1.5 Mi West of Paynesville, MN. . Later on, I did experience strong wind. I stopped to get a Movie Clip of the wind rippling the deep grass at the roadside. This will be made available as soon as possible.
….More Photos needed for this area.
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Photo = 102-0278 ...... ZMM Page = 017 ...... WayPt = 008w)

Grain Storage Elevator Facility, Kensington, MN.

"Lately there’s been a sense of something peculiar about this road, apprehension about something, as if we were being watched or followed. But there is not a car anywhere ahead and in the mirror are only John and Sylvia way behind."

Kensington, MN. We are now beyond the "Thousand Duck Hunting Sloughs" mentioned in ZMM, and shown in Previous Photo.
As we travel the ZMM Route, this prairie town greets the ZMM traveler, with a Huge Grain Elevator Complex at the town entrance. These agriculture “monuments” mark the skyline of every town all the way to California!
….Grain-Stores (Elevators) are often mentioned by Sven Lindqvist, in his Swedish Newspaper Series about his ZMM Route experiences.

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(Photo =102-0287 ...... ZMM Page = 017 ...... WayPt = 011w)

The Wide Sweep Of the Fields and Tiny Distant Farm Buildings.

… Now In The “Dakotas”, A Field Of Sunflowers Is Seen 15 Miles After Breckenridge, MN.

…"We are not in the Dakotas yet, but the broad fields show we are getting nearer. Some of them are blue with flax blossoms moving in long waves like the surface of the ocean. The sweep of the hills is greater than before and they now dominate everything else, except the sky, which seems wider. Farmhouses in the distance are so small we can hardly see them. The land is beginning to open up. .. There is no one place or sharp line where the Central Plains end and the Great Plains begin. It’s a gradual change like this that catches you unawares, as if you were sailing out from a choppy coastal harbor, noticed that the waves had taken on a deep swell, and turned back to see that you were out of sight of land. There are fewer trees here and suddenly I am aware they are no longer native. They have been brought here and planted around houses and between fields in rows to break up the wind. But where they haven’t been planted there is no underbrush, no second-growth saplings—only grass, sometimes with wildflowers and weeds, but mostly grass. This is grassland now. We are on the prairie."

In The “Dakotas”, a field of Sunflowers is seen fifteen miles West of ND-MN Border along Rt 13. Breckenridge, MN. Note open flat landscape, in background. It’s like this, as far as the eye can see, all the way around (360 degrees), for mile after mile!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0206 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 014k.)

It's Easy to Miss!! Rt 55 Here Makes an Abrupt Left Turn
" Chris asks, "What are we stopping for?" .. "I think we missed our turn back there," John says. .. I look back and see nothing. "I didn’t see any sign," I say. .. John shakes his head. "Big as a barn door." .. "Really?" .. He and Sylvia both nod. .. He leans over, studies my map and points to where the turn was and then to a freeway overpass beyond it."
4Mi North of Elbow Lake MN Nine miles previous, and unnoticed by the ZMM traveler, Rt55 has "smoothly" joined Rt59. As you see, the obvious main highway (Rt58) here continues straight. However, as shown on the sign, Rt55 makes an abrupt ninety degree turn West. Notice how the land is "Opening Up". The stand of trees at left was probably planted since it is too dry here for trees to sprout from seed and grow on their own.
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Storm Cloudes? Intersection with Interstate 94 Near North Dakota Border
"Storm coming. That may be what has been bothering me. Deliberately shutting it out of mind, but knowing all along that with this humidity and wind it was more than likely. It’s too bad, on the first day, but as I said before, on a cycle you’re in the scene, not just watching it, and storms are definitely part of it. … Continuing to Page 021 We've already crossed this freeway". … "And just now I forgot to tell them about the storm. Things are getting a little unsettling."
Route 59 North of Elbow Lake MN where a potential storm cloud bank is seen above the almost discernable Interstate 94 freeway to right of the I-94 sign.
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The Land Is So Flat Around Here, You Have No Awareness That You Are In a "Valley. Certainly You Can Easily Drive Over This River And Not Even Notice It's Significance!!
"By the time we are out of the Red River Valley the storm clouds are everywhere and almost upon us."
Red River, Border MN&ND. I was actively looking for this river on my 2002 trip. But I zipped right over this bridge and completely missed it!!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0203 ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = 014m)

On and On ..... We Move Down the Endless Straight Road As If Standing Still!

... "I have a feeling none of us fully understands what four days on this prairie in July will be like. Memories of car trips across them are always of flatness and great emptiness as far as you can see, extreme monotony and boredom as you drive for hour after hour, getting nowhere, wondering how long this is going to last without a turn in the road, without a change in the land going on and on to the horizon.
.. John was worried Sylvia would not be up to the discomfort of this and planned to have her fly to Billings, Montana, but Sylvia and I both talked him out of it. I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn’t mean much. And when thinking about Sylvia’s moods and feelings, I couldn’t see her complaining. .. " [Cont next]

About 15 West of Breckenridge, MN. Except for being perfectly flat for hours, this coulN be my (Henry Gurr's), home state of northern Ohio!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0199 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 014n)

Humid-Hazy Skies Over Lone Windmill. The Prairie West of the Red River, Which Is the MN - ND Border.

… " Also, to arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context, as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a goal, a promised land. If John and I and Chris arrived with this feeling and Sylvia arrived seeing them as "nice" and "pretty," there would be more disharmony among us than we would get from the heat and monotony of the Dakotas. Anyway, I like to talk to her and I’m thinking of myself too. " [Cont next]

Some 20 Mi West of Breckenridge, MN. Here I discover my first windmill! This brings to mind page 26 in ZMM where (on this road) the Narrator reports " ...then in the brilliance of the next flash that farmhouse . . . that windmill . . . oh, my God, he’s been here! ..." So I stop to photograph this one.
…The hazy humid sky seen here fits passage above. ... In Mr. Pirsig's photos of this same area, you will note the perfectly blue sky! This fits Mr. Pirsig's recent confession that the storm and high-speed run to escape the rain was fictional. Click Here: And AFTER this Albums Page Comes Up => Click on the SECOND Down Album Re Pirsig 1968 Photos. => Then compare this landscape, with that seen Pirsig’s photos of his original 1968 trip. Look at first 3 photos. Will open in new browser. *************************

(Photo = 102-0304 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 016w)

Southeastern North Dakota, Like Kansas, "Is Flatter Than a Pancake"!

" In my mind, when I look at these fields, I say to her [Sylvia], "See? -- See?" and I think she does. I hope later she will see and feel a thing about these prairies I have given up talking to others about; a thing that exists here because everything else does not and can be noticed because other things are absent." [Continuing Page 025] "I suddenly notice the land here has flattened into a Euclidean plane. Not a hill, not a bump anywhere. This means we have entered the Red River Valley. We will soon be into the Dakotas." [Later in Chapter 3] "By the time we are out of the Red River Valley the storm clouds are everywhere and almost upon us. .. John and I have discussed the situation in Breckenridge and decided to keep going until we have to stop. .. That shouldn’t be long now. The sun is gone, the wind is blowing cold, and a wall of differing shades of grey looms around us."

20 Mi West of Breckenridge, MN. .. Having stopped to photograph the lone windmill, I realize this is a good open place to "shoot" my second 360 deg full circle panorama..: After this Gallery Albums Page Comes Up, Scroll Down To & Read Description Of => “Album 360 Degree Panoramas for Book "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" THEN Click On The Small Photo, and AFTER this Small Photos Page Comes Up => Click on the second narrow strip photo. AFTER this Panorama Comes Up, you will have to use the “Click&Drag” sliders at Bottom & Right to see the parts of photo off screen. :
& …. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture)

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(Photo = 102-0294 ...... ZMM Page = 018 ...... WayPt = 017`|x|' 1355ft)