Day 44 - Brainerd Exploration

It felt really strange to wake up and know that I would't be flying on this day. I'd gotten so used to the routine. 

I went to the airport, picked up the courtesy car and headed out to explore. I didn't have a particular plan in mind, I just started driving and seeing where I ended up.

As I drove along I passed a long line of cars going in the opposite direction. I knew from talking to a few folks that Brainerd was a big weekend destination area, so I figured this was all the city people heading home. It was similar to the I-15 coming back to LA from Vegas on a Sunday, except more trucks and boats on trailers. I hadn't expected to see that kind of traffic in Brainerd.

At one point I crossed over the Mississippi River. Last time I'd done that was flying to New Orleans a few weeks earlier. That river is such a symbolic marker for the East and West 'sides' of the country.

I stumbled on the powerboat racing at Serpent Lake completely by accident. I happened to see a sign and pulled over to check it out. We used to watch the hydroplane races on the Detroit River every year when I lived in that area, so it was fun to watch a scaled-back version of that. 

These boats didn't have nearly the power or speed of the big hydroplane racers but, like most racing, it isn't necessarily about pure speed. I was watching one race where a purple boat was leading, even though there was a much faster boat behind it. The driver of the fast boat wasn't slowing up to handle the corners properly, they were just blazing in full throttle and then would be carrying too much speed and run way wide through the turn while the purple boat scooted around the pylons nice and tight. The fast boat would spend the whole next straight building speed and trying to catch up only to overrun the turn again. Maybe that driver should consider switching to drag racing. 😀

Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.

I had seen the town of Manhattan Beach on the map and it seemed like as good a place as any to head towards. I stopped at the Manhattan Beach Lodge for lunch and by the time I finished the weather had cleared up a bit for the drive back to Brainerd airport to return the courtesy car.

The rest of the day was just hanging out, relaxing and trying not to think about the days I was losing on my schedule - and it wasn't over yet...