Beautiful Day

Starting this morning at 49 degrees and now at 2:00 it's 71 with clear blue skies.  We took a drive today with our first stop at the headwaters of the Mississippi.  Here are our pictures:

This is the Mississippi at its first road crossing still inside the park, not quite a mile wide. 

 This is where the Mississippi begins flowing out of lake Itaska

 This post describes the origin and total length of the Mississippi

 here is a link to the site web cam  lake Itasca headwaters cam

 Not a dry crossing but with bare feet lots of folks have crossed on these stones.

 a surprise find in the grass along the path

Jo caught me standing in the middle of the Mississippi on the log bridge just below the rocks

We continued our route on a circular drive around Lake Itaska in the park on what they call the Wilderness Drive.  It is a one way route around the lake with a 20 mph speed limit.  This was a beautiful drive lined with big trees.

Jo took this one of the tree tops and the blue sky

About half way around we passed between Elk Lake and Itaska Lake

Here is Elk Lake

 the outflow of Elk Lake into Itaska Lake

That poses the question, Does the Mississippi River begin as pictured above at the outflow of Itaska Lake or perhaps somewhere above Elk Lake?

At the end of our drive we were back at the State Park Lodge and just had to stop in for Lunch, again so delicious.