Day 9: 118 miles round trip to, around and from Itaska State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  30 miles of our drive was detours due to bridge repairs. The park has a very nice visitors center where we got our maps and headed first to the headwaters. We crossed the stream and I waded in it too. 2552 miles from my wet feet to the gulf coast. We walked 4.5 miles. We saw a 300+ year old white pine 112 ft tall, 14.5ft in circumference  and many other huge white and red pines.  Itaska is the oldest state park in Minnesota; 32,000+ acres with about  100 lakes.  In 1903 many of the trees were saved by the first woman parks commissioner in the nation, Mary Gibbs who was only 24 yrs old. The lumbermen threatened to shoot her if she interfered with their illegal cutting. She dared them to do it and they backed down.
We had a delicious lunch at the 1905 Douglas  Lodge. We stopped at a pioneer cemetery where a man was buried in 1898 after being accidently killed by his friend when they were poaching deer. It apparently caused a 30 year feud. Our last stop was at a prehistoric Indian burial ground with many low mounds still evident.
The weather was perfect, 65 when we arrived and hitting 80 when we left. We took in an antique mall on the way back to the hotel; nothing interesting.
We are now watching the beautiful lake from our window and have decided to stay here an extra night and spend only one night at our next layover.
Wildlife yesterday and today, deer, turkey, loons, grebes, ducks, seagulls, geese. And hummingbirds outside our window at lunch.