South of Brainerd, the GRR speeds along Hwy-371, which yearns to be an Interstate for the 30-odd straight miles it takes to reach Little Falls. Exceedingly flat and awash in a sea of corn, it gives no hint of the Mississippi except at Crow Wing State Park ($5; 218/825-3075), with trails, picnic area, and camping beside the confluence of the Mississippi and Crow Wing Rivers. Native Americans, missionaries, fur-trappers, and lumberjacks made this a thriving and mostly inebriated 19th-century town, but the forced removal of the Indians and the shift of trade to the rail crossing at Brainerd turned Crow Wing into a ghost town; only cellar holes and cemeteries remain around the old townsite.
At Little Falls the GRR neatly misses the fast food and gas claptrap that has sprung up on the Hwy-371 bypass, proceeding instead through the heart of town, which would probably still be recognizable to Charles Lindbergh, who spent his boyhood summers here. Running along the west bank of the river, the GRR passes by the Charles A. Lindbergh House and History Center (daily in summer, limited hours rest of the year; $6; 320/632-3154) a mile south of town. The house, which sits on a beautiful stretch of the Mississippi, bears the unusual distinction of having been restored with the meticulous guidance of the aviator himself. Lindy wanted the site to honor his father, a five-term U.S. congressman, as well as himself, and so it does. Exhibits also illustrate the junior Lindbergh’s life and achievements after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic. There is little mention of Lindy’s public admiration for Adolf Hitler, but the museum does display Lindy’s 1959 VW Beetle, which he drove over 170,000 miles on 4 continents.
