I came to this location the first time over a year ago to wait on a northbound, but the light ran out before the train came. After running a couple of errands in Marshall, I saw on ATCS that another southbound was departing Willmar and decided to head home via Granite Falls. I knew getting an angle for a southbound would be more of a challenge than the northbound shot from a boat ramp, but if I was going to try to hike through the woods along the river, wintertime would be the time to try. So after 20 minutes of cautiously walking on parts of the ice floe, then stumbling through ice-encrusted snow drifts in the woods, I found myself enjoying the view from this little clearing along the banks of the Minnesota River. The sun was starting to sink closer to the horizon as I caught my breath, watched a few little birds dance around the trees and listened to the water running under the bridge. I began to wonder if the train would show up, but resolved that it had been worth the effort to get here just to enjoy a few minutes of peace while waiting. The cottonwood and oak trees creaked in the breeze and I wondered how many men they had sheltered in their lifespan. Were they old enough to have seen Chippewa and Dakota traveling the river? Fur traders and others? Men resting from building the bridge? Others more recently like me who somehow found their way back here? The sound of a horn from the north soon came drifting along across the valley, snapping me back to the present moment. It turns out the wait was doubly worth it as I was rewarded with a pair of catfish crossing the Minnesota River in December. When I got home, my wife saw some of the cottonwood "cotton" still stuck to my coat and said, "You hiked through some trees for a picture, didn't you?" I said, "Yeah, but not just for a picture..."
