July 28, 2025 - Driving from Alaska to Maryland
Mound, Minnesota
Heading east on Interstate 94.
   
We're out of the badlands and into the Great Plains.
   

We drove about two hours to Bismarck, North Dakota to drop Joe off at the airport where would get on a plane to go back to San Francisco.

A few miles from the airport we crossed over the Missouri River.

 
   
We had a great time hiking Glacier and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks with Joe.
   
We continued heading east on I-94.  After another two hours or so, we left North Dakota and entered Minnesota.
   

At Fargo -- on the North Dakota - Minnesota border, I-94 starts angling southeast toward Minneapolis, where we would spend the night.

But first, on the west side of Minneapolis, we stopped at the little town of Mound.  This is where I attended Northwestern Preparatory School back of 1976-77.

After high school, I applied to attend the U.S. Naval Academy but wasn't accepted.  They did give me the option of going to a prep school in Mound, Minnesota -- at my Dad's expense -- where I did well and was accepted into the Naval Academy the following year.  I was only in Mound for six months but I have vivid memories of it.  It was the place where I learned what it meant to really study, and apply myself.  I learned that I could do well academically if I studied hard.

I was there from September to November and I remember the weather as being very pleasant.  We had December off -- I went home to Moffett Field, California. I went back from January to March -- and the weather was shocking.  Mound was a small town and I can remember walking down main street and seeing the temperature on the local bank sign reading minus 30.  I can remember walking on a frozen lake through snow, during a snowstorm, not being able to see the shore.  It was the coldest place I've ever been and I've lived in Maine and spent time in Iceland and Alaska!

Mound was a sleepy little town back then.  What I'm seeing now bears no resemblance to what I remember.

This is the main intersection of the town:  Shoreline Drive and Commerce Blvd.  There certainly was no Walgreens back then.
   

Back in 2010, coming back from my Lewis & Clark/Missouri River cross-country, I flew over Mound and saw it from the air.  Even then, it had changed from what I remembered and I couldn't recognize a single thing from when I had lived there 34 years ago.

Now 49 years later, I don't recognize a single thing.

Driving north on Commerce Blvd.
   
Back during my six months in 1976-77, I used to like to go to the public library.   This public library is in Mound but is not where I remember it being.  It does look like what I remember though.
   

Back at the intersection of Shoreline Drive and Commerce Blvd, driving south on Commerce Blvd.
   
A True Value Hardware store on the main intersection.
 
We drove around and tried to find where the old school building -- which really was a converted waterfront lodge -- was.  But it is long gone.  In fact, the area was so different I wasn't even sure I was on the right road.
   
This is the one place I do remember.  Surfside Bar & Grill.  It is not in the same place I remember, and it definately is not the same building.  The place I remember was kind of a dive.  More of a bar than a restaurant.  But we went in and had dinner and it was surprisingly good!  Our waitress didn't know the Surfside's history.  I looked it up and this Surfside only opened up in 2016.  So maybe it's not related to the dive bar I remember.
   

I think what happened is that Minneapolis expanded in the last 49 years and Mound went from a small sleepy town to an upscale suburb.  There are many lakes around here and you know how valuable waterfront property is these days.  Mound was discovered and completely changed.

The entire thing actually kind of depressed me.

Leaving Mound, we went a little further east and stayed in a hotel.  (There is no lodging in Mound)
   
 
   
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