Island of Lost Hotels

Brooklyn Center is celebrating its centennial this year.

You can read about it here.

I has, apparently, a fairly rich history, which includes, among other things, having the first airfield in Minneasota, and was once known as the "Something More City."

I don't know what happened to Brooklyn Center, but it should be called the "Nothing More City".

It has plain disappeared.

At least any sensible organization of the city has disappeared.

Brooklyn Center is a mess.

The hotels which are located on a strange little island sectioned off by an interstate and various state highways. There is nothing around them! None of the typical fast food joints, tacky convenience stores or even the ever-present Applebee's.

Nothing!

There is evidence of a Hardee's, though. It sat right behind my hotel, but now it is an Asian food market, which seems to have no business.

I was stuck here for three days, marooned. This was worse than a desert island.

During the day it was okay, because I had appointments and things to do, but at night, for a meal, there was nothing.

Or so I thought. On this trip I had tossed my bike in the back of the CRV and was riding around on my first evening, when I spotted a little segment of bike and hike trail off of the Crowne Plaza. I zoomed onto the trail and rode a short distance, but as it was getting dark, I called it a night.

So there was a way off the Island of Lost Hotels, after all.

The next night I explored.

I began a ride that took me around to the North Mississippi Regional Park. It's beautiful and it's hidden, mostly, and without prior knowledge you might stay at any of the hotels on the Island of Lost Hotels and never know it existed.

My last night I was riding the trail and came around a bend not far from the Crown Plaza. A man going the opposite direction on his bike shouted out, "Bear ahead!".

My heart jumped and I gripped the brakes of the bike.

Bear? Ahead? No, couldn't be.

Or could it? This was Minnesota. They have wild things up here.

I sucked it in and rode around the bend in the trail. A large swamp was to my right and the berm of the trail landscaping to my left. I approached the bear sighting.

Appearing around the far corner of the bend was the "bear".

Or rather, the deer.

A large doe was munching some road salad and looked at me with a touch of defiance and disinterest.

My handbrakes squealed as I debated for a moment what a dear attack might result in. Then I decided to chance death and not be a wimp and rode past.

Later that night, in my hotel room in the Island of Lost Hotels, I munched on my own meal and thought about Brooklyn Center.

It looks like they are tearing it down, and the hotels are caught on their own. Thanks to the secret trail out near the Crown Plaza, I had something more to do in the "Something More City".