Minneapolis Downtown Skyline Viewed from the Sculpture Garden of the Walker Art Center. "We are heading northwest from Minneapolis to the Dakotas."
[These words in italics are from the second paragraph of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM). Here the Narrator specifies where he starts his journey.]
Minneapolis, MN. Downtown skyline viewed from the Sculpture Garden of the Walker Art Center. The Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden are slightly West of downtown Minneapolis. Robert Pirsig, author of ZMM, grew up in Minneapolis. His father was Maynard E. Pirsig, Dean of the University Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis. To learn more about ZMM, Robert Pirsig, his father, or the Walker Art Center, click here . You will need to scroll to Items 1), 7), 8), or 15).
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(Photo = 102-0197c ...... ZMM Page = 003 ...... WayPt = -019`|e|' 0820ft)

The Walker Art Center Main Building, June 2002
Note: There is another Robert Pirsig connection to Minneapolis. Hanging in Phaedrus' English Department office in Bozeman was a reproduction of painting named The Church of the Minorites by Lionel Feininger. Pirsig probably discovered this painting in the Walker Art Center pictured above. Pirsig said in ZMM, Page = 160: "On the way out I open one more door, compulsively. There on the wall I see something which sends a spine-tingling feeling along my neck. .. It’s a painting. I’ve had no recollection of it but now I know he bought it and put it there. And suddenly I know it’s not a painting, it’s a print of a painting he ordered from New York and which DeWeese had frowned at because it was a print and prints are of art and not art themselves, a distinction he didn’t recognize at the time."
Minneapolis MN is home to The Walker Art Center. The Walker Gallery building, pictured above in June 02, has since undergone a vigorous expansion and modernization.
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The Church of the Minorites by Lyonel Feininger.
"But the print, Feininger’s Church of the Minorites, had an appeal to him that was irrelevant to the art in that its subject, a kind of Gothic cathedral, created from semiabstract lines and planes and colors and shades, seemed to reflect his mind’s vision of the Church of Reason and that was why he’d put it here."
Minneapolis, MN. This painting is found at The Walker Art Center, just west of downtown Minneapolis. Painting credit line: Lyonel Feininger, Barfüsserkirche II (Church of the Minorites II), 1926, oil on canvas, 43-1/2 x 37-1/2 x 2-1/2" framed, Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Gift of the T. B. Walker Foundation, Gilbert M. Walker Fund, 1943. © Copyright. Permission to reproduce on ZMMquality.org is granted by The Walker Art Center. A link to other Feininger paintings may be found on my ZMM Links. Click upper right on "Return to HomePage" and then when my home page comes up click upper left click on "ZMM Links". Then when the Links Page comes up, scroll down to "Church of the Minorites" at nearly the page bottom.
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(Photo = Walker Art Gallery wac_116e.jpg ...... ZMM Page = 160 ...... WyPt = -018`|w|' 0830ft)

Congested Late Evening Traffic on Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
"John and Sylvia are not mass people and neither are most of the others going their way. It is against being a mass person that they seem to be revolting. And they feel that technology has got a lot to do with the forces that are trying to turn them into mass people and they don’t like it. So far it’s still mostly a passive resistance, flights into the rural areas when they are possible and things like that, but it doesn’t always have to be this passive." (John Sutherland and his wife Sylvia, are one of the four main characters in ZMM.)
Minneapolis MN is where I was halted by congested late evening heavy traffic on Hennepin Avenue (a major highway) at the intersection of Colfax Avenue. In a recent letter Mr. Pirsig said of the two photos in this composite photo, “Memories came crashing down”! He went on to say that as a child he rode the streetcar on Hennepin to his Elementary School, which was at that time, located just to the west of this intersection. He, of course, for many years must have here waited daily for the streetcar to take him home.
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2000 South Colfax Ave, Minneapolis.
"And their things, their monster keeps eating up land and polluting their air and lakes, and there is no way to strike back at it, and hardly any way to escape it. That attitude is not hard to come to. You go through a heavy industrial area of a large city and there it all is, the technology. In front of it are high barbed-wire fences, locked gates, signs saying NO TRESPASSING, and beyond, through sooty air, you see ugly strange shapes of metal and brick whose purpose is unknown, and whose masters you will never see."
Minneapolis, MN A pleasant summer day comes to a close at 2000 South Colfax Ave. (See “South Colfax Avenue” on the signpost.) Pirsig attended elementary School about four blocks North where Colfax intersects of Hennepin Avenue.

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2649 South Colfax Ave, Minneapolis
John Sutherland and his wife Sylvia, are one of the four main characters in ZMM. ”Later John mumbles something a few times, looks up and announces, "This does it—this just does the whole thing for us . . . Now we can go back for another eight years on Twenty-six-forty-nine Colfax Avenue." Sylvia says mournfully, "Let’s not talk about that."
Minneapolis MN dusk shrouds the quiet well maintained home at 2649 South Colfax Ave. From the contextual evidence contained in ZMM we may deduce that John's statement about Colfax Avenue surely must be about his home in Minneapolis MN, where sure enough www.mapquest.com shows it as a N-S street, just west of the downtown area. In a recent letter Pirsig said of this photograph. "This could be John's house. [They] Moved to the country in late '70's." ZMM author Robert Pirsig went to Elementary School about ten blocks North of Here. The children Pirsig went to school with would have come from this neighborhood. As a child, he may have walked through this area of town.
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Yes, There It Is In Gold, 2649, In the Fancy Carved Wood Over the Door.
"Now we can go back for another eight years on Twenty-six-forty-nine Colfax Avenue."
South Colfax Ave, Minneapolis, MN. In the Summer2006, this hours was empty and for rent, so I fully used the chance to take photos, all around, of it fantastic colored architecture in bright sun. These photos will be added ASAP to the new Alum "Twenty-Six-Forty-Nine Colfax Avenue, Minneapolis." It took me several minutes to adjust the telephoto of my camera to get this shot. Also, due to the very late evening darkness, this photo had to be brightened. I used the very handy (and free download) Irfanview Photo Editor to do this.
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What Was the Narrator's Route Out of Minneapolis On That Early Monday of July 1968?
[Letter from Robert Pirsig 30 Sept 2005 states:] "When John and Sylvia and Chris and I set out that morning we could not have dreamed that 37 years later we would get questions from around the world about which route we were going to take, yet here they are. I wonder what the questions will be like 37 years from now.
"I've marked up the map you sent me with my best guess, but it could be wrong. The exact route out of Minneapolis is very vague in memory but I seem to recall that we went north to the US 10 highway that still follows the old Northern Pacific railroad (now Burlington Northern) through Anoka, St, Cloud, and Fargo to the West Coast. The freeway that replaced it was I-94. US 10 goes more north than we wanted to go, so after a while we worked our way west and north along a number of roads to highway 210 and followed it to Oakes, North Dakota.
"The references to Excelsior and Savage [In Lila] were for other [shorter] trips that John and I took. Only the first chapter touched down there, not the trip itself. I threw in those names because they seemed to have a mild "not-quite-in-this-world" connotation that might help foreshadow things later on in the book. The name, "Phaedrus," was used for the same purpose.
"If we had been smarter we probably would have taken Hwy 55 but we didn't really have any route in mind and I don't remember even looking at a map as we left Minneapolis. We just eyeballed it, and went north and west along whatever looked good at the moment. The angle of the sun was our main guide. To really reproduce the feelings of that trip you should just estimate the general direction you want to go and pick a road--any road--and see where it takes you. Road numbers and maps are very static. Not knowing where you're going is more Dynamic and that is how we felt that day." For a WebMap showing (somewhat) Pirsig above mentioned route, go to my "Home Page", click on "ZMM Links" in menu, and scroll down to Gary Wegner.
Imagine Mid Summer, early AM, just West of down town Minneapolis, MN. Note: In the Summer of 2002, I was not aware of the route mentioned by Mr. Pirsig above. My best estimate at the time, based on physical clues, was the Rt 55 mentioned by Mr. Pirsig above. As a result, my photos you see in This Album are for Rt 55. In the Summer of 2006 I started in Minneapolis, traveled along Rt 10 then Rt 210, to reach Breckenridge, MN. (These are the routes mentioned by Mr. Pirsig above.) Since I have also traveled Rt 55, likewise mentioned by Pirsig above, I can say most definitely that Rt 55 is a much better fit to the physical route clues and scenery descriptions given in ZMM. For example Rt 55 has many more lakes, duck sloughs, is a narrow two lane, much less commercialized, and thus less traveled highway. Also Rt 55 vastly better fits the ZMM clues about the missed turn just prior to a freeway. For these reasons, Rt 55 would be quieter, safer, and a much more satisfactoryPirsig Pilgrim experience! The 3rd photo next provides some suggestions how to leave Minneapolis, go thru Savage, Excelsior, and then head towards Rt 55. However ...... Pilgrims should heed Mr. Pirsig's above advice. They might well improvise their own back country roads.
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(Photo = 102-0254 ...... ZMM Page = 003 ...... WayPt = -011w)

Heading Northwest on Route 55
"This highway is an old concrete two-laner that hasn’t had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago."
Minneapolis MN where darkness surrounds the Route 55 sign. Imagine you are "heading northwest " (page 003) just prior to daybreak. Please study your Minnesota (MN) map and look for clues in Chapter One as to what route the narrator (Pirsig) followed out of Minneapolis. Rt55 is one of the few old "Beat-Up Concrete" Highways (page 003)" which "is an old concrete two-laner" (page 003) "that hasn’t had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago" (page 003) where it is easy to "miss our turn" (page 021), despite a sign “as big as a barn” (page 021), that soon thereafter “crosses this freeway” (page 021).

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Dawn's Pink Northern Light Illuminates Lakes Along Route 55
"In the wind are pungent odors from the marshes by the road. We are in an area of the Central Plains filled with thousands of duck hunting sloughs, heading northwest from Minneapolis toward the Dakotas. This highway is an old concrete two-laner that hasn’t had much traffic since a four-laner went in parallel to it several years ago. When we pass a marsh the air suddenly becomes cooler. Then, when we are past, it suddenly warms up again."
~5Mi West of Buffalo MN where the pink northern light of dawn illuminates the lakes along Route 55. My Rand-McNally map shows a major portion of this Minnesota highway as being a "Scenic Route"! Bravo Rand-McNally!! This mapmaker agrees with Pirsig on the Travel Quality of this Road!

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Did the Narrator Take This Busy Congested Four Lane Divided Highway For Even A Portion of Their Route" Heading Northwest From Minneapolis"?
"But once we caught on, of course, nothing could keep us off these roads, weekends, evenings, vacations. We have become real secondary-road motorcycle buffs and found there are things you learn as you go. .. We have learned how to spot the good ones on a map, for example. If the line wiggles, that’s good. That means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town to a city, that’s bad. The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker."
Rural Rt 10 Northwest of Minneapolis, MN Considering the above ZMM passage, what highway(s) would the ZMM Narrator have chosen from Minneapolis? Mark Richardson in his forthcoming book, reminded me of a passage from Mr. Pirsig's second book, Lila: "Redford says he's always had a special interest in Minnesota. His movie "Ordinary People" was a Minnesota story, although they filmed it in northern Illinois. His college roommate came from Minnesota, and he'd visited his house there and never forgotten it. .. "Where did he live?" Phædrus asks. .. "Lake Minnetonka," Redford says, "Do you know that area?" .. "Sure. The first chapter of my book touched down for a second at Excelsior, on Lake Minnetonka." Recently we asked Mr. Pirsig if these words referred to their travel route that July of 1969. His complete reply is given in the 3rd previous photo. There he implies that the towns of Savage (Southwestern suburb of Minneapolis) and Excelsior (near Minnetonka), were several areas of their weekend rides, rather than part of the ZMM Narrator's route. So on your ZMM Pilgrimage, whether on a weekend ride or starting out on a ZMM Pilgrimage, you might try the following "ZMM Quality filled" route that connects to Minneapolis to the ZMM Route on Rt 55 where you may continue the ZMM Route: From Sutherland's home at 2649 S. Colfax: Go West on Lake Street, and after several miles, then angle left onto Minnetonka Blvd (Rt 7) which goes directly to the center of Minnetonka, MN, and continue West to Excelsior, MN. Here, on the west side of town, (consult a map) you could turn North onto a wonderful twisty road, that runs along a series of "near islands" in Lake Minnetonka. This road goes thru towns of Shorewood, Tonka Bay, Spring Park, and Mound. "If the line wiggles on a map, that’s good." From here Pilgrims can then explore the Narrator's pleasant & beloved back country roads "eyeballing it" North and West on their way to Rt 55. Thus Pilgrims would also heed Mr. Pirsig's advice mentioned on the previous photo. Make your own route as you travel!!
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(Photo = Summer2006-0176 ...... Lila passage is near Start Ch 19. ...... WayPt = -011i)

The Long Lost Pirsig 1968 Picnic Canopy Has Been Found! “North Dakotans Are Cool and Kind!”
On my second trip along the ZMM Route, I had the sense of great satisfaction and privileged as I took this photo! This was because, for a long time the geographical location of Pirsig's picnic area has been unknown, despite widespread efforts to the contrary. Finally, Gary Wegner taking leadership, wrote to the County Engineers in the North Dakota Counties of Richland and Sargent. Tim Schulte, Richland County Engineer, replied: “I did some checking with various folks in Richland County and nobody could remember a rest area along State Highway 13 in Richland County. Check Wyndmere, SD.” Jennifer Manstrom, Wyndmere School Librarian said: “We have done some asking around and we don't think it was in Wyndmere, but more likely the Hwy 13 rest stop is just west of Milnor, beside the current Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative. We think the same shelter is STILL there!. If that isn't it, it may be at Gwinner at the intersection of Hwy 13 and the state highway which goes to Lisbon.” (Continued next photo.).
Along Highway 13 at Milnor, ND.
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(Photo = Summer 2006 0220 ...... ZMM Page = 025 ...... WayPt = -017i)

Lakes, Marshes, and Wildlife along Route 55.
"Here and there is a stretch of open water and if you look closely you can see wild ducks at the edge of the cattails. And turtles . . ." Page 006 continues "I have seen these marshes a thousand times, yet each time they’re new. It’s wrong to call them benign. You could just as well call them cruel and senseless, they are all of those things, but the reality of them overwhelms halfway conceptions."
~6Mi West of Buffalo MN. (Photos are needed to illustrate first part of ZMM after Buffalo, especially marshes, RWBB and ducks . If you can provide marsh life and landscape photos of this area, please contact me.)
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Minnesota Marshes and Lakes Are a Home to the Red-wing Blackbird
"There’s a red-winged blackbird. .. I whack Chris’s knee and point to it. .. "What!" he hollers. .. "Blackbird!" .. He says something I don’t hear. "What?" I holler back. .. He grabs the back of my helmet and hollers up, "I’ve seen lots of those, Dad!" .. "Oh!" I holler back. Then I nod. At age eleven you don’t get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds. You have to get older for that. For me this is all mixed with memories that he doesn’t have. Cold mornings long ago when the marsh grass had turned brown and cattails were waving in the northwest wind. The pungent smell then was from muck stirred up by hip boots while we were getting in position for the sun to come up and the duck season to open. Or winters when the sloughs were frozen over and dead and I could walk across the ice and snow between the dead cattails and see nothing but grey skies and dead things and cold. The blackbirds were gone then."
Photo of RWBB East of Maple Lake MN needed
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Bordered by Real Pavement, the Minnesota Springtime Landscape Bursts Forth With Life
"But now in July they’re back and everything is at its alivest and every foot of these sloughs is humming and cricking and buzzing and chirping, a whole community of millions of living things living out their lives in a kind of benign continuum. .. You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. .. On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."
Photo needed for 5Mi east of Maple Lake MN
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The Old Dirt Road Leaves traces of Minnesota History
"It was some years ago that my wife and I and our friends first began to catch on to these roads. We took them once in a while for variety or for a shortcut to another main highway, and each time the scenery was grand and we left the road with a feeling of relaxation and enjoyment. We did this time after time before realizing what should have been obvious: these roads are truly different from the main ones."
1Mi East of Maple Lake MN is where we find traces of road history. This dirt road is probably a portion of the original (very first) road that came out to in this area of Minnesota. This section of that old road, had to curve between a Maple Lake (shown in next Photo) and around the slough (swamp) seen as cattails and tall grass by the highway with the red car at left. The newer straightened (~1955?) “two-laner” and "beat-up concrete highway" Rt55, traveled by Pirsig and friends was built straight through and over the swampy part. Of course, the even newer I-94, some 12 miles to the North, found a different (more expensive way?) through the marshes and lakes NW of Minneapolis.
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(Photo = 102-0265 ...... ZMM Page = 005...... WayPt = 001ef = same location as next photo.)

Route 55, Second Roadside Picnic Area Out of Minneapolis
"The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different. They’re not going anywhere. They’re not too busy to be courteous. The hereness and nowness of things is something they know all about. It’s the others, the ones who moved to the cities years ago and their lost offspring, who have all but forgotten it. The discovery was a real find."
1Mi East of Maple Lake MN This roadside picnic area (2nd from Minneapolis) has lake and stream, but no water pump, or evidence of a previous installation. Since this Picnic Area is only 35 miles out of Minneapolis, it would probably have been too early for John & Sylvia to decide to stop here for a rest. (If you are aware of other good photos of scenery, marshes etc along MN Rt55, please let me know.)
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Minnesota Lakes and Marshes Change to Farmland.
"I’ve wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn’t see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I’m looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." [Note: "Seeing truth" and "not seeing truth" are an emphasized and recurring theme in ZMM. Thus this passage introduces us one of many "ZMM Master Motifs" as explained in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance".].
Rt55 Railroad Overpass 3 Mi West of Kimball, MN. The overpass raises the traveler high enough to see the surrounding land. This is the view to the East. Rt55 from Minneapolis to this point, is mostly flat swamp-land with an abundance of trees, and it is hard to get a good landscape photograph. For this reason I took advantage of the modest increase of elevation here to attempt my first (ever) 360 deg full circle panorama. After you read the instructions, click on the first narrow strip photo at: View 6 panoramas album in new browser window. (Alternate: If you have already viewed a panorama in a second (new) browser window, simply switch to it and choose the first Gallery Picture = http://ww2.usca.edu/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=ZmmRoutePanoramas&id=aaa)
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(Photo = 102-0270 ...... ZMM Page = 005 ...... WayPt = 003`|x|' 1212ft)