A mile from Canada and I feel like I am finally home.

A small town with a population of 1104 people, Baudette (Minnesota), continued my lineage with small towns. Born in the wonderfully gifted city of Nashik, India, I made my way through cities like Ann Arbor and Erie, both of which are not large by any means. Yes, Pune was a slight exception not because it’s a huge city (It really is not) but because it was larger then all other cities I have been to. In fact, had I taken the job last year in Germany I would be residing in a completely walk able
city named Hanover.

It takes about 4 minutes to drive the car between the extreme boundaries of this town and about 3 days to start recognizing faces. The girl at subway now knows what kind of sandwich I get every time and the old lady at “Rosalie’s” remembers my choice of steak. The town is about a mile from the Canadian Border and about 15 miles from a huge lake christened with your typical American Ingenuity as “Lake of the woods”. This makes Baudette a fishing town with “Walleye” as the main catch and looking at the booked up motel, I am assuming the fishing is quite good. Of course, this involves countless hours of numbing your precious behinds by sitting on a frozen lake and ice fishing.

The main form of transportation in and about this primarily involves usage of old beaten up American cars and the more popular snowmobiles. For the record, I saw ONE Honda accord and two TOYOTA Camry’s. Ah… The predictability of a white town!

I even made friends with the Border Patrol. I was really forced too as he pulled up in a green SUV and parked right behind me, as I was focusing on taking a picture of the Canadian Border. With the current Paranoia lingering in the air, a short brown guy in a non arctic jacket taking border pictures seems like a likely terror suspect. However, exchanging details, the Border patrol officer seemed to soften up and told me to be careful. No more taking pictures of the border unless I see the whites doing it too.

Arctic Jackets are needed because the temperatures love staying in the tens and below. I even experienced 10 below zero Fahrenheit. It’s not bad except the hairs inside your nose get really pissed about their situation and seem to stiffen up. And yes, my beloved cars need to be plugged in every night to prevent the battery from dying.

But this kind of weather is perfect for an automobile winter test track. And which is why, despite the solitary living conditions, my work day was spent driving cars crazy on the snow. Each day I went faster and each day my respect for snow and Ice reduced. There were many times I was slapped in the face by the ice as my car spun out but that only made me go even crazier the next time around. By the time I left Baudette, I was regularly entering turns sideways and exiting sideways.

And in that vast empty whiteness of the test track with the Sun trying its best to warm things up, I had rare feelings of contentment. Almost as if I rewound ten years back to a simpler world. Where fun does not come with a guilt baggage, where excitement does not cease in ten seconds and where one sleeps at night, only tired, but never defeated.

If I am that shallow that it takes four wheels to restore a smile, then so be it. And they said there is more to life then this.