SUMMER AND ICE CREAM pair like grilled cheese and tomato soup, pizza and beer, Minnesota and snow. There’s no denying the seasonal craving for ice cream when the heat and humidity crank up.
I find myself reaching more often than I should into the freezer for ice cream. Lately I’ve dished up a creamy blueberry cheesecake flavor. Yum. I almost hesitate to admit that I currently have four cartons of ice cream and one of fro-yo in my freezer after stocking up during a recent sale.
Home stash aside, I also enjoy ice cream when I’m out and about. Never mind that it costs far more than a serving at home. But ice cream served from some mom-and-pop shop tastes so much better, like a carefree summer day. Yum.
Nearby Owatonna is home to The S’Cream and The Blast (also in Northfield). I’ve been to both, which are always summertime busy. Apparently I’m not the only one who can’t bypass a homegrown ice cream shop.
Recently while on the road to a family celebration in far western Minnesota, my husband, Randy, and I happened upon an ice cream shop in Kerkhoven, population around 800. Sweets Ice Cream sits along U.S. Highway 12 in this Swift County community. It’s an ideal spot for an ice cream shop, drawing passing motorists in.
When I saw Sweets Ice Cream, housed in a former gas station, I immediately wanted to photograph the business. I loved the old building and its repurposed use. So we pulled into town, parked on a side street and I headed toward the ice cream shop to photograph it.
That was the plan, or at least my plan. Randy had other ideas. He figured it wouldn’t be too nice to simply snap photos and then leave without buying ice cream. He was right. So we each ordered a single scoop dish of ice cream. The portion size was so generous that we should have ordered one bowl to share. Oh, well. As some say, “Ice cream melts in your tummy.”
Randy got maple nut per the recommendation of another customer who was returning home to Benson after visiting a friend in a Willmar care center. He always treats himself to ice cream, always maple nut, after those visits. I ordered key lime pie ice cream. Yum to both and the engaging conversation we had with our new-found friend.
Some 130 miles east of Kerkhoven in Lakeville, a south metro suburb, another long-time local ice cream shop has drawn my photographic interest. That’s Dairy Delite in the downtown area.
This place has character with its unique building design, blue and pink color, and ice cream art. There’s no mistaking the structure for anything but an ice cream shop.
I’ve not yet ordered ice cream here. But I should.
Then there’s Sue’s Drive In, located in Pierz in central Minnesota. Two years ago Randy and I stopped for an ice cream treat before attending his 50th Healy High School class reunion. The drive in serves a full menu of fast food, not just ice cream.
Once again the vintage look and the small town Americana appeal of this roadside business drew my photographic interest. And the ice cream, of course. On-the-road ice cream always tastes especially delicious, decidedly better than ice cream pulled from my freezer.
TELL ME: Do you have a favorite homegrown ice cream shop? Let’s hear.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Westward bound deep into Minnesota farm country May 28, 2026
Tags: agriculture, barns, Brown County, commentary, farm fields, farm sites, farming, land, landscape, Mankato, memories, Morgan, New Ulm, Owatonna, photography, Redwood County, rural Minnesota, sky, southern Minnesota, travel, Vesta
THROUGH SEVEN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA counties we traveled—Rice, Steele, Waseca, Blue Earth, Nicollet, Brown and, then, home to Redwood. Westward bound.
Only occasionally now, mostly for the annual family reunion and on this day a beloved aunt’s funeral, do Randy and I follow this 125-mile route back to my native Redwood County.
Every trip, I see the immensity of sky and land as the landscape unfolds before me. The farther west we drive, the more rural the look, the feel, with the exception of Mankato and New Ulm.
We bypass the small towns along four-lane U.S. Highway 14 while passing endless farm sites and fields.
I have my eye on the view from the passenger side of our van, scanning the land, watching for photo ops. Photography can be a challenge while traveling at highway speeds. Still, I try, managing to capture images that document the ruralness of this place.
Barns, especially red ones, always grab my attention. They symbolize agriculture more than any other building. Yet, most no longer center a farming operation. Absent of animals, many barns have been repurposed or have fallen into heaps of rotting wood. I always appreciate a well-kept barn still standing strong against elements and the passage of time.
This trip I’m also cognizant of crops at the beginning of the growing season. Corn is popping up in rows across the land, green shoots reaching toward the sun, the sky. Green is good. When my next trip this direction comes in late July, that corn will stand towering and dense across acres of fields.
I may not be a farmer, but my connection to the land more than 50 decades removed from my childhood farm remains strong. I still look at the crops. I still hope to spot a herd of Holsteins. I still see a silo and mentally climb the interior ladder to throw down silage. I still eye a grove of trees with the playfulness of youth.
While nostalgia runs high on trips like this deep into Minnesota farm country, reality is that farming remains as challenging as ever with ever-rising expenses, low commodity prices and the uncertainties of weather. Will rain fall when needed? Will storms come with devastating wind and hail? Always, always, the risks exist from planting to growing to harvest.
But on this day, mile after mile after mile, I see the hope of a farmer. I see a way of life. I see dreams.
And I feel small in this place where land and sky dwarf farm sites, where fields stretch across endless acres, where the highway ribbons ahead of us across seven rural southern Minnesota counties, westward bound.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling