Over Memorial Day weekend, we knocked out two more state parks and a recreational area: Lake Carlos, Maplewood, and La Salle Lake. We also paid a visit to one of our favorites - Itasca. At Maplewood and Lake Carlos we stayed in camper cabins and at La Salle it was a cabin with a kitchen and bathroom.
We drove up to Lake Carlos after school and traffic was really bad, plus we realized we forgot our camp chairs. So we stopped at a Walmart and purchased food for dinner and a couple of chairs. We didn't get to the park until after dark. We explored a little in the morning, but wanted to get back on the road for our next destination.
La Salle was a little recreational area about twenty minutes from Itasca State Park. Itasca is big and very developed. We had to go there to check in to La Salle, so we did some hiking and had icecream at the gift shop. La Salle was very isolated and undeveloped - we didn't even have phone signal to contact the park office. But it was a nice little cabin. We enjoyed grilling chicken on the gas grill (we usually do our cooking over a fire) and we had bought a cherry pie at a roadside Amish stand. After dark, the sky was beautiful with stars and we enjoyed listening to the loons.
The next day we went to Maplewood State Park. The camper cabin was situated right in the campground and it had really nice bathrooms and a fish cleaning station. The kids caught some pan fish and cleaned and cooked them themselves. This was quite an adventure because I don't know how to clean fish, and they had only ever watched Bryan. We usually catch and release, so we don't even have the right tools. But they managed to get the job done and we had some fish nuggets with our dinner!
We ended up having a fun road trip, but I didn't plan ahead far enough for it to be organized well. I waited too long and we were stuck staying where there were still cabins available. I already have a rough plan in place for Memorial Day weekend next year so I just have to remember to make my reservations exactly 120 days in advance!
