southeast mn state park tour and more

We had some fun things happen last fall.  In September, my nephew Taylor celebrated his commitment to his partners in a backyard ceremony.  In October, we kept our tradition of going to the pumpkin farm and picking pumpkins. 

 

And we went on the southeast MN road trip I had been wanting to do over the summer.  The weather cooperated, and fall was a perfect time to do it.   I got to add four pins to my map: Rice Lake, Myre Big Island, Lake Louise, and Beaver Creek Valley.  

Brett, Lydia, and I camped at Myre Big Island and rode our bikes into Albert Lea for breakfast at Perkins.  Reggie had the opportunity to go to a Gopher's football game, so he joined us the next day.  Then we traveled on to stay at Beaver Creek Valley.  On the way home, we looped around Lacrosse and visited my brother-in-law's family. We didn't get to two more state parks I was hoping to see, but I won't mind doing another trip, and I will plan it for the fall!

July happiness

Moving right along to July, we spent the 4th at Papa and MeeMaw's, helped Grandma and Grandma settle into their seasonal home, and, oops!  I lied.  We did stay one night in a very unique state park cabin on our way out to help my parents!

Lydia, Bonnie, and I had a girls' day out in Minneapolis.  We got some of our favorite food and went to Aqualand to get supplies to start setting up an aquaponics aquarium.  We started with just the live plants.

I helped Reggie with a project, too.  He wanted to frame some of his football cards.

This is the cabin we stayed in at Flandrau State Park.  It was originally a Civilian Conservation Corps kitchen shelter. It had a non-functional stone fireplace that I failed to photograph.

We were surprised to discover that we had a snail in our aquarium.  She must have been hidden in the aquaplants!  We named her "Sneaky".

Lake Maria

Even though Lake Maria State Park is relatively close to the Twin Cities, I have been hesitant to reserve a cabin there, because it is a bit of a hike from the parking area. But, having visited about half of Minnesota's state parks, we're getting to the ones that are a little off the beaten path.  Reggie decided to be a tough guy and carry probably half of our stuff himself - and then proceeded to brag about it the entire weekend.

It turned out the journey was worth it.  The cabin was so secluded that we barely saw or heard another person while we were there.  It was on a little pond.  

There wasn't electricity, but there was a little wood-burning stove.  And thankfully, a large stack of firewood was provided at the cabin.  We did have to carry in our water, though. There was an outhouse that we shared with a very large spider.

I am not an adventure seeker or even a nature enthusiast. I just like the peaceful simplicity and beauty we experience when we camper cabin camp. So I'm proud that all my kids can effortlessly start a fire with newspaper and a lighter, cook over the fire, and have taught themselves the basics of fishing. And I love it that we get this time together.

The park is known for it's unique turtle habitat, and we saw a lot of them.

Our Memorial Day Weekend trip turned out to be the only camping we did all summer.  All the more reason to cherish it.

Memorial Day weekend state park roadtrip

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!