Friday morning we woke up, had some breakfast, walked to the visitors center. It was nice that we were pretty close to the main building that had a bathroom with running water (and heated). We had an outhouse very close to our cabin, but being able to wash my hands to get my contacts in and out is appreciated. Of course that morning on our walk to the center bathroom, Emma realized she had lost an earring. We searched the ground around where we realized, searched the cabin and everywhere in between... a few times. But no luck, we did find the back in the cabin.
Once fed and dressed we drove the 9 or so miles north (almost to Canada at this point, only 40 miles from the border I think) to the Bog walk of the state park. It was gorgeous.
We discovered our favorite tree: the Tamarack. It's a northern Minnesota native and the pine needles turn yellow once a year in October! How lucky we are to get to see them in their beauty!
Signs of a beaver.
The bog boardwalk was also the hiking club trail so we were all trying to guess the password the way out.
Pretty cool terrain.
I did fly my drone about mid-way (again a no-no in a state park... and karma got me! Cuz one of my little joystick things FELL THROUGH THE BOARDWALK HOLES!! We tried to find it but no luck. Totally karma, boo)
Anyway we were REALLY hoping to see a moose, this was the perfect environment for one, but no such luck.
Boo! I did order another set and got it the next week... put the extra away to discover it came with an extra set... so now I have extra-extra.
One of the coolest plants in the bog was the pitcher plant, so cool how it collects water to trap insects to eat.
We made it to the end.
Time to go back.
We did another little extra hike at this north location then headed back to our campsite area. We explored the main camp area coming across a little snake.
And visiting the doc, the Tamarac river runs off Red Lake and to the east side of the state park entrance.
Then we walked across the main road (72) to Red Lake where there was a beach. The sun was nice and warm enough the kids took their coats off. We were on foot exploring so after some time in the water, and sure enough long enough for Thomas to get wet after us asking him not to... we walked along a trail to the south just to explore. No moose, but we saw a white tailed deer.
Might be hard to see but I've zoomed in on the left/first photo and zoomed out in the right/second photo. Can you see her?
We walked back to the beach area to collect our coats to go back across the street. In that short time, maybe 20 minutes. Our coats were GONE! WTH... we walked across to the visitor's center and someone had turned them in thinking we'd left them. Glad we got them back! The kids climbed the tower again and we headed back to camp to make dinner and settle in. We were leaving the next morning to spend a night at a state park an hour and a half south in Bemidji.
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