Camping/Hiking: Father Hennepin State Park {day 2}

We woke up and fixed breakfast. We had survived the cold night. It really wasn't too bad, cold, but we were prepared so that helped. Harpo spent the morning chasing chipmunks and making a mess of himself:

But that wasn't all the excitement he was getting himself into. On our walk back to the jeep (again he was running up ahead of us like he loves when we're in secluded areas, he'll run ahead and then stop and wait for us, run ahead stop and wait), well I looked up to see him and saw this dark blob running along side him. At first I thought someone else was on our trail with a dog... but then I realized that is NOT a dog... Harpo made some kind of wild friend!! We holler for Harpo to come back and watch as this creature waddles away. It was a little taller than harpo, well it's hair stood taller than Harpo and his body was longer than Harpo's... we weren't sure what it was and it ran off so I couldn't get a picture of it. We thought it was a porcupine because we had read there are a lot of them in these woods. We made it back to the jeep and walked over to the park office where Kyle talked to the ranger to find out what is was. They believe it was a fisher! They used to see a lot but hadn't had many reports of them this year. Turns out they EAT small creatures like squirrels, porcupines, cats, and um dogs! Maybe he wasn't Harpo's new friend after all. Here's a picture I found on the web:

That's about how we saw it... but if you search the web you will see images not quite as friendly like this one. (click the link)

After that excitment drove over to another area of the park where they had an interpretive trail. Basically it's just a trail with numbered signs and a pamphlet telling about the surroundings. Kyle was our narrator, Harpo was happy to be back on his leash:

I had fun capturing lots of shots of spider webs

We learned about the TALL trees

The interpretive trail went through a few different types of wooded areas. One being a boggy area with a board walk

And a pine wood forest area

After the interpretive trail, we hopped back in the jeep (I'm telling you this park was huge) and drove over to another trail by the horse campsite. This trail went up by an observatory tower. We climbed it.

Actually the story goes a little differently. We started to climb it, the stairs were very thin so I picked Harpo up because he was pulling on me... I made it about half way up when the tower started shaking (at first we thought it was wind but soon found out it was some old jackass at the top being stupid) I got kinda pissed, scooped up Harpo and headed back down. Once Kyle went up and back down I gave Harpo to him to watch and I went back up to get some pictures. You could see the other side of the lake.

After coming down from the tower we drove the 12 or so miles over to the other state park: Father Hennepin. Before going into the park we had lunch in the small town of Isle, it wasn't too exciting - hence no pictures, nothing really worth taking a picture of. Then we went to the park and walked the Hiking club trail there as well and got another password!!

This park was closer to the water and had trails that went right along the lake shore

We also learned about the big pile of rocks we saw in the middle of the lake. Turns out it is a big pile of rocks

After we explored Father Hennepin State Park, we decided to drive around the lake, it was only about a 45 minute drive. We found some big fish

We made it back to the campsite and was tired from our busy day, although it was only 4 or so. We played some cards and then started on dinner.

After dinner we drank some hot chocolate by the fire

As you can tell I had fun with my tripod and self-timer :-)

The next morning, we got up, fixed breakfast, and packed up camp.

We had heard it was suppose to rain on Monday and we wanted to get out of dodge before it came. Luckily we did miss the rain and it didn't come until we made it back into the cities.

Camping: Mille Lacs Kathio State Park {day 1}

Last weekend we went up north about an hour and a half to the big lake of Mille Lacs. We stayed at a state park near the lake and ventured another backpacking experience. We must say, it was much better than our first experience at George Crosby.

Before even getting out of the jeep we saw our first little creature... an interesting bug:

Our site was only .5 miles into the woods. It was actually on a mile loop trail, which made it even better because since it was just a loop trail, no one ever went on it. We got our packs loaded up and loaded harpo up as well this time.

Too bad he took two steps and then the rug fell off his back... but at least we tried, lol. We ventured down the half mile trail to our site, passing wonderful wildlife, this was a pretty cool tree we had to duck under on the trail:

Again we saw some crazy mushrooms

We made it to our campsite and Harpo was able to roam free. He LOVES when we backpack because we don't leave him on his leash (shhh don't tell since this is against state park rules) He doesn't go far, just chases chipmunks.

We decided to try something different with our sleeping arrangements. We knew it was going to be cold this weekend, low of 39. So we decided to bring one big sleeping back to lay on as padding, a sheet set, and two blankets. The sheets and blankets actually fit better in our packs than our two individual sleeping bags. Then we just tied the huge sleeping back onto the outside of one of our packs. We got our tent set up and explored our campsite for a little bit before going off to hike the park.

We hiked back to our jeep and drove down the road a bit through the park to where the other trails started. This park was pretty large, something we read said it is the 4th largest state park in the state. We started the hiking club trail (ya know the trail that has the password - speaking up my hiking club book finally arrived in the mail! So now we have to hike 100 miles to get a free night of camping... we're at 22.5 now, they only count the hiking club trail distances). These trails were wide:

This park had a national landmark area, which was a site that indians used to live at. While Kyle read the signs, I took pictures of the beautiful day we were having.

After we hiked the trails, we headed back to the jeep and drove over to the entry of our site/loop. On our walk back to the campsite Kyle spotted these two huge bird/crane type things. We stood and watched them for a little bit.

Then we made dinner and hit the hay! We had pretty much hiked most of the park, I mean we had the password that was the important part. We decided the next day we'd do one small trail, then drive over to another state park that wasn't too far from this one, and also explore what Lake Mille Lacs had to offer (which really wasn't much).

Day 2 coming up....

State Fair 2010

This was our third year of visiting the Minnesota State Fair. It's a pretty big deal here... but also sad - because it really does mark the END of summer. Although we're ready for it. We have had an oddly humid summer up here, when it's usually enjoyably cool - this year was NOT! I'm ready for fall!!!!

Okay back to fair talk. This year we met some friends there. And we didn't go til later (arrived about 4:30). Of course we had to stop in the birthing barn - it's my fav! Although it was VERY crowded; everyone was watching the cow about to give birth, I had no interest. I like seeing the babies AFTER they come out not while they're coming out.


Once we found our friends, we walked around with them for a little while. Buying some fun stuff. I got this for camping. I'm kinda excited to use it this weekend... no more squatting and getting it all over my pants, lol. Then it was time for dinner, I had some roasted corn, YuMyUm! Although I didn't have one of these - they still looked very yummy:


Kyle had a Gyro, I had some pita and hummus. We all sat and people watched for a bit


Then our friends had some Sweet Martha's Cookies and then we went over to the Milk stand (all you can drink milk for $1) although the line was forever long, at least we got to sit down and relax.


before sitting down, Kyle got some Australian Potatoes for us. We got these last year and really liked the grease balls.


We stood and watched the ducks for a little bit, there was a random pond in the middle of the fair. I love when they stick their butts in the air, I think it's so funny!


Then we did more walking, walking, walking.


And we looked at the tractors



It was starting to get dark (which I was waiting for because I wanted to get some pictures of the rides lit up). But we went into the animal barns. We saw lots and lots of bunnies!! I don't remember seeing the bunnies the years before.



I was searching for the goats, they were my favorite from last year. But they weren't in the sheep barn like last year.... so we wandered over to the Swine Barn (which as it turns out I don't think we have been there before). By this time it's dark out, we walk into the Swine Barn to find a PaRtY going on!!! All the 4H kids are dancing to club music and there's loud music and bright lights, the poor animals dealing with the craziness. But we made our way around the chaos and FOUND the goats!!!


Kyle liked having them suck on his fingers, lol. We also saw some big piggies! I touched this one's nose (the one of the right).



Since it was dark we made our way over to the mid-way area where all the ride are... we have never been over there. and there was a reason - very crowded and annoying... the typical carnival type setting. I didn't really have any luck getting night pictures, It could have been because I was tired - but I just wasn't seeing what I had in mind. I did stop and set up for one ride. But our feet were starting to hurt and we just wanted to get out of there.


We hopped back on the shuttle, feet aching and made our way back to our car. Another day at the fair has ended, until next year.....

Sunday August 22nd

It's taken me a while to get around and post this, but here I finally am.

After camping Friday night and Saturday night, we woke up Sunday and decided to just pack up camp and head to the town for breakfast (since we ran out of gas for our burner). We tried out the small town of Nerstrand (pop: 227)... only to find one small convenience store and nothing else.

We drove into the little town of Northfield (pop: 19,657). We wanted to find a little hole-in-the-wall place to eat breakfast, because well those are the best kind!! We found LOTS of coffee shops with pastries, but we were searching for Kyle some biscuits and gravy.

We also saw these signs about "Defeat of Jesse James Days"... which caught our attention because well we grew up in Missouri and Jesse James was born in Kearney, Missouri and we had watched the new movie with Brad Pitt as Jesse James and since Brad Pitt grew up in Springfield, Missouri as well there were just all sorts of connections going on. lol.... so we wanted to figure out what all this jazz was about.

We asked a gal in one of the coffee shops of a good place to get a hot sit-down breakfast and she directed us to this 'hole-in-the-wall' literally, we had to walk down many hallways to get there, place called The Tavern of Northfield.

While eating, I asked our waitress what is all the hustle and bustle about Jesse James up here... she said "Oh I need to get you a brochure" she brought us back a pamphlet talking about the Defeat of Jesse James Days (which is to take place next weekend... we should go. And we read the following story:

So after our breakfast we of course had to go check out where all this took place:

After the excitement of Jesse James died off, we got Harpo and walked over by the river in the great town of Northfield.

If only we had some bread we could have fed the ducks.

We had had enough of Northfield and headed back into the city. We decided to swing by the St. Paul Farmer's Market, where everything is 100% local... and on our detour to downtown St. Paul, I looked over and spotted this!!!!!!!!!!!

It was actually farther off the road than that, and really I have no clue how I spotted it... but I did! And I screamed! And Harpo and Kyle both thought something serious was happening... well it was serious I spotted a peanut!!!! So of course we pulled, I pulled over fast to get into the parking lot to drive over and get a picture.

The little eagle woodstock on top was so cute:

While I was taking pictures, Kyle was cleaning out the glove-box where we discovered a mouse nest. A mouse must have ventured into our Jeep while it was parked when we were camping and somehow either got car insulation or something and made itself a little nest. This isn't the first time to find signs of mice in the jeep. When we went on our backpacking trip we came back to the jeep to find little turds left for us on the seat. I'm fine with mice, as long as I don't find a snake in the car!

Happy Summer! :-)