Post-Vaccine ROAD TRIP

 
Image: The vista of the Kettle River from the trail at St. Croix State Park.

Mason woke up on Monday with a hankering for a spontaneous road trip. Unfortunately, he had an appointment that day with his urologist at United for a final check-in on his hydronephrosis (a condition he was born with, which was actually spotted in the womb.) He has not had any problems with it his whole life, but we have faithfully had it checked at least once every two years since he was born. He came away with a clean bill of health again, but still desirous of a hiking adventure somewhere.

Thus, we decided to have a planned spontaneous trip yesterday. 

The only part we "planned" was that we would leave as soon as was reasonable after Mason woke up on Tuesday and be back some time that same evening. We were slightly limited by how far away from the city we could go, but when Shawn said that we didn't have to worry about being home before dinner, suddenly even more possibilities opened up. 

I have a book that Shawn bought me for some gift-giving occasion (my birthday? Solstice?) but, regardless, it is an annotated guide to Minnesota State Parks. I also have a book about day trips from the Twin Cities, but Mason nixed anything where we'd run into a lot of people--so no visiting some historic downtown or other. We settled on St. Croix State Park, which is near Hinckley, MN. My guidebook said there was a lot to do, but to be sure to bring bug spray. 

Oh, how I wish we'd heeded that warning. 

The drive up was lovely. It's been cool, but clear here the last few days and so it seemed like a perfect day for an adventure hike/road trip. And it very much was. We had easy driving up to Hinckley, stopping for lunch in Forrest Lake (at a surprisingly efficient Culver's) and so we made the state park in good time. I renewed our state park license at the park office and left Mason in charge of finding a park map and deciding which trails we should try.

He picked perfectly. He found one called "Two Rivers Point," a five mile loop from the trailhead on the Kettle River side, down to the point ,and back again along the St. Croix River side. I think so long as we had stayed near the river, we would have been decently bug free. However, at one point the trail led us straight through a section I now refer to as "mosquito and tick alley."

 
Image: It looks like a stand of trees, but we call this mosquito and tick ALLEY

What is unclear from this picture is that on either side of these lovely stands of trees is swamp and brackish bog. There is so much standing, stagnant water, it is amazing we weren't found sucked dry from the swarms of mosquitos.  The other horror is that there were ticks flinging themselves at us at breakneck speed. Every time I'd be thinking I flicked them all off, I'd discover another little devil. 

HORRORS,.

But, honestly, that was only about a mile stretch, if that. 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

Plus, the views were astounding. Not to mention the fact that is is early enough in spring that all the wildflowers are blooming. We saw so much trillium, largeflower bellwork, delicate pink wood anemone, wild strawberries, full fields of trout lilies, and standing clumps of one of my favorites: violets:


Image: clumps of blooming light purple woodland violets in their native habitat.

Mosquito alley aside, I think that this trip was a huge success. Mason has always loved spending hours exploring nature, even as a very small child. One of the pictures we have in our living room is a shot I took of him when we were on what I call grasshopper trail (actually part of the wild life refuge near the Mall of America,) He has just gotten his glasses and he is staring INTENTLY at a blade of grass. There is no bug on the leaf, nothing. He's just six and he his INTO this leaf.

Not much has changed.


Image: Mason sitting at the point where the Kettle and the St. Croix rivers meet.

We spent at LEAST a half hour just in this spot, because Mason discovered some crayfish near the shoreline and we watched them moving around and plucking at various bits of algae, etc. It was PERFECT.

I'm hoping that before he heads out to college we can do this again. I found another, closer state park I want to check out, so maybe in a week or two we'll do it again.

This time though? If the guidebook says bring bug spray, I'M GOING TO DO IT.