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I am officially a State Park nerd.
I have joined both the passport club and the hiking club. Why, you ask? Why not! The cost of both of them was about thirty bucks, so, say, fifteen each. (About twenty-five Euros, total.) It's not nothing? But, it's also not too much.
Image: Club items, include: A fancy pencil case embossed with the State Park Passport Logo, a travel log (!), a passport booklet. There is also a hiking book with a picture of affluent white people wandering into the woods.
So, what are these clubs? Well, so the Passport Club exists to get people to try every single state park in Minnesota. Sort of like Pokemon, only for state parks: You gotta catch 'em all! Minnesota has at least 75 state parks and so, inside the little passport booklet there is space for over 75 stamps. Apparently, if you fill out the entire book, you can get a plaque with your name on it that can either hang in a state park office OR on your wall at home. I find this part kind of hilarious. I do not need a plaque, because I am all in on the travel log. The travel log is kind of a pre-made bullet journal. There is a pre-printed table of contents, so that as you fill it out, you can mark which page has which park's entry. There's space for each park to have a full-page entry of your notes on your experience. I LOVE THIS CRAP. I like filing things out! I'm not even kidding. As a kid, I used to make up forms for me to fill out and then I would fill them out!! And, yeah, okay, I hear what you're saying: I could basically have made my own bullet journal out of the five-hundred and fifty-seven empty journals I have lying around, but this one is OFFICIAL.
The hiking club is a bit different, but also gamifies/rewards specific state park activities. With the passport, the idea is to see as many state parks as you can, with the hiking club, the idea is to walk as many of the trails as possible. You get rewards at mile markers, IF you hike the very specific trails they want you to take. They know if you've done it, because on each of these designated trails, there's a hidden password! Which, I mean, is kind of fun, just in and of itself?? This one may be less successful for me, because I just like to go where I want to go? But, if you fill out your miles, you can get patches (like to sew onto a jacket, I guess??) that show off how many miles you have hiked. You get your first one at 25 miles (40 kilometers.)
Like yesterday, I walked around Fort Snelling State Park again. This time, I followed a trail that led me around Snelling Lake. It was a 2 mile (3,2 km) hike and none of those miles count for the hiking club because this was not a designated trail.
Image: A lake full of lily pads. This is near a boat landing. Most of the lake is quite clear.
Several times I saw families of some kind of duck. MANY BABIES zipping along behind a parent in a little, adorable line. I probably should have taken the time to dig out the binoculars out from my backpack because I just know they weren't the typical mallards. They were smaller and definitely had rounder, possibly "hooded" heads. Were they wood ducks? Something else? I don't know because I was too excited to see all the little ducklings! One parent was in charge of eight little ones. But, I also saw pairs, with babies between them... and a completely different kind of duck when I was over closer to the Minnesota River.
Image: A wide, slow river. No ducklings in this picture because I am not that good a photographer.
But, right here is the reason I suspect that I'm going to be much worse at the hiking club goals than I am the passport's--although already I am repeating state parks, which I guess is not the point of the passport club either. But, the official hike for the club is the Pike Island hike, which I did part of already and so I was like, 'meh." I suspect I will fail to do either of these clubs properly, but I really don't care. I love the little log book! Did I mention the log book?
Image: A purple coneflower growing in the Fort Snelling State Park
I have joined both the passport club and the hiking club. Why, you ask? Why not! The cost of both of them was about thirty bucks, so, say, fifteen each. (About twenty-five Euros, total.) It's not nothing? But, it's also not too much.
Image: Club items, include: A fancy pencil case embossed with the State Park Passport Logo, a travel log (!), a passport booklet. There is also a hiking book with a picture of affluent white people wandering into the woods.
So, what are these clubs? Well, so the Passport Club exists to get people to try every single state park in Minnesota. Sort of like Pokemon, only for state parks: You gotta catch 'em all! Minnesota has at least 75 state parks and so, inside the little passport booklet there is space for over 75 stamps. Apparently, if you fill out the entire book, you can get a plaque with your name on it that can either hang in a state park office OR on your wall at home. I find this part kind of hilarious. I do not need a plaque, because I am all in on the travel log. The travel log is kind of a pre-made bullet journal. There is a pre-printed table of contents, so that as you fill it out, you can mark which page has which park's entry. There's space for each park to have a full-page entry of your notes on your experience. I LOVE THIS CRAP. I like filing things out! I'm not even kidding. As a kid, I used to make up forms for me to fill out and then I would fill them out!! And, yeah, okay, I hear what you're saying: I could basically have made my own bullet journal out of the five-hundred and fifty-seven empty journals I have lying around, but this one is OFFICIAL.
The hiking club is a bit different, but also gamifies/rewards specific state park activities. With the passport, the idea is to see as many state parks as you can, with the hiking club, the idea is to walk as many of the trails as possible. You get rewards at mile markers, IF you hike the very specific trails they want you to take. They know if you've done it, because on each of these designated trails, there's a hidden password! Which, I mean, is kind of fun, just in and of itself?? This one may be less successful for me, because I just like to go where I want to go? But, if you fill out your miles, you can get patches (like to sew onto a jacket, I guess??) that show off how many miles you have hiked. You get your first one at 25 miles (40 kilometers.)
Like yesterday, I walked around Fort Snelling State Park again. This time, I followed a trail that led me around Snelling Lake. It was a 2 mile (3,2 km) hike and none of those miles count for the hiking club because this was not a designated trail.
Image: A lake full of lily pads. This is near a boat landing. Most of the lake is quite clear.
Several times I saw families of some kind of duck. MANY BABIES zipping along behind a parent in a little, adorable line. I probably should have taken the time to dig out the binoculars out from my backpack because I just know they weren't the typical mallards. They were smaller and definitely had rounder, possibly "hooded" heads. Were they wood ducks? Something else? I don't know because I was too excited to see all the little ducklings! One parent was in charge of eight little ones. But, I also saw pairs, with babies between them... and a completely different kind of duck when I was over closer to the Minnesota River.
Image: A wide, slow river. No ducklings in this picture because I am not that good a photographer.
But, right here is the reason I suspect that I'm going to be much worse at the hiking club goals than I am the passport's--although already I am repeating state parks, which I guess is not the point of the passport club either. But, the official hike for the club is the Pike Island hike, which I did part of already and so I was like, 'meh." I suspect I will fail to do either of these clubs properly, but I really don't care. I love the little log book! Did I mention the log book?
Image: A purple coneflower growing in the Fort Snelling State Park