Road trip!!! We have had a trip up to visit my sister Michelle, Lindsey, and Ethan in Minnesota in mind for several years now. The stars finally alligned and we made it happen this summer. It was so fun to see where they live and to revisit the northern midwest. We enjoyed many fun activities, good food, and family time.
Much if the time we spent on the lake with our paddle boards and Michelle's inflatable boat. I have never seen so many lakes, it is unreal how many are there, and even more so coming from the desert in the middle of a drought. And we really loved all the paved paths around Michelle's house. Perfect for biking or running on. This lake was just a bike ride away from her house and we spent two different days there.
Maren got a bit muddy helping build a "hot tub" on the beach.
We spent an adult night visiting the temple and going out to dinner while the kids had a pizza and movie night back at home. The restaurant we went to was right on the Mississippi and had such great food. I had this amazing pecan crusted walleye that I will never forget.
Amanda flew in from her music camp at BYU to join us a few days after we had arrived. She was tired but happy to have missed out on our long drive.
We spent Sunday evening visiting Minnehaha falls, man was it stunning. This is in the middle of a downtown park.
We took little stroll along the river trail from the falls to where is meets up with the Mississippi river.
Mississippi river in the background while Maren enjoyed the view.
This cool cave was along the river, and the limestone was fun to etch in. As this is frowned on where we come from the kids loved that I let them do it here. The limestone deteriates on its own so quickly it is not a big deal.
We enjoyed watching the boats going up and down the river, and Amanda cought a nap for the stroll back to the falls.
And we got to see Lindsey perfect her "pose" while balancing on a rock. Sheesh! She's got skills!
We took another day to visit the Eagle center down in Wabasha. It was a beautiful drive along the Mississippi to get there, and back. While there, we got to see several live Eagle's, both in captivity and along the river. We also got some ice cream from a creamery on the Wisconsin side of the river.
We took a small stroll along the river, and Amanda found her a friend.
Another day we visited a science museum downtown. The boys loved this place, every exhibit was so well done, and they learned a lot about the local geology, and water ways. Lots of fun was had in the lego exhibit, space, and gravity and dinosaur exhibits to name a few. The rest of us had fun trying to keep up with them, and learning somethings ourselves. There was a great mental health exhibit, and a fun medical and biology exhibit.
And we found the kids favorite kaplan blocks! These are the best!
Too much to see in one day, but we got through most of it, and when our brains were tired we escaped back to the Minnehaha falls area for a crazy tourist adventure of driving the sitting bikes. Aside from some crazy drivers that tried to take us through a drive-in, we survived, and no-one got hurt. You might think I am being funny here, but try driving one of them, and then we will see who is laughing!
Our last big adventure was to a fun place that had several lakes to explore. We rented a couple canoes and did a short partage adventure covering about 5 miles both on foot and on the lakes with both the canoes and our paddle boards. It was beautiful to see the different plants and wildlife along the way. And it was challenging to figure out how to portage with all of our crew.
There is a white egret in front of Maren and Jacob here.
We left Amanda there with Michelle for a few extra days. She found herself a music store that is one of the few in the United States, and she did a lesson with one of their experts. She also explored a few book stores, and took a tour of St Olaf's college, which ended up being a good match for her interests and a possible option for college for her.
On the drive home we took a detour through South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. I have to laugh because Dave had wanted to do a trip here for years and I totally resisted. Now I want to go back. It was beautiful!
The badlands were so neat to see, it is crazy how the prairie just drops off into this crazy desert landscape here. It looks like a scene from Mars. It was super hot so we did just a few short hikes while we drove through the park and were always happy to get back in the car so we didn't melt away. From there we headed to Mount Rushmore to finish up a very full day.
Mount Rushmore was cool to see, it really is neat to see how much work went into making it, and the whole area was fun to explore. Dave bought the kids ice cream, and we stuck around for the evening fireside program in the amphitheatre, before checking into our hotel for the night.
We spent the next day exploring the Black hills and the needles area surrounding the monument in the State Park of Custer. It is such a beautiful area. Our favorite was Sylvan lake. We got there fairly early the next morning and had the place mostly to our selves to explore on our paddleboards.
It pretty much felt like paradise for a few hours. We loved climbing on the rocks and finding turtles to stalk. We bought a picnic lunch from the small store on sight and had a little picnic in an alcove between the rocks.
It got fairly busy by nooon, so we took a hike back behind the lake, that ended up being incredible. The hike was an 8 mile loop, and it took us down unto a small gorge that we then hiked up out of, often hiking right in the river. It was such an adventure to see the kids loving every minute of it, and even though they got tired, they didn't complain, that is when you know it is a fun hike.
And wild Lily's all over the place.
Definately on my top 10 places to visit again.
We spent the rest of our afternoon driving the needles highway through the rest of Custer State park, seeing more beautiful landscapes and wildlife. We stopped for dinner in a beautiful lodge along a river. We sat down for dinner outside, only to have to rush inside with our food once a huge downpour arrived.
This detour made for a fun ending to a fun trip. Only bummer was the 10 hour drive home from there once we got on the road the next morning. But it was worth the extra couple of hours to get to see all we did.
Back home Dave performed a mini surgery trying to get a stubborn dead nail to fall off my foot. After weeks of it hanging by a quarter of my toe I was done with it! Not 100% sure how it died, but thinking it had something to do with a ski boot that doesn't fit properly on that foot. It is nice to have a Doc in the house at times like this.
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