Jay Cooke State Park

We went camping at Jay Cooke State Park again this past weekend....what a difference a year makes! Last year, we already had about eight inches of snow and temperatures were in the 20s....see last year's post here.  Because this has been one of the warmest falls on record, temperatures were still in the upper 40s or lower 50s...it was nice.

That being said...the first morning there was still some frozen puddles around...it was the first frozen water the kids had seen this fall...

Most of the pictures that I have are either landscape type (I've got a new phone and was playing with it) or of Luke...being the first to wake up, he needs to leave the cabin or else he wakes everyone up.  So Luke and I took early morning walks....

One of the early morning walks the kids 'discovered' a huge rock wall...which they were led to, but they played there for a while...

We also took the 'Hiking Club' trail too...it was about 3.5 muddy miles that we were able to log after finding the password.  The picture below shows the boys too interested in the map...took them awhile to find the password...

Luke and I decided Saturday afternoon to drive Hwy 210 until it was closed (from the flood in June 2012) and we found an overlook that I had never seen before...way off in the distance you can see the swinging bridge.  We brought everyone back the next day...

Early mornings are nice, especially with a flock of Black Capped Chickadees...there were around 10 of them...this is the picture that shows them the closest to Luke.  One landed on my head...and we didn't even have food for them.

Early mornings also give a nice view of the St. Louis River as the sun is coming up....

And you're able to find some cool, early morning ice formations....

Of course, late night fires are okay too....

Especially if you're the only one there...

We also made a stop up by the Thomson dam...there you can see a nice formation of slate that was folded during previous continental movements.  Can you see it?  Below...left of bridge...

I don't remember every walking to the old railroad bridge that is now part of the Munger Trail...the river gorge looked nice from there too...

A nice weekend...