Hastings Area

The plan for the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was for the kids and I go go hiking at a state park and complete the hiking club trail.  Kieran had really wanted to go to the Upper Sioux State Park near Granite Falls to learn some more history about the Dakota Conflict, so that's where we were going to be heading....but then Kieran/Lex were convinced to go watch a pool getting backwashed and our plans changed...

Luke had no interest in a pool being backwashed...so he and I took off on an alternate plan...we took off east for Afton State Park near Hastings.  It lies next to the St. Croix river, just upstream from the confluence with the Mississippi River....of course it started to sprinkle as soon as we got out of the car (and continued as long as we were at the park)...

There were nice overlooks of the St. Croix...

 Places where you could contemplate your situation...

 There's supposed to be a swimming beach at the park, but with the heavy rains we've had recently you can't reach it...so we skipped rocks instead...

 The trials we were on were real easy walking...

 At one point we came across a little stream...Lukie said "dad, we can cross it..." and I said "yeah, we'll cross it over the bridge."  I tend to ruin his messy plans...

 And we found the password (and got a stamp for our passport)...

We also took an awful lot of selfies...this kid likes these pictures...

 After almost four hours at the park and not ready to head home yet, we took off to Hastings to see a new waterfall neither of us had seen before....Vermillion Falls in downtown Hastings...

Right across the river is a mill that's been operating since the 1850s apparently because of the waterfall...

The view from the top was cool, but I figured there had to be a way to see it from the bottom...it was a bigger hike than I thought it would be and much more steep (especially considering the recent rains)...

We were in quite the gorge, but I didn't take many pictures because I was trying to keep Lukie and I out of the river...

But it was cool to see from the bottom...

I didn't initially want Lukie up at that vantage point (you're literally 6 inches from a 8 foot drop to the river), but he insisted he wanted a look...

What you don't see is my hand holding his butt...

From there, we crossed into Wisconsin hoping for a view of the confluence of the St. Croix and the Mississippi...but we were thwarted due to too many deciduous trees growing...it'd be a good sight in early spring or late fall.  Best we could do is get a picture of the sign...

We'll be back!!