William O'Brien State Park...

Monday, the kids and I took off for William O'Brien State Park in Scandia.  It would be a new stamp for our passport and the hiking club trail was six miles long, a good step towards Lukie's 50 mile hiked patch.  Unfortunately, the park office was closed that day and we couldn't get a stamp (we could mail the book in to the DNR office in St. Paul and they'd stamp/mail it back, but we're hesitant to do that, looks like we'll just visit again)...

The forecast for the day was cloudy and temperatures in the upper 70's, so we figured it'd be a good day for a longer hike.  Of course, when we got there, the clouds had lifted and the temperature was already in the mid-80s.  Oh well, time to start walking...

It wasn't long before we had left the campground area and most of the people, walking under this train tracks really is what started the hike...

The hike took us through several types of ecosystems - there were hardwood forests, oak savannas and prairies...

We had a nice picnic lunch at the top of this hill overlooking the distant St. Croix river valley...

Of course we found the hiking club password...

What was new for us was all the types of animals we saw (usually Lex is talking enough to scare them off before we see them) -- we saw several snakes, frogs, toads, deer, eagles, cranes (including babies) and this beaver lodge, though no sight of the beaver...

After a couple of hours, we were back at our starting point and ready for a rest...

Here's the hiking video...

Updated Hiking Club Mileage:

Lukie/Me - 47.2 miles
Lex - 39.5 miles
Kieran - 24.6 miles