Flandrau State Park...

Monday morning, Lukie/Lex and I drove to New Elm to visit Flandrau State Park.  This is a park we've visited before (Lex's first night camping happened here) and we got the stamp for the park back in March, but we were unable to hike the hiking club trail that day because it was groomed for cross country skiing...no skiing is happening on July 2, so we were off on a relatively short 2.8 mile hike...

The beginning of our hike is below...notice how Lex is trying to throw the 'peace' sign up...it's something Lukie does often and he hates when Lex does...he didn't notice this time...

The trail starts by following the Cottonwood River, the river is high due to a lot of June rains, most of it very recent...

So much rain in fact, parts of the trail were closed...not that it stopped up, we were going to finish the trail whether we walked through water or not...

It was easy for Lex, she had her Croc's on...Luke and I were wearing our tennis shoes, meaning our shoes/socks got wet...there were some consistently wet areas that a boardwalk was present, but our feet were certainly wet...

Halfway through, we found the password...notice the excitement on Lukie's face?  There's a reason for that...coming later.

The password was also at a decent overlook...that had a nice cooling breeze...perfect...

Yeah...there was no way around that...Lex thought it was really funny as Lukie and I were walking through that water with our tennis shoes...

Near the end of the hike though...there was no way through this...

Lex really wanted to try though, Lukie and I said no way though...in the upper right of the picture is a road that we crossed, two minutes later we were on the road bypassing the flooded section...

And just like that...our 2.8 mile hike was over...check out our video of the hike...

Now the hike ends at a beautiful sand/quartzite bottomed pool...it was about 11:30, 85 degrees...what do you do?

When the swim bag is always in the car....you go swimming of course...

This is like a snow angel...except it's upside down...and there is no snow...

A couple hours of pool time...they had fun...

We didn't take the picture of the kids and the sign during the trip back in March because we hadn't completed the hiking club trail...but we did it Monday...

Notice Lukie isn't wearing any shoes...and he's really happy...and holding something.  Zooming in we can see why...

That 2.8 mile hike gave Lukie (and I) an even 50 miles on the hiking club...earning him his 50 mile patch that goes along with the 25 mile patch he earned last summer, next up...75 miles...

Updated Hiking Club Mileage:

Lukie/Me - 50.0 miles
Lex - 42.3 miles
Kieran - 24.6 miles