After setting up camp, the options were to do the hiking club trail or geocache...the hiking club trail was four miles long...it was 90 degrees...we went geocaching...
Lukie leads the way on these...
While watching them explore an area looking for a waypoint, I said 'this is a cool looking tree'...
Of course, underneath the 'stump' was the lat/long of the final destination...
From a distance, this really looked like a paper wasp nest...
But it was the cache we were looking for...
They got their 'prize', a card representing an aquatic creature of the area...they were happy...
But, at about the same time we found the cache, a presentation on snakes was starting about a 1/2 mile away...they took off running, I caught up a little later...
Shortly after it started, thunderstorm cells began to pass us just to the north and south...we got a little drizzle and they moved the program inside...the presenter pulled a 'thawed mouse' out of her pocket and fed it to a 2-year-old bullsnake...that thing devoured it...
After that program, you could hold eight of the snakes...like this ball python...
Or a western hognose snake...
The python again...
A boa constrictor...
Finally, after every snake was held (I held none of them), we went back to camp for some lounging...
And roasted marshmallows...
The site gave us a great view of the setting waxing crescent moon...both Lukie and Lex called it by it's correct phase name...a win...
And they enjoyed a new add to the hammock system...
Several years earlier, the park had suffered a massive blowdown and was closed for about a year. The campground show huge evidence of the blowdown...it looked almost like a prairie setting, you could see all of the campsites because of the missing trees...
Before Lex woke up, Lukie and I headed to the river, it was a foggy morning...
After breakfast, we had to tackle that hike...
Again, it was foggy...but it was better than 90 degrees...
We got our password and our four miles added to the logbook...
We loved this 'scenic overlook'...the St. Croix River is down there somewhere...
After the hike, we drove 7 miles (St. Croix State Park is the largest park in the MN State Park system) to another attraction in the park, the 134(?) step fire tower...
It was cool passing through the trees, both kids liked how they were above the trees, but with the fog you couldn't see much. Unfortunately, when we were at the top, a group of 15 (4 adults and 11 kids) pulled up. Those kids began charging up the tower at full speed...it was rocking back and forth, enough that Lex wanted down...so we didn't stay at the top too long...
While I was taking camp down, there was another interpretive program taking place close by, so the kids went to that. In the program, they made snake-skin pendants, with real snake-skin from sheds...
When they got back, it was time to head north...we got our sign picture...
And our stamp...
And we were gone...
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