Tettegouche State Park

A week ago, the kids and I left Gooseberry and drove up to Tettegouche State Park for the day.  The boys and I have been there before, but this was a first for Lex.  We had a great time!

Before we got to the park office, we made a stop at Palisade Head...

It provides great looks of Lake Superior and the shoreline looking towards Tettegouche and Shovel Point...

The kids enjoyed watching the rock climbers...they were picking up trash that people have through over the cliff....

And of course I made them take a group picture....

It is a long ways down from the top of Palisade Head to Lake Superior and a couple of miles to Shovel Point (that light colored rock in the distance)...

People have asked me sometimes why Luke and I seem to take more selfies than Kieran and I....it's because when Kieran and I try, this is what we tend to get...

It's hard to get a good one with him (there were 5 taken here, they all look close to this)....Luke seems to just do better...

From Palisade Head to went to the state park itself with two goals --- seeing the highest waterfall completely within the borders of Minnesota and taking the hiking club trail out to the tip of Shovel Point.  The hiking club trail was a little more than two miles long and was our first stop.

From Shovel Point, you get a lot of nice views of Palisade Head in the distance...

It's also a lot up steps...altogether, Kieran counted we walked over 1000 steps at Tettegouche and Gooseberry that day...I'm not sure if he was accurate, but it was a lot. 

The trail also gives you some good views of Shovel Point, before you get up on top of it...

But eventually we got to the end and found our password...

After we completed that hike, it was time for another hike, this one would take us 2.5-3 miles roundtrip see see the High Falls of the Baptism River.  

And we'd get to cross a pretty cool bridge that definitely swings and moves.  Kieran, Luke and I had done this before, first time for Lex.

It's a great waterfall to see...worth the walk...

Even the kids liked it...

Of course, they liked throwing rocks into the river just as well...

Some lady offered to take our picture and we said yes....too bad the lady got other people (there were about 10-15 others there) in the picture and had me stand so I blocked the waterfall...

After the waterfall, we took another short walk (.5 miles --- but it had a lot of steps) to the mouth of the Baptism River.  What do you do there?  You throw rocks...

Plus, you can get one more nice view of Shovel Point in the distance...

It was a fun day, with perfect weather...

Gooseberry Falls State Park

So the kids and I headed up to Gooseberry Falls State Park last weekend (we also visited Tettegouche State Park and Amnicon Falls State Park in Wisconsin).  We saw the sights and had a great time...

We set up camp quick once we got there and then headed for the falls...here's our first picture....

After cruising around the falls for a while, we had to take a hike...the boys and I took the same hike last year, but that was before we were part of the hiking club and were looking for 'passwords' along the way...we found it this time...

It's a short two mile hikes that gives some pretty cool views...

It's definitely awesome overlooking the mouth of the river, agate beach and the picnic lava flows as the sun is setting...

How cool is that view?

Even without the kids...still pretty cool...

We had great weather for the trip mostly...the full moon rose Friday night...

It rained pretty hard sometime after midnight, but we were warm and dry in the tent...and we woke to a great morning...

The kids felt they were so strong they could move boulders (they couldn't...nice try though)...

It was a calm and relaxing walk along the picnic lava flow (the boys call it the tadpole place, since they're use to visiting it in late June when every pool is filled with tadpoles)...

No tadpoles this time, but they still had a great time...

I even caught Lex staring off at something in the lake...

Then it was off to breakfast...we ate pretty good that morning (and the weekend..)...

From there we headed back to the falls to see the sites and do the loop around the falls (this is where Kieran started counting how many stairs we went up/down that day --- the total will come the next post)...

I really enjoy the view of the falls from the opposite side of the river, plus you're seeing them from a higher elevation....

But, after walking a while...sometimes the kids need breaks...

I promise you that they were having fun...I caught them at a moment when there were no smiles...Luke noticed before I took the next picture...

From there....we headed to Tettegouche for the rest of our morning and afternoon (that post will be later)...we returned tired and hungry...so we ate and went to bed...

When we woke up, we took our early morning walk and found 6-8 deer just wandering through the campsites....

That Sunday morning was a glorious sunrise over the lake...

Luke decided he would claim the whole lake as his own...

But on the walk, the fog rolled in off the lake and stayed until we had completely taken our campsite down (i.e. the the tent and shelter were pretty damp)...

Here's the picture just after we finished taking the camp down, sunny and dry...

Before we left Gooseberry, we headed back to the falls.  The kids wanted to see the 'castle', the old wayside rest up on Highway 61.  It has a remnant of the old Highway 61 bridge that was replace in 1996....this is the bridge that Pops crossed the river (under the bridge) back when he was 18 or so...Luke says he only has 10 more years till he can do it...

Our last view of the falls before leaving was a pretty good view...

Next post...our day at Tettegouche...

Finally!!! Luke's tooth is gone..

If you haven't read the last several posts (and you should've read the last several posts), you would've seen Luke with a tooth sticking out of his mouth.  It happened Saturday of Labor Day weekend and was attached by one little root.  He's bumped it several times, resulting in a lot of blood.  He's been to the movies and the state fair, eating all sorts of things....but still the tooth remained...

He wanted to lose the tooth at school, because he'd go to the nurse and get a little, plastic, tooth holder.....

Finally, it happened today (almost two weeks since it was dangling out of his mouth)...

He's got another than is going to come out soon....the tooth lost was immediately replaced by the new tooth that was working it's way in for the last few months...

There's the tooth on the left and the tooth holder above....I opened it to get ready for the tooth fairy and found the rock on the right.  I asked Luke "what's the deal with the rock?" and he said "I liked it."  Yep...that's Luke...

I'm glad the tooth came out today.  The kids and I are camping at Gooseberry this weekend and it's harder for the tooth fairy to make deliveries in state parks (or so I hear....)....

MN State Fair

On Labor Day, Luke, Kieran and I went to the state fair....the boys and I were really looking forward to going....it was a great day spent with both of them...

First stop?  We had to hike all the way across the fair to the Twins booth to catch up with TC Bear...

And we took the first of many cutout pictures...

Then we saw some giant pumpkins....which the boys thought would make a great fort...

We went to the KARE11 barn and got some free sunglasses and tried out the chairs from the Voice...

And we ate....(little grubby hands couldn't stay off them to get a good picture)...

The boys played a little Viking plinko....

Kieran tried on a Viking helmet...

We found Curious George out for a walk...

And we caught the last 15 minutes of the 4H Arts In program...

Of course we 'had' to go on the Sky Ride...

Where we got a good view of the giant slide...

Then we just 'had to' go on the Space Tower...

Where we got a good view of downtown Minneapolis...US Bank Stadium is big...

And we ate...

We saw the last princesses likeness getting carved into butter...

And we climbed the DNR's fire tower...

And we drank...

Of course the boys rode the Giant Slide (twice actually)...

And the DNR's fish pond is always fun....

It was a great day shared with thousands of people....great company and great fun...next year Lex gets to come!!!