Gooseberry Falls State Park...

The third week of June we spent four nights at Gooseberry Falls State Park, like we typically do.  Most campsites at state parks are open, some are closed if they are too close to other campsites, but our favorite site is pretty far from any other campsite, so of course it was open...

New this year, we hauled the bikes with...

Once camp was set up, they wanted to head to the lake pretty quick...

Of course they wanted to go looking for tadpoles...

And skip rocks...

This was as close to the falls as we got on Thursday night...

After hiking, tadpoles and rock skipping, they needed to rest.  Lukie played cards (we've been playing a lot of cards since March) and Lex read her book (I got her to start the Harry Potter series the second week of June, she started the last book in the series yesterday).

Lukie made the hot dogs that night!  Well, some of them...

Friday morning, we took off for the falls, before all the people showed up...along the way we found these...

Lots of stops and lots of pictures at the falls...

When back at camp (when I was resting), they took off on their bikes...

In the afternoon, we avoided the crowds by hiking up to the 5th Falls (it's about a 3-4 mile hike round trip) and we needed the occasional break from the trail...

About half of the hike is on the Superior Hiking Trail, so they got good at looking for the blue blazes (which would be needed on Saturday)...

The 5th Falls...

By the time I got up there, I wanted to rest on the bench located there, but they had already taken off over the bridge...

When back in camp, Lukie napped and Lex read...

What makes camping tough for me sometimes is their sleep schedule...Lukie will wake up by 5:30 or so every morning, while Lex will stay up late, always waiting for the first star (which around the summer solstice isn't until after 10:00 pm at that latitude), then sleep in.  Meaning, I'm up late and wake up early...

Monday morning, we started packing up camp with a fire going (someone is in the hammock over there)...

And made a quick visit to the falls area again...

We'll be back in the same campsite (for one night) in August after we come off the Gunflint Trail...

Geocaching...

So we've been geocaching at state parks as part of their 'Aquatic Quest' series (now extended to October 2021).  Each cache we find, they get a card that describes one species of animal (macroinvertebrate, mussel, fish, etc.) and as previously stated, Lukie sometimes puts in the wrong coordinates which leads us the wrong way...

Yesterday, we tried to geocache at the Minnesota Valley Recreation Area near Jordan, but trail was underwater (we'll try again in the fall when it'll hopefully be dryer).  Today, we hit two state parks along the MN River Valley, Fort Ridgely and Flandrau, avoiding rain the whole way...

Not many pictures, but here's four...

Before we even started, we found this gneiss fire ring...love to sit around a fire by that ring...

They found the first cache...it was a tough one to find, buried deep in the weeds (hope we didn't get any ticks)...

While at Fort Ridgely, we stopped at the old fort site, Lukie and Lex are together in the picture (hopefully they're reading the signs and discussing history instead of fighting)...

After the quick drive to New Ulm, we worked fast to find the next cache (rain was coming in fast)...

That's 12 total geocaches in state parks so far...the whole time at both parks we saw a total of four people (and they were at quite a distance)...both parks aren't too busy mid-week...fun times!

Minneopa Falls State Park...

We've been to Minneopa Falls lots of times, but we've never done the geocache there, so we took off this morning...

First stop was the bison drive, figuring it was early enough that might be active...there were actively enjoying the water (high dew points, temperatures in the 80s already)...

We generally stop to enjoy the view at the mill...fun to see it as the year progresses...what you can't see are the prairie wildflowers, they were really blooming...

Coming back through the the bison drive...

Then it was time for the geocache...here's Lukie entering the coordinates...

He said "it's over by the falls..." so we jumped in the car and headed over.  Once there, we followed the GPS and it wanted us to cross a highway and a train track to get to the site (no other geocache we've ever done has requested that) so I asked if he had properly entered the coordinates.  His answer - "of course."  We decided to go back and double check, but saw the falls first...

Turns out, he put in the wrong coordinates...with the right coordinates, we were on our way...

Eventually, we got to the final stop, but couldn't find the cache...took about 10 minutes until finally finding it...

That is the 10th geocache card found at ten different state parks.  Now they need to show all 10 cards to a ranger and they'll get a 'habitat card.'  Not sure what that is, but we'll find out...

Then we hiked down to the confluence of the Minnesota River and Minneopa Creek (the creek flows in from the right of the picture)...

It was a fun morning!

West Carver Community Pool...

The pool opened on June 24th, with some restrictions like 50% capacity, separate entrance and exits, etc.  But Lukie and Lex didn't care, they wanted to swim.  We've been swimming some at Safari Island since they opened June 10, but it's summer and time to swim outside...

Tonight was their first time at the pool since August (the afternoon session today was closed due to thunderstorms that passed by earlier)...

Lukie with his tuck dive...

When I got there, Lex said she was practicing cannon balls...

And was happy doing it...

Later, she was practicing dives...

Took a bit of convincing, but eventually Lukie started his flips...he said he wanted to get used to this board again before trying one...

Then Lex went with a cannon ball off the board...

Trust me, he was happy...

Of course, the slide is still there too...

There's no season passes this summer due to COVID and the 50% limit, so we have to get punch cards.  They currently have 19 punches left...wonder how long they will last!?!?

I'm falling behind on posts.  We went camping on the North Shore a week ago and had some great hikes...pictures coming soon...