Sunday, March 29th Schoolcraft State Park

The weather has taken a turn for the cold. Two days prior to a major blizzard here with temps in the 30's. We pretended our lives depended on being able to read the weather signs. We came up with (well...Rod came up with) the horsetail clouds and the subtle shade of gray to our west. I came up with the hat and mittens I'd brought along cuz I was COLD. We didn't have MY car (with the thermometer and STATE PARK PERMIT, so we had to guess at the temp (38??) and buy another PERMIT. Now we have one on each of our cars. Now, for the math. $25 +$25 = $50 divided by 4 = $12.50!

This park is touted as "The quiet park" and lives up to that with it's high canopy and thick mulch. We walked about 1/2 mile along a trail next to the Mississippi River. We saw an adult eagle, several Canada Geese and heard some crows. We saw some cool deer tracks that were frozen under some ice on the trail. I also saw what had to be a moose track. It was almost as big as my foot. We had bought some deli lunch fodder from Cub and ate at a sunny picnic table. It was 75 miles from home and took us about 1 1/2 hours to drive there up Hwy 6 north of Remer.

Sunday, March 22nd, Kathio State Park

When we were younger, we used to go to the BWCA. We used to 'scoff' at those crazy campers in the State Parks. I'm sorry about that.

This Sunday was the warmest so far, topping out at 53 degrees, but windy. We found a closed off road, still snow covered, that would allow us to sneak Hans off his leash for a good run. Something we won't be able to do once the parks get crowded again. We've seen no one on any of our trips so far. Critter inventory consists of 1 young eagle, 1 junco, (usually seen in flocks in the spring and fall on their migration) 1 grey squirrel and we heard some chickadees.

We only stayed about 45 minutes which allowed for about a 1/2 mile walk. We wanted to get to the Casino before the "lunch buffet" closed at 4pm! Kathio is 40 miles from Brainerd and takes about 50 minutes to drive there. It is noted for the 3 biomes merging there. Pine forests, Hardwood forest and a tiny edge of prairie.

Crow Wing State Park, March 15th

Our second Sunday out found us again at Crow Wing State Park. We saw the afternoon running short so retreated to the close at hand. The temperatures were the warmest so far this spring with it topping out at 50 degrees. We hiked about 1 1/2 hours...maybe a mile or more? There is still alot of snow in the woods, however too warm for snowmobilers. We didn't see or hear any wildlife, which we thought was rather strange. We brought a lunch we'd picked up from Walmart deli. 25 divided by 2 equals $12.50!

Catching up back to March 8th, 2009

This will be a bare bones blog. It's to see which is preferable to this old collector or tidbits. If I would prefer the $.74 cent notebook I bought at Target, or this incredibly easy and free tool.

First you need a reason to blog, which for us evolved out of an idea to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon at our closest State Park, namely, Crow Wing State Park. We're trying to walk more and sit less to condition for the upcoming Sweden trip in June. We had to shell out money for the park permit, which leads us to our annual dilemma, "day permit" or "annual permit". One is $7.50 and the other is $25. We always rationalize that we'd never get $25 worth out of an annual one, so usually go the cheap route. This year we thought "Hej" "why not buy the annual permit and GET our money's worth by actually using it!" We tossed around the idea of going to a State Park every Sunday that we didn't have other obligations, no excuses, even if it's just to return to Crow Wing. So far, so good!

Our first trip to Crow Wing State Park was Sunday, March 8th. The temperature was 30 degrees and the sun was out. Most of the trails and roads were still closed off but we were able to stretch our legs a little and give Hans a nice run. We hadn't started the fauna inventory yet.