Last Hurrah!

With Alex starting school tomorrow, we wanted to plan a fun, end of summer getaway!  We've always talked about visiting Itasca State Park and taking Alex to see where the Mississippi River starts, so we decided to make the trip last weekend!  After almost 4 hours in the car, we arrived at the park and found a place for a picnic lunch.  We had picked a beautiful day to go out exploring, blue skies and upper 70s degree weather.

After lunch, we walked down the trail to see the Mississippi Headwaters.  I remember coming here in high school, but Joe and Alex had never been there before.  Alex waded in and seemed pretty excited about being in the river!

There were a ton of people right at the Headwaters, but as we started walking out to one of the trails the crowds completely disappeared.  We took a hike that was about 2.5 miles and probably saw 10 people the whole time we were out there.  It was a fantastic day for a walk.  The weather was perfect, the bugs weren't too bad, there was a slight breeze, and the views were awesome.  We took a little risk taking an unpaved road with my wheelchair, but overall the trail was well maintained and I only needed a little push from Joe a couple of times and it was so worth it!

Alex did great on the long hike!  He thought it was great fun to use a walking (hiking) stick that I used to use!  Our family has really enjoyed being outside this summer, it feels so good to be out in nature, getting exercise and just marveling at God's creation!   

 

 When we made it back to the visitor's center, Alex had to stop and point out where we were on the globe!

We had decided to stay the night in Bemidji, which was about a 45 minute drive from Itasca State Park.  It was nice to cool down in the air conditioned van and Alex almost fell asleep in the backseat.  Once we got to Bemidji, we had to take care of some pretty important business.....

 Alex was thrilled to see Paul and Babe in person.  He did wonder how Paul's boot print (which he noticed wasn't super big) made the rather large Lake Bemidji.  I asked him if he knew what a legend was, and he replied, "Yes, it's a story that may or may not be true."  I could tell that he wasn't quite ready to concede that the Paul Bunyan story was a bit of a tall tale!  The next morning after we had gotten a good night of sleep at our hotel, we went over to Lake Bemidji State Park to do some geocaching.  The park loans out GPS units which you use to follow coordinates to different locations in the park, which hold clues you need at the end of the adventure.  Our whole family had a blast, and Alex in particular loved leading us along the path with the GPS in hand!

We got a nice tour of the park and figured out all of the clues which gave us a combination to a box at the end!  Alex got a little prize and just loved the whole experience.  We wished we had more time to hang out at the park, but we had to head back home shortly after noon in order to get back in time to pick up our doggie!  We really had a great little getaway and got a ton of good family time.  We sure love going on adventures!