Monday, September 26, 2022 Father Hennepin State Park: Oh, Deer!

On a bright mid-September day, we set out to conquer Father Hennepin State Park, which sits on the southeastern edge of Mille Lacs Lake. Fellow Minnesotans, did you know that Mille Lacs is the second largest lake in Minnesota? Only Lower Red Lake is bigger. This kind of trivia is sure to win you points in some circles, but probably not in mine.

We were camping at Father Hennepin, so we set up camp first and then set out boldly, picking up the trail right in front of our campsite. For those of you who care about these details, it was a little after 4:00 p.m. and 68 degrees, but the hike was a paltry 2 miles and we were going to be building an appetite for our pork chops and pesto pasta supper. We were told in the trail description that we should watch for bald eagles perched in the large trees, so our eagle expectations were high. Come along!

We got momentarily distracted by a dock along the way. Kris likes to walk out on these and think the thoughts of a fisherman. I conducted myself as usual and took photos of things that interested me.

We came to a nice little playground and swimming beach with lots of information about the park.

I grew up in Hennepin County and rode the bus downtown to Hennepin Avenue, so my curiosity was piqued by the man whose name was spread so far and wide. In fact, when I did a little internet research on Father Hennepin, I found out that he left his name behind wherever he went and places named after him can be found in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York and Ontario, Canada. He was born in Belgium in 1626, became a Catholic priest, and eventually answered the call to come across the pond as a missionary in 1675. In case you didn’t do the math, that means he was 49 years old. What an adventurer! He wrote a few books about his experiences, too, but before you get all excited about that, the reviews are mixed; there are some who think Father Hennepin’s ego caused him to inflate and exaggerate what he wrote. Ha! Who would ever do something like that? 😊

We continued on our hike and I continued to look up occasionally to see if our eagle expectations would be met. Eureka! Could this be the eagle we were looking for?

And then we started up a path and saw some deer, which almost never happens on these hikes. We stopped, certain that any other move on our part would send them all scattering into the woods. But the deer at FHSP are apparently quite used to having humans around. They continued to eat as if we weren’t there and we took lots of photos.

There were plenty of maps to guide us along the way and before you knew it, we had arrived back at our humble home, the Tent of Requirement.

While Kris tended to the meal (he does all the cooking while we’re camping!), I busied myself with taking more photos. It’s what I do. Later the sun set beautifully over the lake, and we finished the evening with a campfire.

Knee score: 1 out of 10 (wearing knee huggers). Fairly level trail, much of it paved.

I’ll probably have to delete this in the morning due to my inflating and exaggerating habits.

Next hike: Mille Lacs Kathio State Park