Thursday, July 27, 2023 Lake Bronson State Park: Prairie Rose and False Inigo

(Continuing notes from our camping and hiking trip in June.)

Our last stop for the day was Lake Bronson State Park, where we’d camp for the night. We were trying out a new screen tent that promised quick and easy set up. It mostly lived up to its promise.

Our campsite was right by the lake, but with plenty of shade, a perfect set up and there were no bugs. I kept seeing groups of pelicans on the other side of the lake, but they refused to come any closer for better photos. I settled for some nice reflection photos instead.

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We also had a resident chipmunk that Kris nicknamed “Chippy.” Chippy was evidently used to getting handouts because he had no hesitations about coming over to us with an expectant air.

We had a late supper of cheeseburgers and chips with a dessert of dark chocolate Oreos. Has anyone noticed that the cookie aisle is exploding with new Oreo options? Goodness gracious! Pretty soon the Oreo contingent will be swaggering around the cookie aisle like bullies and shoving all the 98-pound weakling cookies out of their way.

Way up north the sun doesn’t set until after 9:30 p.m., a good signal for bedtime. We compared notes when we woke up the next morning around 6:00 a.m. Both of us slept really well (I have to give ibuprofen some credit for that) and were ready to tackle the 3.4 mile hike while it was still cool. We ended up hitting trail by 7:00. It was 63 degrees, just right for hiking. I doused myself with some Picaridin – you never know when you might get ambushed by mosquitos, but we hadn’t really seen any so far.

It was a lovely, fresh morning. The red-winged blackbirds were singing their “Oka-LEE” song as if to cheer us along the way. The wide trail beckoned us forward and I could almost hear Cat Stevens singing:

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.

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We kept up a good clip, but also stopped fairly often to identify and photograph some of the flowers and plants we were seeing: false indigo, mugwort sagebrush, spreading dog bane (AKA Indian hemp or bitterroot), and the beautiful pink prairie rose. After identifying that last one, my husband said, “You are my Prairie Rose,” to which there was no other reply for me but to say, “You are my False Indigo.” I didn’t have a lot to choose from. He took that in stride and responded that he was my False Inigo. “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.” That Inigo. If you aren’t familiar with that quote…no, that’s no possible. EVERYBODY knows Inigo Montoya.

We saw Lake Bronson on a regular basis as we walked. Kris had read the park information and told me that Lake Bronson actually used to be a river. The world is filled with marvels, isn’t it? Here was a river minding its own business when somebody dammed it up (a WPA project during the Great Depression) and Lake Bronson emerged. This might not be an origin story that merits being turned into a movie, but it’s not too shabby either.

Let’s take a pause while I quiz my fellow Minnesotans about something very important, something you should have learned in fourth grade. Class, who can tell me what Minnesota’s state flower is? You there, in the back with your hand up, go ahead. That’s right, the Showy Lady’s Slipper! I’ve known this as every good Minnesotan should, but have never actually come across one in the wild…until this hike. There were clusters of these beautiful wild orchids along one section of the path. Most of them were past their prime, but a few late bloomers proudly showed off their showy beauty. Happy sigh.

There was a nice bench by the shore at some point and as we approached, a heron took off. I managed to get a blurry photo of it winging away. You take what you can get.

We went through a corridor of something I suspected was sumac and since I was reaching that part of the hike during which I no longer want to stop for fear of losing important last-gasp momentum, I tossed off a comment to Kris behind me to see if he could identify it for sure. “It’s smooth sumac!” he responded after taking a photo and checking on Picture This. We love using the Picture This app – it has really brought our hiking to a whole new level.

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In fact, after Kris caught up, he stopped me, insisting that I look at something we’d been walking on that he finally decided to identify. “It’s called ‘pussy-toes plantain,’” he informed me delightedly. Well! That calls for celebration, doesn’t it? We found it to be such an entertaining name, that every time we saw a bunch, one of us would crow, “Pussy toes!” just for the sheer pleasure of being able to say it again. This is an unqualified success in the realm of plant naming.

Nearing the end of the hike, we came across a small twig suspended invisibly in mid-air, a photo-worthy sight. We couldn’t see the spider web filament, but Kris deduced that a spider nearby was seeing how close we were to it, saying to itself “Fresh meat! Really big prey this time!”

So, although the Eeyore in me had been very uncertain about how all this hiking was going to go, I think the hiking pole helped, as well as the ibuprofen-induced good sleep of the night before. All systems are go for the next four hikes!

After the hike we stayed at Lake Bronson for awhile, ate a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed the great outdoors. Experiences like that are why we really enjoy camping.

Knee Score: 3 out of 10. Long hike, but fairly level, with one major dip down and back up.

A side note: at one point I saw a mosquito come near my arm, but instead of landing and helping itself to my delicious blood, it flew away. Captain Picaridin, I salute thee!

I’ll probably have my False Indigo delete this in the morning for his Prairie Rose.

Next hike: Hayes Lake State Park