We arrived at Lac Qui Parle State Park mid-afternoon for our hike. I was already predisposed to enjoy the park because of the name, which in French means, “The Lake Which Speaks.” Isn’t that lovely? It’s pleasant and edifying to think about how a lake speaks: the lapping of water against the shore or against watercraft, the waterfowl making their noises as they land and take off, the fish going “bloop bloop” as they surface occasionally. It makes for a nice conversation.
LQP was the first of three hikes we had planned for in as many days. We chose to start there to accommodate the weaker vessel who thought if we had to do a hike in the afternoon, it should be the shortest one. I’m sure my fellow weak vessels are nodding in agreement to this plan. When we set out on the 2-mile hike at 2:00 p.m., it was 79 degrees – danger! danger! – but wait, there was a nice breeze and (this is the key point) there was very little humidity. Sigh of relief.
By now we are becoming well acquainted with the flora at this time of year in this part of the state. The Picture This app has made experts of us. But eventually one gets tired of taking photos of the same plants every day. I’m sick to death of cutleaf coneflowers! And white snakeroot! Not to mention all the milkweed. Well, not really, but I need to have some sort of explanation as to why I took so few photos of these things at LQP. I think I’ll have to slide a poem in here to make up for this.
Lac Qui Parle, Lac Qui Parle, Where the cutleaf coneflowers tangle and snarl And the many white snakeroots slither and hiss While the giant chickweeds swing and miss. The barnyard grasses just sit on their asses And the blue vervain just waves on the plain. You’d think the beautiful Lady’s thumb Wouldn’t be so awfully dumb At Lac Qui Parle, Lac Qui Parle Where the cutleaf coneflowers tangle and snarl
We were on the lookout for frogs after our experience at Sibley, but didn’t see many. In fact, I would say this: “Frogs, I’ve seen a few…but then again…too few to mention…”
There were no benches along the way, but also zero people, so yay. You didn’t know I was so anti-social, did you?
We finished this 2-mile hike in 45 minutes. The paths were wide, the trail easy to follow (good thing since there were no trail maps along the way) and we got to try out the fake Clif bars we bought at Aldi’s.
We didn’t see much of the actual Lake which Speaks until we were on our way out of the park. Was it speaking? Let’s imagine that it was, because our car windows were closed.
Lac Qui Parle: “I’m talking to you.”
Knee Score: 1 out of 10.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning to atone for my snarky and shocking rhyme with “barnyard grasses…”
I watched the sunset from our balcony last night. The cicadas were making their bittersweet call, the wind was ruffling the tree tops with an affectionate hand, and the temperature held just the slightest hint of the coming cool of the night. It was too windy to have the water fountain going, but I could see the water below and all the reflections in it. I think I even saw a frog swimming happily around in the fountain – at least I hope it was happy. I was listening to the perfect playlist on Spotify: Chill Acoustic Instrumentals (highly recommend for this sort of sitting-outside-watching-the-sunset kind of activity). I’d been reading a page or two of Emily Dickinson poems and had the propitious experience of actually understanding several of them. I think my mind was fueled and charged by the music and atmosphere.
Somewhere down the street, a soccer game was starting and the national anthem began blaring through the loudspeakers. I paused my playlist and sang along. It doesn’t get much more Americana than that.
Our city council recently approved the building of several large apartment buildings across the street, where we now have the pleasure of looking out on a nice stand of trees. It is not a change that I welcome. I thought about how often we’ve seen the sun setting over those trees over the years – countless times. I will miss that lovely scene. The sun, of course, will still be setting – even the city council can do nothing about that. It will be the same sun, but a different sunset. And life will go on. It’s a good opportunity for me to get things in their proper perspective. “God’s in His heaven – all’s right with the world.”
Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple Leaping like Leopards to the Sky Then at the feet of the old Horizon Laying her spotted Face to die Stooping as low as the Otter’s Window Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow And the Juggler of the Day is gone. Emily Dickinson
I’ll probably delete this when the Juggler of the Day has come back.
I decided to call my book “A Year at Providence Place,” and have finished the first page. Off to a good start – hope I can keep it up!
We’ve used the name “Providence” for our homes since back in 1994, so an explanation is in order. We had twins in 1993, which made our 2-bedroom house rather squeezy, having doubled the number of children in it. We put the house up for sale that year with the realtor who’d sold it to us and waited. And waited. And waited. We prayed, our friends prayed. In 6 months time only one person even looked at the house, and this was not during a time of a particularly depressed housing market. Meanwhile, we’d been looking at houses to buy and found several that we would love to have bought, but didn’t feel comfortable making a contingency offer with the almost complete lack of interest in our current house. We took the house off the market.
Early in 1994 we found out about a house out in the country that was for sale by owner. It was a large 4-bedroom farmhouse only a mile from where Kris worked and was on 3 acres with a machine shed, numerous fruit trees of various kinds, grape vines, etc. An elderly lady was selling the house because it was getting to be too much for her to take care of. This house hadn’t even hit the market yet and she had people lining up to buy it. We made an appointment with the owner, Virginia, to look at the house and brought the four boys with us. The house was lovely, though outdated on the inside (avocado green counters in the kitchen with orange/green carpeting in the same!). However, all the wood framing and doors were solid oak – native timber! – and the living room had a small stained glass window in it. We prayed that we might be able to buy this house, but had a several hurdles to overcome: 1. We had to compete with other buyers already 2. We hadn’t even put our own house up for sale yet 3. We had a strong policy of not buying a house before selling our current one and with the competition, we’d not be able to make a contingency offer.
We talked to our pastor, a very savvy man in the real estate market, and one whose spiritual wisdom we trusted. “We shouldn’t buy this house before selling our current house, right?” we asked him. We knew the answer already. It’s just a bad idea all around and especially with the history we’d had with trying to sell the house. “I recommend that you make an offer immediately,” was his surprising answer. Well! Okay then! We hired a different realtor right away and made another appointment to meet with Virginia. We sat at her table and told her we’d like to buy her house and made an offer. She smiled broadly and told us that although she had lots of interest in the house, she liked the idea of a big family living there and the amount we offered her was exactly what she had hoped to sell it for. She said yes. We were exhilarated! And yet…what have we done? We got our 2-bedroom house on the market in record time and it sold in two weeks to cash buyers, so there would be no delay waiting for loan papers, etc. It was an amazing providence from God, who is able to give exceeding abundantly beyond what we can ask or think. Looking back, we could see that His timing was perfect and His answers to our earlier prayers to sell the house were perfect as well. He knew when this house would hit the market. We moved into the house and dubbed it “Providence.” We started homeschooling the same year and called our school “Providence Academy.”
Four years later we found out that we were going to be moving back to our home soil in Minnesota. We looked at houses in the town to which we’d be moving and found a wonderful, roomy house with a cheerful red door right across the street from a state park. We made a contingent offer, confident that our house in Indiana would sell speedily, and I took a whole roll of photos of the house we’d be moving into so we could show family and friends. We went back to Indiana, hired our former realtor and put the house up for sale. And waited. And waited. We prayed, our friends prayed. Our house which had been a hot property four years ago was just sitting there. Was our asking price too high? We had trusted our realtor on that. Three months went by and though we had reduced our asking price, our contingency offer expired. I still remember the day I took once last look at the photos of that beautiful house and then threw them away. This was evidently not the house that the Lord wanted for us, and we knew Him to be a perfect Realtor, so I surrendered, but definitely with a small sigh of regret. 🙂
Another couple of months went by and we finally had an offer on our house. We made plans to go back to Minnesota to look for another house and then found out that I was expecting baby #6. Feeling sick and exhausted all day, I backed out of the house-hunting trip. I still remember talking to my husband on the phone each night while he was there, discussing the houses he’d seen that day. One house rose above the rest as we talked – for sale by owners, nice neighborhood, 4 bedrooms, laundry room up by the bedrooms instead of in the basement, nice kitchen, lots of beautiful natural woodwork, even a workshop in the basement! Kris sat down at their table with them and made an offer. They said yes. This house had not been available when we’d been in town all those months ago. We moved in and realized that in many ways, this house was actually better for our family than the original house we’d wanted. But the icing on the cake came a few months later when we met the couple that bought that house up by the state park. They found out after they moved in that the roof had some structural issues that they had to pay $10,000 to repair. They were able to afford that, but it would have been a real hardship for us. The Lord had kindly spared us from a bad decision and provided a house that cost less and was so much better for us. Providence – amazing, bountiful, merciful providence.
So now you know!
I’ll probably pray about deleting this in the morning.
After the hike at Monson Lake State Park, we drove over to Sibley State Park to set up camp, planning to start the hike there early in the morning. We decided to do our state park sign photo ahead of time, just in case we forgot later.
Like Camden State Park, Sibley has two different campground areas and we took the one less traveled. Who wants to be surrounded by PEOPLE in a campground, for goodness sake? We found a lovely site that was like a hotel suite with two different “rooms,” one for the tent and one for the “kitchen.”
After supper, we sat by the glow of the campfire chatting quietly and enjoying the ambiance. Our tent was set up in a partial clearing so we could appreciate the stars through the sun-dome screen again. Ahh, this is the life!
Despite our best intentions, we didn’t get on the trail until 9:00 the next morning, having decided to take down the tent and get the car all packed up so we didn’t have to do it afterward. I had it in my mind that the hike was 4.7 miles (an error – it was “only” 4 miles), so I wanted to get a running start, so to speak. Right from the get-go, however, the air was cloyingly humid, though it was only 67 degrees at that point. There would be no brisk walking from me. We’d walked only 5 minutes when we realized neither of us could remember locking the car. Kris went back to check and I found a shady spot where I could putz around taking photos. To my dismay, the auto-focus feature wasn’t working on my camera. Oh no! I took a few shots but each time had to focus manually. Then I realized that I had been using a special effect the night before in order to photograph the night sky. Ha! That was a complete fail, but I’d forgotten to switch it back. If I’d been paying attention to the photos on my tiny little screen, I would have noticed that they looked colorless. When I looked at them later, I thought they were kind of cool, so here they are, along with one I took when I’d set things right.
The entire time Kris was gone, I was standing right by a very detailed map of our hiking route, but did I study it? Of course not – I was engrossed in my own little camera confusions. I hid around a corner and got a fun shot of Kris making his grand entrance when he got back. (For the curious among you, yes, the car was already locked.)
We stumped along on the wide grassy path and I said, “Hey, there’s a stop sign! I’ve never seen one of those on the Hiking Club trail before.” We mused about the necessity of having hikers come to a stop and concluded that it must be for snowmobiles during the winter. Then we came to a “Do Not Enter” sign. This can’t be right. And it wasn’t. Way back when I was frittering away the minutes while Kris was gone, we were supposed to have taken a left at the sign. Kris checked the Avenza map and we discovered we could just cut over to the Hiking Club trail from where we were. Phew!
One of the main features of Sibley State Park is a high elevation point called “Mount Tom,” where the CCC built a tower in the 1930’s, but people had been coming to Mount Tom for centuries before that. It’s the highest point in Sibley State Park and one of the highest landmarks in the area. In fact, the whole point of establishing Sibley as a state park in 1919 was to protect Mount Tom and its environs. So naturally, we were going to be going to see Mount Tom, although it would mean a slight detour from the trail. However, the words “slight detour” didn’t dampen my spirits nearly as much as the words “high elevation.” That can only mean one thing – a lot of walking up hill. I had my knee huggers on and hoped for the best.
Around 9:30 I heard the first cicada – what late risers they are, I thought. Didn’t hear another one for an hour, so I think that the first one was sounding reveille and the rest of the group just ignored him. These are the kinds of things I think about on the trail when I’m trying not to think about how hot, humid and uncomfortable I’m feeling. We finally made our way up to Mt. Tom, somewhat of a relief since surely things would go downhill from here. While up on the tower, I decided to do an avant-garde way of taking a panorama of the view – one shot through each open doorway. I was patting myself on the back for the sheer cleverness of the idea, but then when I put them together in post-production later, I laughed out loud. It just looks stupid. Oh well…
And now, a little quiz to break up the post. How did Mt. Tom get its name? A. It’s named after a guy named Tom. B. It’s an acrostic meaning Tall Old Mountain. C. It’s a shortened version of an Indian word meaning “Look-out Point.” D. Nobody knows
You will perhaps be as disappointed as I was to learn that the answer is D.
As you can imagine, there’s a lot of graffiti on a wooden structure like the Mt. Tom tower. These things interest me, so I looked at a few of them while Kris was enjoying the beautiful vista (of which I’d already taken note). It was mostly names, with occasional sentiments of love – some were scratched in and many were casually scrawled with permanent pen. But then I found one that had taken a significant investment of time. I don’t know who ARCZ is, but I tip my hat to him/her. Long after all the permanent pens markings and light scratch marks are gone, the mark of ARCZ will still be there.
We sat down for a light snack in the Mt. Tom parking lot and then set off to finish the job…er, hike. The downhill trek proved to be more or less uphill and then downhill, followed by more of the same, many times over. On one particularly steep downhill path, they had some sort of erosion-preventing plastic embedded in the dirt, which we’d never seen before.
We began seeing signs saying that Lake Andrew was ahead, which was very hopeful, since Lake Andrew is near the end of the hike. In fact, when we were in the park office I had seen a poster saying “Andrew is calling!” which I thought was bizarre until I noticed the little word “Lake” over the word Andrew. Oh! I was definitely hearing the sweet call of Lake Andrew and could hardly wait to answer the call. The first body of water we approached however, was a dismal pond. I had seen the glint of water from a distance and was all geared up to see my friend Andrew. However, if this was Lake Andrew, it had fallen on very hard times and could be more accurately named “Pond Scum Andrew.”
We continued our up and down progress, occasionally passing more signs telling us that Lake Andrew was up ahead, but I felt a little bit like Inigo from the Princess Bride who finally snaps at Vizzini, “You keep using that word ‘inconceivable.’ I do not think it means what you think it means.” You keep using that word “ahead…!” In my mind, I began writing an epic book called “The Myth of Lake Andrew.”
In spite of my pessimism, Lake Andrew did finally appear before us. And now, dear reader, I’m going to give you a hot tip so you can avoid wandering around trying to find the next part of the trail like we did. The posted trail maps are all identified by letters and the one at the intersection with Lake Andrew is “M.” Directly across the road (yes, there’s an actual road there) from “M” is a nicely paved bike path. Downward from the bike path through clumps of brush, is the lake shore, where you will see what looks like a little sandy path along the shore. This is NOT, in fact, the Hiking Club trail, and neither is the bike path. Listen carefully: you will cross the road at “M” over to the bike path, walk a few steps to the right on that path, maybe 15-20 paces. Then you will turn around and notice an almost hidden approach to a narrow trail (unmarked, mind you) going up and off to the right. Very tricksy! You’re welcome.
By this time I just wanted to be done. I really wish that I had the capacity to ignore the humidity, my pounding heart, and all my physical aches and pains and just focus on the beauty of the world around me. However, these long and difficult hikes often become spiritually significant to me, as I mentally review exhortations in the Scriptures to persevere under trial. No matter how tired, no matter how discouraged, there was no thought of giving up (not that I had the option). There were more ups and downs in the final mile of trail – in fact, I can recall very few level parts of the entire trail at Sibley – and when we finally got close to the parking lot where the car was, we took our “end-of-hike” photo in the shade of a tree and then I stopped moving and let Kris get the car. I think that if camera makers can come up with a red-eye filter, they ought to be able to come up with a red-face filter, too. But since they haven’t, you get to see all that exertion written plainly on my face.
The hike took us 2 and 1/2 hours and the temperature was 78 degrees when we finished. As we were leaving the park, we took one more photo at the state park sign since the light was more favorable than the evening before. I think this photo tells the whole story, doesn’t it? Sibley is a beautiful park with lovely trails and a variety of interesting sights, but oh, it was hard on me!
Knee Score: a full 10 out of 10 (with the detour to Mt. Tom and other errors, it was 4.5 miles). I don’t give out a score of 10 lightly – I’ve only awarded it 3 times now. My phone says that we walked the equivalent of 39 flights of stairs.
I’m publishing this on a Sunday just in case I don’t have time to publish it or delete it tomorrow. Off on another hike!
Monson Lake State Park has much to commend it, not the least of which is that the hiking club trail is only 1 mile long. It’s a smallish park boasting of two lakes: West Sunberg and of course, Monson. We had come from a distance, so we didn’t get started on the hike until almost 3:00 p.m. on this sunny day. Although it was 81 degrees, the breeze made everything just right and it looked like we’d be well shaded along the way. We set forth with a song in our hearts and a spring in our steps.
I started taking photos right away. It gets challenging to find new things to photograph, but if I don’t limit myself to that standard, I happily trod along capturing what catches my eye.
We weren’t the only ones singing…ha ha! This is for Julie, who mentioned that song in a recent comment.
It wasn’t long before I realized I was seeing a lot of spider webs. Maybe they’ve always been there on every hike, but once I started to hone in on them, it seemed that they were ubiquitous.
We even noticed delicate web threads across the path, as if they were set there as invisible sentries to detect our presence as we walked through them.
I thought about good old Bilbo and his taunt to the spiders in Mirkwood Forest. “Old fat spider spinning in a tree! Old fat spider can’t see me! Attercop! Attercop! Won’t you stop, stop your spinning and look for me?” Well, if there were large menacing spiders lurking in the woods at Monson Lake State Park, we never saw them and they left us alone. As opposed to the Upper Sioux Agency State Park, the frogs here were heard, but not seen, and definitely not underfoot, the way it should be.
We walked close to the two lakes at different parts of the trail. A fair amount of brush separated us from the shore, however, and occasionally we could tell that we startled some waterfowl as we could hear them flapping wings and moving in the water to distance themselves from us. Kris caught a glimpse and said they were ducks. The trail description noted that we’d be likely to see pelicans and sure enough, we did – way, way, way across the lake where they were no more than elegant looking tiny white shapes. Disappointing, but we can’t expect the pelican community to flock over to us for a photo op.
Camera-shy pelicans
There were no maps on the trail and several forks in the path, so once again, we were glad to have the trail on the Avenza Map app that Kris uses. We weren’t in any hurry and took several side detours, feeling the luxury of time on our side. The entire hike was in shady, sun-dappled areas, which made it very pleasant indeed.
Short hike, short post! On a side note, my husband has been making a batch of beer while I’ve been working on this, so the whole process has been infused with that marvelous smell of hops. I really wish I could enjoy the taste of beer – I sure enjoy the smell of it being made.
Knee Score: 1 out of 10. Easy peasy, flat terrain.
I might not delete this post in the morning unless the smell of hops has dissipated.
Many years ago I got a copy of Edith Holden’s book “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.” It’s absolutely charming. She started it in 1906 as a nature diary with her notes and beautiful drawings and it goes through an entire year month by month. I immediately wanted to do something like it, but shelved the whole idea – there really wasn’t time in. my life for that kind of endeavor.
I pretty much forgot the book was on my shelf until it came to my attention again recently. Here I am – retired and busy, but with lots more time for these types of things. Why wait until January? So I’m starting it now. I’m not sure how it will end up, but I’m excited to give it a try. It will definitely have my own “stamp” on it. I’ll post a few photos now and then as I go.
So what should I name it? “The City Diary of an American Lady.” Um…I haven’t come up with anything else, but maybe some of you will have better suggestions. Submit them to our office.
I’ll probably be working on this project in the morning, so I’m not sure I’ll get around to deleting this post. You can do it if you have time.
Do you ever have trouble sleeping, weighed down with cares, anxieties and fears? Scenarios that look ridiculous in the light of day can often look completely plausible in the night. The darkness of the room can penetrate your very soul in those moments. And this is where we must do battle. Find the right weapon and wield it.
I found one such weapon many years ago in Psalm 4. The whole psalm is a balm to one in distress, but in the night when the world is silent and my soul is sore afraid, I reach for the nearest sword, words that I memorized for safe keeping:
In peace, I will both lie down and sleep, for Thou, O Lord dost make me to dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8
If King David can call upon the Lord’s peace in the night, then so can I. And so can you.
And if you need a picture to inspire you, here’s my son and his newborn son, living it out.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, after lying down and sleeping in peace tonight.
What do you do when everything comes crashing down? You go back home – and that’s just what I did, devastated, wounded and humiliated, like a soldier returning home after a disastrous failed campaign. I did some Olympic medal-worthy wallowing in my sadness and tried to escape it all by visiting my bosom buddy Sara who was attending college in Duluth. While there I went to see a counselor who suggested that perhaps SD had treated me poorly. Somehow this was a new thought, but once introduced it blossomed quickly into full-fledged rage against SD, accompanied by torrents of profanity in my journal. It was shockingly easy to give way to this very dark anger, but I also realized that my life had to go on, so when I went back home, I got a full-time job working at an insurance company.
I spent the next part of my life in recovery mode. Even as I struggled to get over SD, I had what we now call “trust issues.” I had given myself, body and soul, to a man who ended up rejecting me. I didn’t know how to overcome that. One of my friends told me that no matter what, I always had myself. Thus began a long season of protecting myself, body and soul, at all costs. I came to understand that I couldn’t depend on anyone but myself. In spite of my fear of being vulnerable again, this didn’t stop me from developing one crush after another on men that happened to enter the orbit of my life. Although many of my crushes were one-sided, I did some dating during this time. I even turned the tables and asked a couple of guys out instead of waiting for them to ask me, proud of my feminist bona fides. One of these guys had forgotten who I was but upon being reminded, rallied enough to say he’d meet me somewhere. He never showed. Ouch. “I am woman, hear me roar!” I was one part hopeful, one part fearful and one part bitterful (okay, that’s not a word, but it should be!). Not a great combination for relationship building. But on the plus side, I wrote scads of poems and songs about the breakup and unrequited love – I really think I could have given Adele a run for her money.
The only thoughts I had about any sort of god in those days was the unobtrusive god of the aforementioned Serenity Prayer. I wrote out the SP several times in my journal, but it wasn’t a prayer so much as it was a mantra to help me calm and center myself. I wasn’t thinking about the God of the Bible – heaven forbid! Anything but that! In fact, Sara and I had gone to an Overeater’s Victorious meeting together once after my break-up with SD. This was basically Overeater’s Anonymous except with Jesus added back in. Both of us stayed studiously quiet during the meeting, uncomfortable with the religiosity of it all. To our horror, when it was time for the meeting to adjourn, they couldn’t adjourn it like normal people – oh, no, we had to stand in a circle and join hands while someone prayed. And this was no ordinary prayer, either. It was a full-fledged charismatic prayer accompanied by the sounds of everyone in the circle (except us) saying over and over, “Jesus, Jesus! Yes, Jesus!” To our ears, it sounded like a lot of hissing. As soon as the hissing was done and the final amen pronounced, we bolted out of there like we’d just escaped from prison. Safe in the car, we talked about how odd and awful and uncomfortable it was. We agreed that while it was okay to believe in a god of some sort, this Jesus stuff was taking it all a bit too far.
Meanwhile, back at the insurance company, I was eating a tuna fish sandwich one day for lunch and decided to go back to college to become a dietitian. I was interested in food and interested in eating disorders – seemed like a perfect match. I started up the next fall and on the surface it appeared that I was well past Recovery and sailing boldly on the good ship Victory, but I continued to vacillate wildly in my emotions.
“I’m so depressed.” “I’m a survivor!”
“No one will ever love me.” “Who cares as long as I love myself!”
“Life is too hard.” “I will learn to face life’s challenges one by one!!”
“I have no self-confidence.” “You can do whatever you set your mind on!”
And so on. At least I had myself – but which self was that? No matter, I was getting good at using pop psychology to prop myself up whenever things took a downward turn. In the midst of all of this, a small pebble dropped almost unnoticed into the continuously roiling waters of my life. I received a letter from my friend Sara saying that she was growing closer to God and learning to understand about Jesus Christ. I believe she even made an appeal for me to do the same. Oh, Sara, you traitor! I was repulsed by the whole thing, but wrote in my journal, “I wonder if I am missing something?” That small pebble quietly and efficiently began making ever widening concentric circles of which I was hardly aware. The Holy Spirit was working in stealth mode.
After a beautiful night’s sleep at Camden State Park, we had our luxury breakfast of homemade sausage egg sandwiches,
packed up and drove over to Upper Sioux Agency State Park, which has a very interesting history. Before it became a state park, this was the Upper Sioux (or Yellow Medicine) Agency, established in 1854, one of the many American Indian agencies that existed to implement U.S. government Indian policies. Basically, this meant that the government wished for the native peoples to assimilate into our culture, learning our language and becoming farmers, rather than their current way of subsistence. In 1862, the Dakota people, 4000 of them, gathered at the agency, angry over unfair treaties and food shortages. When short-term provisions were given, it seemed that the conflict was over, but it soon boiled over into the six-week U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, during which time most of the Agency buildings on site were looted and burned. Here we were, almost exactly 160 years later, walking those war-torn areas, all the witnesses long gone, all the signs of battle and bloodshed covered over, but the memories were lurking where signs were posted.
The park seemed deserted when we got there around 9:30 a.m. The only public building for the park was closed and the only map available outside was wholly inadequate. We were going to have to rely on the signs along the route, in addition to the Avenza app map that Kris had on his phone. We didn’t see a sign for the beginning of the Hiking Club trail, but we found the path and set out on the 4.3 mile hike. It was mostly sunny, but still early in the morning – the temperature was a tolerable 72 degrees with a pleasant breeze blowing. Ah, this is more like it! I had my knee huggers on and started out with a confident, speedy stride, motivated by the knowledge that the temperature was rising.
There were some beautiful vistas at the beginning of the hike. We knew we were along the top of the Yellow Medicine River Valley and would eventually be making our way over to the Minnesota River Valley, but we weren’t sure how much (if any) of either river we would see. I heard the sound of cows in the distance and crossed the road to see if I could spot the culprits, but they were out of sight. So much for seeing native fauna.
There be cows behind those trees!
We noticed right away that there were lots of little frogs hopping out of our way as we went along the wide path. Lots. There were so many that I estimated I could say there were hundreds of them, but I checked with my Exaggeration Detector, Kris, just to make sure. He assured me that saying there were hundreds was not an exaggeration. It seemed odd that there were so many of them right in the middle of that path – why weren’t they hanging out in the brush on either side? Kris postulated that this might be the time of the year when the West-side-of-the-Path Frogs and the East-side-of-the-Path Frogs met in the middle for courting. I find that to be a credible explanation. Furthermore, you can imagine the Froggie Dating Game that must result. I present three Bachelor Frogs and ask you, if you were a single Frog maiden, which would you choose? This is how we amuse ourselves on the trail.
I had decided that today I would take NO photos of the flowers that we’d just seen the day before at Camden State Park, but would reserve my camera for new types of flora. It was a severe challenge and I’d say I was about 80% successful. Sometimes I just gave in to the allure of all that wild beauty, even if I’d seen some of it already. I’m assuming you will not judge me for my photographic excesses.
But I also found an exquisite dragonfly that sat for a very long time on the edge of a twig. Those critters hardly ever sit still, so I was pleased with its patience and composure. I think it looks just like the first airplane made by Orville and Wilbur Wright. Or perhaps I should say that their airplane borrowed on God’s design – that’s more accurate.
There were plenty of monarch butterflies flitting about, but they just wouldn’t stay put. I made many attempts, but only got one photo and by golly, you are going to look at it and appreciate the effort, even if it’s not fit for National Geographic (or even Local Geographic) Magazine.
Also, I experimented with the Silhouette feature on my camera. Can you blame me?
We saw evidence that horses had been on the trails. I did not take photos of said evidence. You’re welcome. Every time Kris saw these little piles, he’d comment that there was a road apple tree overhead dropping its fruit. I’m very fond of this man and his sense of humor.
The Hiking Club trail description said to “Look for red-tailed hawks gliding along with the air currents above the valley.” I was definitely on the lookout, so when I saw a bird way up high, soaring on those air currents, I called out to Kris, “Look! A red-tailed hawk!” I felt quite smart about being able to identify this bird, even though I had absolutely not previous experience in red-tailed-hawk identification. Was it one? You decide!
We moved through the paths quickly and for once, I was ahead of my husband for much of the time, driven by the knowledge that the hotter it got, the slower I’d go. And lo, it came to pass. Eventually, the heat and humidity caught up with me and we (me and my knee huggers) began to lag a bit. The cicadas had started their buzz-saw music. Ah, cicadas – the sound of summer leaving. When you hear them, you know Fall is waiting in the wings. By this time, we’d seen so many frogs, that I asked permission of the Exaggeration Detector to upgrade to the description of thousands of frogs. Permission was granted.
We continued on and finally came to a sign with a map. Uh oh – we recognized this map. We’d seen it early on in the hike and were not supposed to be seeing it again. Somehow we had missed a turn. We turned around and went back up the trail to see if we could figure out where we’d gone wrong. At this point I began to resent every extra step, but that’s just me. I get crabby when I’m hot and tired. We came back to a fork in the path and even though we still weren’t sure where we were (even the Avenza map failed us), we realized we were right by Employee Duplex No. 1, which we’d seen earlier from the other side at a distance. It boasts of being one of the earliest duplexes built in Minnesota, originally erected in 1859-60. Unfortunately, the original building was burned during the previously mentioned War of 1862. Someone bought the building in 1866 and rebuilt it for his family. In 1974 it was reconstructed to its original appearance by the Minnesota Historical Society and here it stands. It’s an attractive brick building – I wonder what it’s used for now. Probably some bureaucratic silliness. I cozied up to the windows and tried to get a photo of the inside with my phone camera. Fail.
From this point, we had no way of knowing where to go to get back to our car. We’ve been watching the series “LOST,” so the ominous music was playing in my mind as we tried to get our bearings. If Kris is Jack from the series (and of course he is), then I would be Hurley. But that’s another fanciful departure from reality. We decided to walk down the road, rather than trying to find the continuation of the actual hiking trail and voila, the picnic area and parking lot appeared before too long. We hadn’t parked in that lot, but we knew where we were from there. With a little more meandering we came to our cheerful little blue car and called it a day. It took us about an hour and 45 minutes to do the hike.
Knee score: 6. Longer hike with some ups and downs. Parks/Miles: 44 out of 68 parks – 131 out of 197 miles.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless the frogs get to me first.
We are somewhat surprised to find that this late into 2022, we’ve only done one hike. In past years, we’ve usually had 5-6 hikes tallied up by late August. With all our travels and a wedding in June out West, hiking hasn’t been on our minds. But recently my good husband spent some time working out an ambitious schedule to get us back on track (as it were) and here we are at Camden State Park, the first of 12 hikes to finish out the year.
At this point, all of our hikes are at state parks quite a distance away, so we’ll be doing a bit of camping on each trip. When we got to Camden, we decided to check out the campsites and get set up before embarking on the actual hike. Camden boasts of two separate campgrounds, the upper and lower. The park ranger explained to us that the upper campground sites were a little more private and there was a tiny bit of cell coverage there. The lower campground sites were well situated next to the river (where Kris had been hoping to do some trout fishing), but there was no cell coverage whatsoever. After cruising through both campgrounds and weighing the benefits and disadvantages of each, we settled on a homey site at the upper campground. By the time we had our tent and the screen tent set up, our stomachs were talking to us about the need for food, so we answered the call and had lunch. Even though it was 80 degrees out, it was shady in the screen tent with lovely breezes wafting through – pretty much ideal. It seemed likely that our hike would be quite pleasant. What a cock-eyed optimist I was!
The Hiking Club trail started out by the beach. We discovered that the swimming area was created by controlling the flow of water from the river on both sides, thus swelling into a beautiful little pool in the middle. Next time we’ll bring our swimsuits.
For those of you who have knee issues like I do, you’ll be interested to know that I left the hiking poles in the car for this hike, having purchased knee squeezers (can’t remember the name of them – basically pressure socks for the knees). I’ll give a review of their performance at the end.
The first part of the trail was a woodsy path that meandered alongside Indian Creek.. Other than the heavy humidity, it was a nice shady path.. The music of water running always makes for a light-hearted ramble. We hadn’t started the hike until 3:20 p.m., so we knew we weren’t hiking at the best part of the day, but it was a relatively short hike. I got my camera out and started photographing the usual suspects.
Before long, the trail took us out of the woods and out onto a prairie, very typical of state parks in this area. The map showed us that this part of the trail would be 1.3 miles and I noted that the shape of it looked like a horse head. That’s all I needed to rename it “Horsehead Trail.”
We were out in the sun now on a wide well-mown grass path which curved around and wound up and down. I tried not to think about my own discomfort in the heat. I wondered how all this hiking would have gone when I was in my 20’s. I’d like to think I was in better shape – certainly my knees were – but the reality is that I’ve never been a very sporty or athletic person. If I ever publish all my posts about our hikes, it will have to be titled “A Wimp’s Guide to Minnesota’s State Park Hiking Club Trails.” Catchy, no? Let me know what your blurb will say if I ask you to contribute one for the dust jacket.
Continuing to take photos here and there, I also entertained myself with thoughts about setting a D&D campaign in the state parks. To back up on that thought, I have written on my blog about grieving over the loss of my sister’s D&D journal, written in the person of her character, Druella the elf. My brother-in-law went above and beyond and found another copy deep in the bowels of his basement, so it is now in my grubby little hands. I’ve started reading it and so far all the action is in places where you go from one room to another finding things and encountering danger. The state parks would make a wonderful environment for a D&D! “The characters enter Camden State Park and navigate their way to the start of the trail. They are immediately attacked by a horde of whiny insects that seem innocuous until it becomes clear that they are bloodsuckers.” By the way, this wasn’t true in the case of our experience at the park – just taking artistic license to create some drama. The musical theme could be a hymn that we know entitled “I Walk In Danger All The Way” and there could be symbolism of spiritual battle throughout the game. You heard it here first.
As it was, I began longing for those wonderful breezes of before, apparently on vacation. I imagined them sipping iced tea in our screen tent, laughing and having an all-around great time while we slogged our way through the prairie heat. Eventually we had rounded the horse’s nose, traversed its ears and were making our way down the mane. I had been hearing blue jays and looked in vain for one – such beautiful birds with their calls that sound like a pump handle going up and down. It’s the definitive sound of the woods for me. One of their number took pity on me and dropped a feather where I could see it near the end of the trail.
We finished the 2.4 mile hike at 4:30.
The pool looked awfully inviting, but we weren’t equipped for a swim, so we went back to the car to do the next best thing: cool off by the artificial breezes of the AC in our car. I did some research later and found out that Willis Carrier invented air conditioning in 1902. Has he been properly lauded for this?
Thank God for Willis Carrier Who made our lives much merrier. He packaged cold air in a box – Better than gold in old Fort Knox. Next time you turn on your AC Thank God for brilliant Willis C.
As we drove back to our campsite, we had the pleasure of seeing a deer by the side of the road. It must have been a youngling, for instead of running away, it stared at us and let me take a photo before melting into the woods.
Knee score: 5 out of 10. Short hike but with some hilly parts equivalent to 10 flights of stairs (so says my phone and I believe it).
Knee Squeezer performance: excellent! What a difference it made to wear these! Perhaps I should call them Knee Huggers, which has a much more benevolent ring to it.
This post will probably melt into the woods in the morning.
Three years ago, my husband and I got a sundome tent. It has a screen at the top instead of the usual tent covering. It comes with a fly to put over the whole tent to keep out rain, etc. The first time we used it was on our way out to our daughter’s wedding that year in May. That first night was brutal – the temperature got down to about 34 degrees and suddenly the whole concept of a tent with a screen at the top seemed foolish. Of course we used the fly, but that didn’t help much. We’ve used the tent about a half dozen times since then, but have never fully taken advantage of the dome…until our last camping trip. Gather around the campfire and I’ll tell you about the trains, the cicadas, the frogs and the stars.
Our tent site was private and on the edge of a drop-off into a verdant valley, but surrounded by trees. We were sitting in the screen tent reading in the afternoon enjoying the light breeze and hearing the cicadas singing the songs of their people. In the midst of this we heard a train approaching – loud, gloriously loud! It filled all the trees with its noise and the sound was so close I would not have been surprised to see the train burst through the trees and come through our campsite, tracks or no. It went invisibly past us, although eventually I spied a break in the trees across the narrow valley where I could see the cars in that ghost train swiftly clacking by. It happened again early in the evening and I wondered why the sound of it filled me with such a thrill. When the sound died away, it was as if the whole forest had been holding its breath. After a pause, the cicadas, birds and squirrels renewed their woodland chorus, the wind was shushing through the leaves as if the train had never come through. But there – that’s my imagination talking.
We had a campfire that night and when the last of the firewood was burning down, we looked up and saw that the clouds had cleared away and the stars were out, visible in a way that you can’t often see in the city. We decided to sleep under the stars in our tent, leaving the fly off so we could look at the sky through the screened dome. There was a canopy of tree branches overhead, but I could still see the stars here and there. It was one of those “close to nature/close to God” moments. Two stars in particular twinkled down at me like friendly eyes. I lay awake as long as I could, reveling in the experience, enjoying God’s “playlist” for the evening as well – a steady rhythmic percussion of frogs and crickets, unbelievably in sync with each other. How do the cicadas, birds and squirrels know when to quit their parts and the frogs and crickets know when to begin theirs? It is a mystery known only to the heavenly Choir Director.
Twice in the night a train went by and both times I woke up joyful and thankful to hear it. The sleeping temperature was perfect. I can’t remember when I’ve had a more pleasant night sleeping in a tent.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
Oh, I’m not sure about deleting posts in the morning anymore – I’ll have to think about it while peering through the blog dome.
Lynniebeemuseoday 