Sunday, August 21, 2011

The Great Outdoors

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the woods the ex-pat's and their kids choose to experience Interstate State Park, s scenic and quaint campground between Taylor's Fall and St. Croix on the Minnesota and Wisconsin borders.











4 adults and eight children descended on this quiet camp for only two nights on communing with nature and extended play dates for the kids, the objective to wear the kids out and give them a summer experience every child should share. The Thorne's, Larrie, Jess and their new dog Rex, the Miller's Wade, Cayden and Wyatt, the Heihn's, Alex, Preton and Ellise along with the Loudamericans less two (Tracy and Nikki), met Wednesday afternoon set up camp and the fun began.



The kids had a blast wondering around the campground, finding and fighting over sticks, playing baseball, dodge ball and killing mosquito's at will. The bugs were a bit aggressive. That evening the kids chowed on hot dogs, corn on the cob and sugar laced drinks. the adults on the other hand created an awesome salmon feast over the wood fire, it was inspiring. the kids were having so much fun the ranger only had to come three times to tell them to quiet down. State Parks have a couple of their rules backwards one being no alcohol is allowed, which we all know means ,do not get caught, however if they really wanted to enforce quiet hours from 10:00 Pm- 8:00 AM they would ban any sugar based children's refreshments.
Thursday was spent across the boarder in Wisconsin swimming in the swimming hole, Minnesota bans swimming because of veracious whirlpools, drop offs and man eating mosquitoes. We packed a picnic lunch, fishing polls, as boundary waters are fair game, swim toys and such and spent the whole day there. The fishing was tough, but we managed a blue gill, a fish landed is a fish landed, so we did not get skunked.



Thursday night was a bit more subdued we had KFC, smore's and a camp fire with lights out at 9:30. We packed up Friday morning and managed to hit the road back home. the group as usual got along great and we have planned a fall camping trip......