Adventures with Marcus: Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area

Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area

Our final geocache of the day was the start of an interesting part of the trip. After we left Father Hennepin we drove around the east side of Mille Lacs Lake. (When we are done with this entire project it will be interesting to look at a map and see all of the roads we have been on and all of the cities we have been through.) The downside of powering through this is that we don't have a lot of time to explore any of these parks as much as we could – however it does give us a good idea we want to visit in the future.

Anyway, Marcus was not very happy during this part of the ride. He started crying just outside of Aitkin – loudly – to the point where we heard him get sick. Luke instantly pulled over on the side of the road (only 6 miles out from our final location) and we jumped out of the car and pulled him out of the car. I am sure it looked quite comical. I sat in the ditch and held Marcus and calmed him down. I started by taking off his pukey clothes and just cuddling him on the side of the road. Luke took care of everything else; he cleaned the car seat, took care of the clothes, and rearranged the car so I could sit in the back seat with Marcus. This is definitely not the best part of being a parent, but the hugs from him and the trust that Marcus shows in us is.

After this event was over, we were back in the car and on the road again. It didn't take very long before Marcus passed out (didn't even take the last 6 miles!).

This means that one of us needed to stay in the car while the other person got out and did the hike. Fortunately it was a recreation area and we could almost just drive to where the geocache location was.

Cuyuna Country was really interesting. It is actually an bunch of old abandoned pit mines that have since naturally filled with water. Here is the information from the website.

"Abandoned by mining companies more than 30 years ago, this area of former mining pits and rock deposit stockpiles now boasts regenerated vegetation and clear lakes that draw a wide range of recreation enthusiasts. Twenty-five miles of natural shoreline can be explored by boat or canoe and anglers can cast a line for trout, northern, bass, crappie, or sunfish."

One of the interesting things about this park is that the rangers office is actually located in the middle of the city of Ironton, MN. The actual "park" consists of several different lakes and they are all around the town of Ironton. Luke jumped out of the car and found the first set of clues in town at the rangers office.

We got here a bit later, so the ranger station was closed. The next location was actually 3.5 miles out of town, so Luke jumped back in the car and off we went.

Marcus, Sandy, and I watching from the car across the street from the ranger station.

View of the road as we drove to the next site.

This park is HUGE – the second cache was located in the Cuyuna section. Below is a picture of the maps showing each of these areas. All of these were a separate open pit mine. This really fascinates me, partially because my Grandpa Johnson worked in these types of facilities in his youth. To see them covered with water today is pretty amazing; one of them, Portsmouth Mine Pit Lake, is now actually Minnesota's deepest lake at over 450 feet (with the exception of Lake Superior inside Minnesota's boundaries, of course).

All of the lines on these maps represent mountain bike trails – so, if you are into that, this is a great park.

We got to the second parking lot. Luke got out, and I stayed in the car with "the boys" (Sandy and Marcus). I could not complain about the view.

The view FROM the car.

The view OF the car.

I didn't actually go to the cache, but I could see Luke from the car. It took a few moments, but he dug around and found the cache buried in a large pile of wood.

One funny thing – the next day when we were geocaching we spoke to some people who did the exact same caches we did on the same day. They were actually just a few hours behind us. They were impressed with how Luke buried the ammo box when he was done!

Here are some final views of the lake.