Scenic State Park

Scenic State Park

—Big Fork, MN—

When we left Hill-Annex Mine State Park we knew it was not a long drive to Scenic.  We had not realized how pretty of a drive it would be.  This part of the state truly is the Iron Range and Deep Woods.  When I look around it just makes me think of my grandparents and the many years they lived in this part of the state.  We took a small scenic road (literally called Scenic Road) and it was worth the drive.

We stopped by ranger station briefly, but the first location was farther back in the park.  

Location #  1

Once we drove back towards the campgrounds we found the first location – easily posted on the kiosk.  The signs were different than normal – the ranger added information about the bird that we would be finding on the card which we thought was pretty cool.  We took the card's advice and drove to the next stop.

In was at a place where I did not expect it.  The second location was right back at the rangers station – that was a move we had not seen before!

The sign and coordinates directed us toward a path that followed along the roadside.  So we headed out in that direction...

Luke went on ahead, and Marcus and I lagged behind.  The path was about 0.4 miles and was really cute.  At one point we hit a hill going down.  Marcus is really independent (especially now) and usually tells us if he wants to walk, or be carried, or sometimes he just doesn't want to move at all and will squat down to start picking up rocks or things he finds on the ground.  The trail was kind of bumpy and steep, but Marcus refused any help with an adamant "NO!"... until he started walking down the path... it quickly became "UP!"...

At the bottom of the hill there was a boardwalk that went through the wetland.  Marcus really enjoyed walking over it.  If you look in his right hand you can see that he was still carrying the puzzle he got out of the last ammo box.  

And we finally made it to our destination, but the ranger did something different here, too.  They actually had a sign announcing that the final spot was near, and we just needed to look for it – no coordinates to guide us to it!

It didn't take Marcus long to find it hidden in a tree nearby.

This was a fun geocache – the clues taught us a bit about the olive-sided flycatcher, and we got our bird card.  This park is somewhere we want to visit again, if only because it reminds me of my childhood.

One other really exciting thing about this park is that it means we are over halfway done!  This was park number 42 of 81!  That is pretty exciting!