And we start again- The Wildflower Geocache Series

So I have to admit that I have a problem.  It is actually a bit of an addiction it turns out.  We had not intended on doing any of the newest Minnesota State Park DNR geocaches (ok well maybe just one) but we kicked it off in May (as I said the other day, I am a bit behind in blogging).

We had a really fun Sunday were we decided to go and just spend a day checking out some things-  We actually started the day at a really neat park in St. Paul called Indian Mound Park in St. Paul.

Indian Mound Park Link

 I hadn't even heard of it before- turns out it a pretty cool park where there are still 10 Mounds from the Native Americans.  The park is huge and overlooks the Mississippi River valley.  We spent about an hour hiking, checking out the view, and playing on the playground (it looked brand new).  I am going to add a lot text about this but I recommend checking it out!  Here are some pics from our visit.

Mommy and Marcus looking at the river.

You can see a burial mount and a airway beacon here.

After we finished exploring the park we decided to continue our journey and we ended up at Interstate State Park in Taylor's Falls MN.  Since we took all of the sign pictures last time- I decided to skip this one.

Our intention when we got there was to just hike and have a good time. Well maybe we also intended on doing the geocache but we knew we wanted to hike for a bit.  We even started out by finding the hiking club trail and taking that.  We kind of happened upon it but it is also the trail that connect the entire park so it is best trail to take.  Interstate State Park has two entrances and parking lots-  they are not connected by a road int he park- however this trail links them together.  We knew we had to get to the other parking lot if we were going to do the geocache.  We all had a lot of fun hiking.  This trail is actually 1.25 miles long but it is pretty rocky, and hilly.  Marcus even tripped once and was much more careful after that.  We also got to see a LOT of rock climbers-  this is one of the state parks that has some great spots to climb in.  I think that Marcus thought it was pretty neat.

While we were hiking we literally came across the 3rd marker in the geocache and if we wanted to cheat we could have but we continued on to the initial coordinates.

I am not going to add a lot of details here-  you have all seen a geocache blog before!

We found the first spot.

It didn't take long to get to # 2- but this one was super off from the coordinates (over 50 ft) but it was so easy to find it didn't matter.  We already knew where the 3rd stop was.

The good news is that our skill have not gotten soft and we found the cache right away.  The funny thing is that Marcus still calls them "Bock Bock" cards and man was he excited to get one again!

After we completed the geocache it was time to head back through the park to get back to the car.  We opted to cross over the road and take the Railroad trail- on the map it appeared to be 1.5 miles- so about the same distance and we thought it would add variety, and it did.  What we were not expecting was the the hill.  For most of the trail the path ran along an old rail bed (tracks have been long removed) but at one point we could see where the old bridge was out and we started hiking down, and down, and down.  Marcus actually got pooped out and had to be carried.

We finally hit the bottom and of course- what comes down must go up again.

The good news for me is that this time Luke carried Marcus-  it was a TON of stairs.  But at the end it was worth it.  It was a beautiful hike.

We made it back to our car after a lovely day of visiting Interstate State Park.  I actually feel like we have covered most of this part however we still need to take the Riverboat tour so I guess we will have to head back to Taylor's Falls again some day.

Well here is the first card of the Wildflower Series.  As little as I knew about birds I am even worse on Wildflowers so I look forward to learning a few things.

DISCLAIMER-  Although we started this challenge there is not guarantee that we will complete it.  This time around it is more about the parks and seeing things we missed on our last trip through.

One last thing-  No trip to this part of the state would be complete without a visit to Franconia (a really cool free sculpture park.  Marcus loved it- and feel asleep like 5 minutes after we left.