When we left Pipestone National Monument it was still pretty early in the day so we decided, since it wasn't terribly out of the way that we would hit Lake Shetek State Park on the way home. This is a part that we didn't get to spend a lot of time at when we did the Avian Adventure because it was on our way back to LeSueur to join my family for the Giant days parade. However, this was on the list of places that we wanted to go back and see again. When we got to the park it was around 3 pm and pretty quiet. The ranger station was closed and one funny thing was that they were all out of stamps for the State Park Passport program and instead they had an envelope full of pre-stamped pieces of paper (never saw that before). We decided that since we were there and we had time to complete the Call of the Wildflower Geocache.
The first set of coordinates brought us pretty deep into the park. I have to tell you the sky was amazing. It was such a beautiful contrast in colors from the prairie, which is just starting to get a little green.
We quickly found the first location and started our hike to the second set of coordinates across a trail on the prairie.
The was nice and because it was so early in the season we didn't see many bugs or people. As far as geocaches rank, the difficulty on this one was pretty low. For an experience geocacher, such as the member of the FiedlerFamily team, it was kind of a cake walk (except for one tricky part) and we could see them as we walked down the trail. When we saw the overlook- we knew it was there.
It just took us a little bit of time to find it under the stairs- Marcus LOVED the overlook. He ran up and down the stair stairs and was so excited.
The view from the overlook was amazing.
We finished this stage and started hiking to the next one.
This is when we had a problem. Traveling with a 3 year adds some very different challenges and this was one of them. Marcus needed to go back to the car for a bit. So Luke went on ahead while we ran back to change clothes. I love all of the pictures that he got of Sandy when Marcus and I were off on our little side adventure.
Remember what I said about this geocache series..... when we saw this birdhouse, near the coordinates the first thought was, it has to be there.
But when we looked we couldn't see it. The bird house was nailed shut, and there was no way to open it. When I looked in the window however we found the next clue.
By this time Marcus and I were back with Luke and he was really starting to show the signs of a long day and no nap. His hiking now consisted of a lot more sitting, crawling, and being carried by Mommy or Daddy.
On the positive we didn't have to go far. Once again the final find was pretty obvious to us. We saw the bench and said, "it has to be there" and it was.
We got our new card, for Sneezeweed and headed back to the car- although we had to stop and climb the tower a few more times on the way back.
I still feel like we have not touched this park and we need to go back again. There is also a train museum right near the entrance to visit. I think the next time we head down we should take the time to camp and spend the night.
It was pretty amazing that even after this long day, including two hikes, Marcus had so much energy left. He colored the entire way home.
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