Monson Lake State Park

What is a churchyard?  The same thing as a cemetery behind a church I think.  Well, behind this local churchyard on a dusty country road (as in 100 feet farther) is...

After a jaunt (about 45 miles – but only 16 as the crow flies) we made it to Monson Lake State Park.  This is a small but cute state park in the middle of nowhere.  It had a super cute, old church right next to it.

At this point it was right about 5 PM and we knew we really needed to pick up the pace if we were going to hit our ambitious goal of 5 state parks in one day.  So we now started "speed geocaching"...

Since the first cache is normally a short walk to the next stage, I decided to wait in the car for Luke to find stage one...... but it wasn't that easy...  I am going to rephrase my statement from an earlier post.  This now became our most difficult of the day.  The posted coordinates where there, but it just didn't make any sense.   We looked and looked in the woods behind the rangers office to no avail.  I pulled up the trusty geocaching website and read the logs – we were not the only ones who were stumped by the this first point.

I am not going to give the secret, but this was a tricky ranger!

(a hatless Luke sighting)

So we got the next point and were ready to go. So Marcus and I got out of the car and started walking!

He has this new thing... every time he sees a bird he says, "bock bock" – it is really funny and we saw some birds here!

We found the next stage and were ready to finish this one off!

(Marcus on the move)

(Marcus's mom proudly showing the final geocache)

The funny thing about this geocache is that Marcus got a bit bored and decided to go back to the car with Luke while I went and found the final spot!

Glacial Lakes State Park

Ahh... scenic Glacial Lakes State Park...

"God's country", eh?

We drove across western Minnesota and made it to the next park.  I was not ready for this one and I was stunned by how beautiful it looked.  The entire park had a very South Dakota feel to it – I kept feeling like I would not be surprised if I saw a buffalo or two.

When we arrived we found the ranger station closed.  This was the actual theme for the day as EVERY ranger station was closed.  That make life a bit more difficult because this means we did not have access to rangers or to any bathrooms... which meant changing diapers in the car... which is always a lot of fun... but that is enough detail on that!

We quickly found the directions to the first geocache.  This one was a bit different because the first stop was not at the ranger station.

So we followed the directions to our first stop and found it quickly.

Location #1

Panoramic View – this was amazing and the scenery was endless.  Even in the early spring the rolling hills make the dry grass landscape beautiful.

Off on the horse path

They encourage many modes of transportation at this state park!

Location #2 (back of the sign; not unusual)



Cutest Boy EVER! He LOVES his stroller!

Amazing sky here.

Location #3

Luke finding the final cache just off the horse trail.



"Look!  I got my card!!!"

And we are off to the next location.

We really enjoyed this state park.  It was scenic and beautiful with rolling hills and lots of prairie (and beautiful cirrus clouds in the azure sky).  I would love to go back again and check more of it out.  This geocache was a hike, but it was a LOT of fun.

Big Stone Lake

We finally made it to Big Stone Lake State Park.  Marcus was pretty excited to get out of the car and stretch his legs!

When we got to the ranger's office there was no one there, but we did not let us stop from having fun!

Here is Luke and Marcus balancing on the rocks by the entrance sign near the geocache.

We found our first set of coordinates and moved from there.  I will tell you this was our most challenging cache yet.

Marcus was pretty happy to get out of the car after the long drive and he really like it here!  Here he is discovering you can pull the grass out of the ground and throw it in the air.  He really enjoyed it.

We followed the coordinates and got to the second place.  This got a little tricky.  I went ahead but could not find it – so I went back and got Luke and Marcus.  Then I entertained Marcus while Luke looked – I was not on my usual game today and it didn't take Luke long at all!

Now off to location number 3.

Marcus took a moment to run for the woods... although he liked them so much he just sat down to enjoy.

And we were off to the final location.

"Look, Ma.  I got a bird card!"

Now we are off to the next park!

On the way to Big Stone Lake

Well, we are in Litchfield, MN and we have been on the road for 58 miles – still about 70 miles to go.  So far so good.  Marcus is sleeping, but that took a bit.  We are hopeful he will be out for the rest of the outbound drive.  I am hoping to do a final blog where I actually show the crazy map of where we drove today!

We have big plans for the day to hit between 4 to 5 state parks starting with Big Stone Lake, which is the headwaters of the Minnesota River.

We drove by the headwaters of the Minnesota River in Ortonville, MN.  The water here was clean and not too muddy: not my experience of the Minnesota River.  Guess it picks up the mud later.  Here is the dam where the river leaves Big Stone Lake right by the South Dakota border. 

Also, since we were so close to the border we decided to drive across the South Dakota state line... this makes the 13th state for Marcus!

Here is a video of the trip out!  The quality isn't the best, so you can't really see all the steam rising off the fields from the sun melting the snow.  For a long part of the drive we felt like we were driving through clouds in the western part of Minnesota.

Blueberry muffins continued....

This is now my 4th attempt at muffins and it has been a learning experience so far.  So here is what I have learned......

Wheat flour is hard..... I think that is what is creating a heavy and dense muffin.  I went back and remade muffin number two today with a few changes:

1. Used whole wheat flour
2. Used all of the new fresh ingredients
3. I filled the muffin tin to the top in attempt to get a prettier more full muffin.  This resulted in only getting 10 muffins in this batch instead of 12.
4. I baked them on the lowest rack – I read somewhere last week that baking on the lowest rack can help the muffin rise better.  

Results:

I still really like this recipe but by using 100% whole wheat flour I did not get as much rise in the muffins as I wanted.  The dough was pretty dry and didn't stick together as well as I would have liked – also, the muffins weren't all that pretty.

A view of the muffins

Marcus looking at the muffins and waiting for them to cool down!

You can see they were pretty crumbly!

They were a bit dry and Marcus thought they needed butter.

Getting ready to add his butter!

I have also learned that I am not the only person on this quest.  Although it appears that most people are looking for a more decadent muffin than I am, it is still interesting to share this journey.  My goal is to find a more healthy alternative to store-bought muffin mix and not necessarily the yummiest muffin.

The below link is to Becky Rosenthal's Huffington Post blog.  She is an actual foodie, so I am going to try her recipe in the next few weeks.

Muffins

Makes a dozen muffins

Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups blueberries (I like frozen so they don't bleed when mixed in)

Instructions
Cream together butter, sugar, and salt. Add eggs, vanilla, and milk. Add dry ingredients. Stir in blueberries. Sprinkle with raw sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 min.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/becky-rosenthal/blueberry-muffins-recipe_b_1875713.html

The other thing I looked at this week is the book, "The Science of Good Cooking," by America's Test Kitchen.  If you have never looked at this cookbook, it is awesome and helps breakdown in a scientific manner what happens when cooking (after all, when you are cooking you are actually changing matter, i.e. science is occurring [Luke added this point]), like what is really happening and why/how it happens.  I read the sections with the topics on whole wheat flour and folding versus mixing the dough for muffins and quick breads.  I learned a lot and it changed my future plans.  I am no longer going to add just plain wheat flour – instead I am going to try for a 50/50 mix of wheat and all-purpose flour.  I am hoping that this will make the muffin lighter and rise more easily.  The problem with whole wheat flour is that is contains all three parts of the wheat kernel and the presence of the germ and bran are what make it both more nutritious and more dense, therefore not rising as well.

I can admit that I am not a great cook or baker for that matter.  I just want to be able to make food for my family that is both yummy and good for them.  I will NEVER be the person whose food always looks awesome and I am OK with that.  I will, however, at the end of this be the person with the most tried-and-true blueberry muffin recipe.  The way I figure it, I have a lot of years ahead of me to serve it!