Lake Shetek State Park- Call of the Wildflower

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.

Pipestone National Monument

In 2014 when we completed the MN State Park Avian Adventure Geocache, we drove over 8000 miles across Minnesota.  We crossed the state in a lot of different ways during that adventure but we did managed to leave a few stones unturned and some places unseen, primarily because in order to hit all of the parks we didn't have the luxury of too many side trips. Luke used a map and tracked everywhere we went and we realized that we visited almost every county in the state.  I am going to leave part of this open because their may be one additional county we have to visit but we knew we missed Lincoln county, out in SW MN.  This county is remote and pretty unpopulated- less than 6,000 in the entire county (12 people per sq mile).  Anyway, this past Sunday we made our way to that unvisited county.

We drove down early on Sunday morning (it was about 180 miles) to reach this county.  I didn't take pictures of (Luke did) but you will have trust we made it.  We looked online and their really were not any scenic areas out to see but we didn't drive by the courthouse made of Kasota Limestone. 

 

Once we drove through town we turned our sites towards Pipestone National Monument, which was only about another 25 miles south (the next county down).

 

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Pipestone National Monument Website 

 

I don't remember ever going to pipestone National as a child (that doesn't mean I never went) and it was a wonderful place to visit.   You could really feel spring, everything is ready to bloom!  Marcus and Sandy dog were so ready to be out of the car after the long drive.  We walked in to check out the visitor center and we were very happy to learn that it was National Parks week and therefore FREE.  That seemed pretty lucky to us!  After talking to the ranger for a while we learned a bit of the history (really interesting, check out the website), we went back to the car and grabbed Sandy.  We all sat down and had a little lunch and then we were off t hike.

 Here are a few pictures from our hike.  This place was amazing, so beautiful.  We will need to go back in summer, although I can't imagine it looking much prettier.

 

There are two main trails, we took the one that went by the falls.

 

The rocks are really colorful, the pictures don't do them justice.

In the picture below I am pointing out the colors in the rock.



Marcus and Sandy were quite a handful while hiking.  A lot of the time Luke had one and I had the other.  Especially when we were at the top of the rocks.

This is Winnewissa Falls

 

A little bit of history about Nicollet

One of the funny thing things that happened on this trip is Marcus learned how to pose for pictures.  He really wanted Luke to take this picture and was posing for it.

Final comment, if you haven't been to this park I recommend it, it was worth the drive!