Part 2 of Our Final MN State Parks

My first post was about our first 2 days "up north." On our 3rd day, we were planning on hitting our last state parks in MN. And then have a little fun on our 4th (partial) day up north.

DAY 3: I woke up early to get in a run. I was going to head out of Grand Marais on a trail. Unfortunately, it got dark REALLY quick after leaving town. Here was a shot with my cell phone with its longest possible 3 sec exposure with the moon in the sky:

Screenshot from a video I took while running.
NO JOKE, but this is EXACTLY how much I could see out there.

I turned around when the trail veered off into the trees away from the highway as I was leery of bears or wolves. I tacked on some miles wandering around back in town. My wife went for a run after I got back when it was light, and she made it to the little foot bridge and mini waterfall that I WANTED to get to:

The waterfall from the path.


The cute bridge shot by my wife. (THAT I NEVER GOT TO SEE.) ;)


Back to early morning, here's what the motel looked like when I finished my run. The
5 rooms are under the lights to the right, and the harbor is straight ahead 1.5 blocks.


Donuts to start the day again!


Downtown Grand Marais.

On to our 3rd-to-last state park: Temperance River State Park. I have a LOT OF PHOTOS from this State Park, as it ended up being one of our favorites EVER.

Charlie had his newly whittled magic wand in his back pocket, and he was ready to go:

Where river meets lake.


My family down there.




Always throwing rocks!








On the foot bridge.




The view from Hwy 61 looking back to where we just were.


Following the river through the cliffs upstream.






Up quite high!


This hike along the river (and the views it showed us) ended up being one of my top 5 hikes in MN!


Inching close to the edge with Charlie...


... to get this shot.


The boys really wondered what was in that hole, so I climbed down to check it out for them.


Watching me down below.


Me taking photos down there while trying not to slip in.








Look at the people on the left to get a sense of how tall these cliffs were!


Back on the trail. (The blue marks mean we're on the main Superior
Hiking Trail, whereas white marks mean we're on spur trail.)










Lounging by the river.




Planning our very unsafe route out onto the rocks.


Farther upstream, we threw some more rocks, and then turned around and headed back.

We quite loved that park. On the hike back, my wife and I were talking about how it's one of our top MN State Parks. It MAY now be my favorite. That's a beautiful hike with some amazing landscape.

Then we hit the road for a more "inland" state park: George Crosby Manitou. We were ready for this to be the biggest "dud" of this trip. While we were probably right (as it was the most unimpressive of our trip), we're talking about a "dud" only because it's compared to some of the most beautiful parks in the state. NOT A DUD on it's own.

We were about to hike around Benson Lake.


A buddy on the boardwalk.


The majority of the trail along the lake was boardwalk.




We ventured off the main trail a few times to explore
"hike in" campsites for Superior Hiking Trail campers.








Beautiful in the fall!




Looking for critters.


At another "hike in" site. There were OLD outhouses in the woods behind my wife.


Selfies by the lake before we left.

The boys zonked out in the car pretty quick on the way to our LAST STATE PARK IN MINNESOTA! We were headed for Tettegouche State Park. The boys and I had stopped at Palisade Head (which is part of Tettegouche) back in March, but we never stopped in to the visitor's center to get the official stamp in their passport books. We pulled into a parking spot at Palisade Head, and the backseat looked like this:

Wide angle shot of the 300' cliff!


Selfie with my cutie.


Henry woke up, so we got a selfie with him.

We drove a mile down the road to the visitor's center, and the boys GOT THEIR FINAL STAMPS IN THEIR MINNESOTA STATE PARK'S PASSPORT BOOKS!!!!

Then we did a little hiking!


There's a lot of beauty in Tettegouche!


I like my film shot of this better than this shot.




Love this! :)


There's Palisade Head cliff off in the distance.




Love these views.


Henry loves this photo as he appears to be "floating" as he hops down the stairs.


Joy!


We worked our way down to the lake shore.




Palisade Head in the distance.

We planned a celebration for our final state park, so we found a fire ring at a group camp site and got ready to make some s'mores. We've made a few boxes of fire starters over the years by filling toilet paper rolls (cut in half) with shredded paper and then dumping left-over melted candle wax over the top. We made this box a long time ago, but the wax was so scented and nasty that we had to stop packing it in our camping stuff. So we brought the box of fire starters on this trip so we could burn them ALL AT ONCE and be done with the stinky ones:

12 fire starters will SURELY get the fire going quickly! ;)


Charlie casting a spell to light the fire (as Henry *actually* lights the fire).


Marshmallows on sticks.


S'mores fixings!






A campfire selfie.


The boys with their FULL passport books!!

Those s'mores were basically supper. #ParentingWin. We drove back to Grand Marais in the dark, stopping once to look at the stars along Lake Superior. Then it was bedtime.

DAY 4: We packed up the car and stopped for donuts. It was the LAST DAY they were open for the season, and we started our last 3 days in Grand Marais with their donuts:

Henry has some sort of mini donut kabob.


I had a skizzle the last 2 days! So good! (And sugary!)

We had 2 more stops to make on the way home. First was Sugarloaf Cove which was one of my boys's favorite stops when we were up there in March. I didn't take many photos this time - we just ran and played.

Off near the point of the cove.


Tired mountain climbers.


Mama at the point.


Charlie heading through the trees on the way back.


Charlie with his pose again.

Our final stop on the way home was one of my top 10 MN State Parks: Jay Cooke. The same family that we met to ski with back in March just because they happened to be up north at the same time as us (who's daughter is a classmate of Charlie's) was also camping up north during this trip of ours! So we met them at Jay Cooke and showed them the steep little hike that we like down to the river.

Heading down to the river.


A selfie with the 7 of us!


K says it looks like her hubby pushed her! Ha! But it's just REALLY steep here.

The COOLEST part of this hike (that we've done 3 times in the past) is that because of the drought, the river was low and we could REALLY go explore on rocks that we've never been able to get to before! So us boys (and Charlie's classmate) climbed around for an hour as the 2 moms sat and chatted:

Charlie climbing up to meet his classmate and her dad!


A close-up once Charlie got up there!


Henry joining the party.


Climbing on rocks smoothed by water over the years, but not currently under water.


Dead crayfish.


Really cool rocks!


Climbing and climbing!

I posted these 2 sets of selfies on Instagram saying "Selfies from our first 2 and our last 2 state park stamps. July 2017 and Oct 2021:"

First and last parks: Banning and Tettegouche.


Second and second-to-last parks: Mille Lacs Kathio and George Crosby Manitou.

I shared a 68 second highlight video of our trip a few weeks ago (which came together well and I'm pretty proud of), but here's 16 MINUTES of video chronologically from every state park we stopped at last month. This won't be too thrilling for you, but it's full of good memories for my family. My wife loves watching Charlie bound over rocks starting around the 11:15 mark followed by her reaction of that (it makes her so nervous!):


Direct link: youtu.be/cFzTILydwP0

We don't know what to do now! There's a "hiking club" passport book where you have to do the main hike in every state park, but I don't know that I like that idea (you have to keep an eye out on those hikes for a secret word, and I tried it once and was too preoccupied with making sure I didn't miss the word that I didn't enjoy the hike as much). Maybe we'll get another set of passports and just start over. No plans as of right now! The boys are just waiting for their plaque in the mail that acknowledges that they've been to every MN State Park!

Related links:
- "Part one" of this trip.
- Film photos from my old Holga camera from this trip.
- A short highlight video from these final 7 state parks.
- And here are the 2 posts from my trip to Grand Marais with the boys in March: part 1 and part 2.