Our first stop was a small town in north central Minnesota called Walker. It was a pretty town with a very nice little downtown area that included a few quaint shops and general stores and such. Our campground was just a couple miles north of town. What was really strange is the the campground was very "ghost town" like. The camping season had come to an end and even the park manager had left. There were only about 3 occupied spots at any given time throughout our stay. There were more geocaches than people...so we took advantage!
From Walker it was just a hop, skip and a jump over to Itasca. This was supposed to be our starting point of our Mississippi River adventure, since Itasca is where the Mississippi begins. We had seen pictures and heard that we could walk across it...but I don't think it was exactly what we had pictured, it was only about 18" deep and maybe 30' or so across. It certainly looked more like a creek than a river..that's for sure.
After spending a week in Walker, we headed south to Minneapolis for two weeks. We stayed at a great campground called Dakotah Meadows that was built alongside the Mystic River casino. We were able to check out a handful of museums and historical sites like Minnehaha Falls and The Landing on the Minnesota River.
Minnehaha Falls is a great green space right in the middle of this city. It was pretty cool to hike all over and we ended up renting a surrey (4 person bike) and biking around for a while. Those bikes aren't nearly as easy as they look, especially when 1 of your party can't even reach the pedals... Live and learn!
The Landing was an interesting place. They had a timeline of restored buildings from a fur trading post from the early 1800s, to working farms from the mid 1800s, to an entire town recreated from the late 1800s. Our guides were great and really taught a lot about the times in a very personal and engaging way. They even let the kids bounce in the hay they had grown and harvested on site! I'd highly recommend a visit if you are in the area.
We also had a chance to grab dinner with a band of my co-workers at a local place. It was a great choice and we had a ton of great food and awesome conversation.
Of course we were also able to swing into Mall of America for Steph to get her ears pierced. I'm not much of a mall guy (I know you are shocked) but it is definitely a cool place to check out. We spent an afternoon at the amusement park in the middle...the kids said the rides were great and they had a ton of fun!
Overall it was a great town, albeit a busy one. I'd highly recommend a visit, but don't wait too late in the year...we were really pushing it in the final week of October, but we made it out without getting frozen!
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