Another MN State Park summer fun day: Afton & Frontenac!

Yesterday, Saturday, was a scorcher. With temps in the mid-nineties, it was no time to be without air conditioning... and guess what? We were/are without air conditioning. Our system blew. So instead of attempting to organize garage sale stuff while 'hoping' the whole fam remained chipper whilst hanging out inside our house at a (cooler than outside but still) 87 degrees, we decided to hit the road.

We packed food and swimsuits and off we went! We decided to check out Afton State Park first since they have a swimming beach. We arrived and learned there would be a bit of a hike down to the swimming area, which was fine, but naturally we had a lot of stuff... plus a stroller. This actually worked in our favor since we ended up throwing everything in the stroller and carrying little G.  It's a good thing to know if you haven't been there, that there is this walk, and if you have anything that you do not want to carry down the stairs, you have to take the bike route to the beach... and this is a bit longer, probably 0.8 miles instead of 0.5 miles (for the hiking/stair route).

Right before we got to the beach itself, we saw the hike-in campground and also a gorgeous picnic area overlooking the St. Croix River. There is a fishing dock here along with a bunch of picnic tables, grills, and a couple of fire rings.

The beach is awesome. It is lined with trees and is mostly shady, the water was perfectly cool, and the kids had a blast. It seemed to get deepish fast, so we just had the girls stay close to the shoreline. If you walk down the beach to where it turns there are also a couple fire rings right on the beach. 

It was apparently supposed to rain so we packed up after a few hours so we didn't get caught in it on the hike back up to the parking lot. We succeeded and then continued to drive across to the Wisconsin side of the river to find a place for a snack or who knew? We drove through Prescott, WI which seemed to have some cute places to eat, but continued on to Diamond Bluff. We found this great overlook at Freedom Park with awesome views over the river and some bald eagle sightings to boot! We actually had one circling us so frequently that I asked Dave to snatch up little G because i started thinking this eagle was planning something, ha!!

Finally, since the storm never actually showed, we continued the drive to Frontenac State Park which was only 10 minutes south of Red Wing. I have driven past the entrance to this park so many times and never gave it a second look. It is gorgeous. We drove in right at sunset and saw some amazing views of the Mississippi and Lake Pepin. We also drove through the campsite loops and it looks like a neat place to camp. They have drive-in and also cart-in options.

It was a great "surprise adventure" day and we decided to officially join the MN State Park passport club! We have visited 3 parks in the last week, now only 72 more parks/stamps to go!

Summer Fun, Fort Snelling MN State Park

The girls are on their first real summer vacation this year- or maybe its more about me, since this is the first summer that I have had to truly re-acclimate myself to having them around the majority of the day!!
I guess I took for granted the 7 hours they were at school 5x a week for the last 9 months in Kindergarten!
Its been a little nutso over the last week with all 3 ladies in the house and me still trying to pretend I work part-time from home, ha!

Anyway, L&S are in a 2 hour park program every morning this week (through our awesome new hometown- Mendota Heights), which has helped ease me into the new status quo for the summertime.

Before I get into our Fort Snelling adventure, I have to throw in this quick anecdote. After their morning camp fun, I let the girls play for a bit on the playground. S proceeded to trip over something and face planted (and bounced) off some playground equipment that led to a bloody nose etc. I threw the gang in the car and proceeded to the local Subway to hopefully grab ice for her nose (since I wasn't sure what the bruising situation was going to be like). There were a couple of Mendota Heights cops sitting outside enjoying their lunch. I figured instead of hauling all 3 inside I would ask one of our lovely public servants if they wouldn't mind asking someone inside to fill a ziploc bag I had with some ice for S's injury. They were more than happy to oblige. And then the other cop came to my car to take a look at her to make sure she was OK; he stayed with us for quite some time informing me of my options in case I was worried, such as taking her to urgent care OR (since I lived in Mendota Heights), I could just give the police precinct a buzz and they would send someone over to check her out at our house...! It struck me just how different a place we live in now! Especially considering, even after we called 911 during the riots in Bmore, no one came! There's no place like (our new) home!!!

So... after that heartwarming interaction we stopped home, packed a lunch and hit Fort Snelling State Park which is literally minutes from our home. This was the first time back for me in over 10 years. I had all 3 girls and there was a threat of rain, but that's all it was. It was windy, but gorgeous...and virtually no one was around.

View or Summit Lake beach and picnic area

A little windy and chilly @first; Greta sleeping

We stopped at the swimming beach area which is a little hidden slice of paradise. The space is huge. Its on Snelling Lake, the water is beautifully clean and refreshing, there is a small playground and TONS of space to picnic and grill.  There are restrooms, a changing room building, and you can rent canoes. One thing that's maybe not for everyone, but we loved, were the planes. You could watch plane after plane come in to land at MSP airport.  It was really quite entertaining. Though it looks cloudy and dreary in these pics, it cleared up minutes after, but even in the clouds it was beautiful. We are not playing in mud, the sand was just wet:)

The girls and I played in the water and sand and L found a baby turtle which was so cute!!  But eventually we had to move on since G kept trying to grab the tiny thing and put it in her mouth! There was also what appeared to be a "Goose Family Day Out" of sorts, we counted 5 pairs of adult geese and almost 50 goslings all in one big group.We drove around the park and saw a quail (?) and a few deer along with a lot of neat dragonflies. I am so glad we spontaneously decided to check out this fabulous park today- we will be back!