Tag Archives: nature

Minnesota State Park Adventuring

Throughout most of the fall I’ve been spending weekends heading out to Minnesota’s state parks.

Nature With the Kids

It started after a summer vacation I took with the kids to South Dakota, Colorado, and Kansas. We took in lots of nature: the Badlands, the Black Hills, and Rocky Mountain National Park.

But watching over two kids by myself (until Colorado when I joined my parents), I didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the nature. There wasn’t a lot of quiet. Or patience.  Or peace.

At one point in Colorado, after climbing across rocks in the river rapids with my kids, I sat down in a chair along the shore and put my feet up.

A moment later, Milo fell into the river. Continue reading Minnesota State Park Adventuring

Appreciate Where You Live

Lexi & Pinky on the TrailI’ve talked before about my soft spot for Detroit, but this Chicago Reader article about cool things to do in Detroit actually makes me want to visit the Motor City. It probably helps that I also have a soft spot for funky art and abandonded/decaying places (i.e., urban prairie and decrepit buildings, though I’ve only ever done urban exploring vicariously).

A visit to Detroit is do-able but unlikely, but the article did make me think more about my current locale and what kind of things here in the Twin Cities would be worth a vacation to check out. That’s kind of a weird concept, imaging where you live as a vacation spot. I usually think of vacation spots as places you have to drive cross country to get to and normal people don’t actually live there. I mean if you lived in a vacation spot, where would you go on vacation?

But weird questions aside, what’s so cool about the Twin Cities?

Continue reading Appreciate Where You Live