after liz’s birthday party today, jane and i headed out before 9 a.m. to pick up three parks on the way home. you’d think that i’d’ve picked up all the parks in southeast mn pretty quick, but it’s been a while since i’ve been down there. so first we headed to beaver creek valley.

beaver creek valley

this is a pleasant park! like many others, it wouldn’t be a destination, but i would stop if i were in the area. we checked out beaver creek, along with a disconcertingly wobbly bridge that went over it.

it was also limited to one person at a time to cross. good thing it was short.

we didnt’ spend a lot of time at the parks today, but this one was nice. beaver creek itself was so clear and full of watercress.

at this point, the air was soup. it was really gross today as far as humidity and temperature. pretty happy to be driving most of it. after beaver creek, we headed over to forestville/mystery cave.

forestville/mystery cave

this park, like crow wing, commemorates a time gone by. forestville was a bustling little town until 1910, when the railroad decided to bypass it. the mieghan store was the only general store in the county!

here the buildings still stand, unlike crow wing. the mn historical society runs the tours, and we didn’t have the time or cash on hand to take the tour, so we passed on the tour. i did pick up a book on the geographical and ecological interesting parts of mn, so after i read it i’ll give you an overview. so far i’ve only read four pages and it’s super interesting.

as for the cave side of this park, i took a field trip in gradeschool to the cave, so we’ll count it 🙂

lake louise

then we headed across southern mn into good old mower county to pick up lake louise, which is right down by leroy.

like east side lake in austin, this lake is manmade, a river dammed up to create some level of entertainment for the people who have no lakes. while i’m sure this park is nice for the people in mower county to have, there is nothing really interesting to me to return to this park. plus it was raining, so i hopped out, got my stamp and pic, and we took off.

myre-big island

we headed up MN56 to pick up I-90 right outside of austin, and after lamenting the fact that i should be a good relative and visit our peeps, jane smacked me upside the head and we got a move on. we headed to albert lea on lonely I-90, and stopped right before the I-90/I-35 intersection to pick up myre-big island.

this park was pretty interesting! we headed out across the big island (not really an island) and then the little island (also not really an island – possible causeway situations there i guess), then had a short gander at the actual lake.

this was a decent park, and i’ve always admired the parks that have stacks of canoes and paddleboards for people to take out.

now i’ve got FOUR PARKS LEFT. three down in southern MN still and st croix, which i’ll see in two weeks on the way to visit jenee. HOW EXCITING!