Life in the Cheese Drawer

after a lazy-ish labor day weekend, i decided to get on the road and pick up a state park that was relatively close but i hadn’t gotten yet: minnesota river valley state recreation area.

this park is located to the southwest of the cities, between jordan and belle plaine. i headed out a little before noon and took the backroads down.

the MRV is on the minnesota river bottoms, so it’s very flat and very sediment right. it’s apparently also a great place for horseback riding.

i took a quick hike along the bottoms after i got my stamp just to see what it was all about. i was reading on the dnr site that often this park is flooded and only a few trails are open. you can see the evidence of the flooding all over the place! but the tall trees and the sparse ground was a perfect place to imagine imps and will-o-wisps and tree faeries frolicking about.

there was also a lot of evidence of horses! this is a good place for horse girls to come get their fix. i will also add that for a recreation area on a weirdly humid, chilly day, there were a lot of people around. i guess location is helpful, too, it being relatively close to the cities. on a sad note, it looks like they used to have a campground, but no longer. the campground part of the sign was painted over. i’m not sure if this is due to the flooding or lack of funds for the dnr.

after my short hike, i headed home by way of visiting jane. my labor day weekend didn’t seem quite so pathetic anymore! and i am one stamp closer to the end of my stamp book: just three parks left.

next weekend i’ll stop at st. croix on the way to wisconsin.