Memories in the Miles MN

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. -"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost Have you heard of George Crosby Manitou State Park? This park is one of the least-visited state parks, despite it's location on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Is it "less traveled" due to quality? Absolutely not! There are two main reasons why this park isn't spoken of: location and trail difficulty.  It's off the main roads, so the park is a 20-minute drive from Highway 61. The trails themselves are tough - full of rocks and roots, narrow, and not always well-marked. This is by design - the park is intentionally under-developed to create more of a wilderness experience. This is precisely the reason I chose George Crosby Manitou as one of the stops on our North Shore weekend last fall (read about our full weekend and find our agenda here ). Huge bonus - it has a cascade waterfall! To get to the park, navigat...

Rice Lake State Park was our family's first stop on our quest to complete the Minnesota State Parks Hiking Club and Passport Club . It was one of the stops on our drive from Southwest Minnesota to Southeast Minnesota for a 2-night family getaway in Lewiston, MN. You can read our full trip agenda here . This small state park is on the north side of Rice Lake near Owatonna, MN. The park office wasn't open the day we were there, so we stopped to get the passport stamp outside of the office and grabbed a park map so my daughters could "navigate." When the office is open, they have birding kits, GPS units, and kids activities to check out. We did the Hiking Club Trail, which is 2.4 miles. The AllTrails map is called Rice Lake Trail and can be found here . AllTrails estimates that it takes 45 minutes, though we knew with a 7-, 5-, and 3-year-old, it would take longer. We started with a snack in the picnic shelter area near the playground to show our girls where they would ...