Hayes and Bronson

Wading in Hayes Lake

At the end of the prairie trail we found a 13 lined ground squirrel couple living under the trail One entrance to their home is under the sign post at the left side of the trail and the other entrance is under the fence post on the right side of the trail.  They looked like a happy couple.

We climbed up this WPA project that could be a water tower but is not used as a water tower anymore

While we traveled in the northeastern portion of Minnesota I came to realize that I had a preconceived notion that this was a boring part of the state. I was wrong. This is not bland and boring but a gorgeous piece of habitat.  The land was mostly flat but the soil was rich.  I saw no irrigation systems up here which surprised me. I thought the northeast part of the state got very little rain but it must be enough to farm without sprinkler systems.  The farms looked prosperous.  These two state parks had lakes because dams were built on the rivers to create them. I waded in both lakes and that felt great because the day was hot.  Earlier, at Big Bog state park we met some young people from Wilderness Inquiry, a travel company.  They had six canoes and were meeting school kids to give them a canoe ride and an educational program. Various schools had scheduled environmental field days for what looked like sixth graders.  I met a couple guys from Wilderness Inquiry and mentioned that I had taken three trips with WI. I told them I had gone to the Apostle Islands, Kenya, and the BWCA with WI and had a great time. The guy I talked to resembled a young Brad Pitt, like the Brad Pitt who was in the movie Thelma and Louise. The next day we met the WI group again at Zippel Bay. One of the women talked to me and said she had heard I had gone on three trips with them.  This time they were with students from Lake of the Woods school.  We saw their camp. Some of the WI people slept in tents and a couple slept in hammocks.  There is something about seeing someone sleeping in a hammock that brings out the urge in me to go up to them and set them swinging by giving them a gentle push. But I restrained myself from doing that.  Anyway, as we were hiking around Hayes Lake, we come out of the woods and are walking across the grassy berm when across the lake I see the WI guy who looks like Brad Pitt waving at us (or me, maybe he was waving just at me).  We walk over to them. They are loading their six canoes back onto the trailer. I ask where they are headed next and hoped I wasn't coming across creepy. They were headed to Saint Cloud to party and then back to Minneapolis to turn in their gear. They had been on the road for two weeks meeting various schools at state parks. They were ready to go home and decompress.  My companion and I thought heading to Saint Cloud would be over the line so we choose to stay where we were.  By this point on my vacation I didn't care about my regular worries anymore. I wasn't checking my phone.  I wasn't looking at my computer.  I was enjoying the trees and frogs and lakes and open sky with white fluffy clouds.  The wood ticks were relentless but I would rather have wood ticks than deer ticks. I had lumps on my neck and ears from the gnat bites. The mosquitoes bit too but they didn't leave lumps. I was having a very relaxing, self-indulgent vacation.