Scott had a job in Moorhead. You know what that means, road trip!
I had to get a photo of Theo being sweet holding his Baby.
We stayed the night at a Best Western. I've been photographing a lot of these and they're all pretty dang nice. We spent the night swimming in their small waterpark.
I looked up the best playground in Fargo and found Maplewood Park.
Meanwhile I shot the Minnesota State - Moorhead campus.
What was even better was that it had a ninja warrior course too. Mexico City has adult "playgrounds" next to all the kids playgrounds and I wish we had more of that here.
We had small ones all along the Oak Leaf Trail in Milwaukee County. Not sure what Minneapolis' deal is.
This was harder to do than it looked. The kids were much better at it than me. I've really gotten out of shape over the years.
She says this, but she still looks great.
Next we went on a hunt for a book store. The one we found ended up being closed for the day. Fargo was really lacking in local bookstores.
To make up for it we got boba tea instead.
And spring rolls for this dude.
Ok, they're still pretty adventurous. They just know what they like.
Then we picked up food for lunch and had planned to spend some time at Lindenwood Park.
While we were eating, Scott said he was done with work. So we picked him up and stopped at Junkyard Brewing.
I got food at the neighboring Sol Ave. Kitchen. Spicy, but good.
Moorhead is kind of strange. It suffered a lot of urban renewal, but Junkyards space rules.
As we were in the home of the Dilly Bar we had to stop at Dairy Queen.
Did any of us even get Dilly Bars?
I think one of the kids did.
We headed east to our destination for the weekend when I saw a sign for Buffalo Rive State Park. I'd thought of staying here, but we'd have more time paddling if we drove to the Chippewa National Forest.
When we knew we were going to be in the Fargo area we debated on what to do after. I wanted to canoe camp on the Crow Wing River, but Blake couldn't make it. Disappointed to not be canoe camping we came up with our own route on Cass Lake. We camped our first night at Wanaki Campground in the Chippewa National Forest.
Brooke, clean your lens.
We've known it for years, but camping in the National Forests is far superior to camping in state parks. It's cheaper, the sites are bigger and more private. We lucked out with a last minute site on the water.
There was a ton of first come, first served sites, but this one was special.
We fished for a bit at twilight before hitting the hay.
Always reading in her hammock.
Cass Lake was a lot bigger than I'd imagined. We'd be doing some serious open water paddling.
We could've stayed here all day, but A. the campsite was booked the rest of the weekend and B. we had a bigger adventure to go on.
The lake started out calm.
I picked up this new little griddle for our camping trips.
That works killer bee.
Cass Lake has free watercraft campsites on Star Island.
I was originally looking at the campsites up at the Knutson Dam Recreation Area, but when I saw the Star Island site that became our destination.
On a map Norway Beach, where we started, didn't seem too far to the South Star Island campsites.
The wind had picked up since the morning.
We had plans to hug the shore then cross over to the island by Tom's Harbor.
At some point it seemed like it would just make more sense to cross when we were about line of sight from the campsite.
We later learned that the water was 90 feet deep where we crossed.
Either that or we skirted the depths. Most lakes aren't as shallow as the Three Lakes chain.
Apparently the campground is a favorite hangout spot for boaters.
I wasn't sure about what to expect when camping here. I couldn't find much online of other peoples experiences. I was expecting the place to be overgrown from not being used much but it wasn't too bad.
That is if it wasn't for the biting flies at the campsite. We were fine as long as we stayed on the beach most of the time.
A free campsite on a sandy beach? Heck yeah!
After setting up camp we went swimming.
By the time we had finished swimming most of the party boats had left.
The only downside to this site is the biting horseflies that Scott mentioned.
Theo and I tried fishing down the shore with a bit of luck.
Another dad and his kids were camping on the other end of the campground.
Star Island is a boat-in only island. There are no bridges or roads. All the cottages are along the shore and the interior is intertwined with hiking trails.
And lots of old growth and second growth forest.
Socks and long pants are a must for the biting flies.
Just go explore the rest of the island.
Because the island is also part of the Chippewa National Forest you can walk along the shore in front of peoples cottages. All of the cottages were old with large porches. This was great!
The south shore even had a sidewalk.
Felt so strange walking in peoples yards but I was loving it.
The kids choose to stay in the tent. To each his own, I guess.
Where the campground is now, used to be a hotel. This area was the campground until it moved to the current location.
I think it was the opposite, but you did read the book.
You have a very low chance of getting a property on this island. Most of the cottages have been in the same family for generations and when someone wants to sell it's usually sold to other family members or friends on the island. Would be a dream though.
Love the idea of summering on Star Island, but it's about as far as the cottage and doesn't have the chain of lakes. But an old growth forest in your backyard and beach out front would be pretty awesome.
Brooke and I took another hike around the island with Theo and then went to bed early.
One thing I forgot to pack was rope to hang our food. We thought we would be fine by hiding our food under our canoe. We set up the canoe paddles in hopes that an animal would knock it over and get scared.
After we went to bed last night I heard raccoons running around telling all their friends about the free garbage on the beach.
Little rascals.
At least they didn't get our food.
Still in our pajamas, but already playing in the water.
Theo living his best outdoors life.
Straight to playing on the beach with these kids.
The other con to staying here is there is poison ivy everywhere, make sure you stay on the trails.
We had plans to camp our next night on the other side of the island. When looking at a different map yesterday we discovered there was a campsite on the island lake, Lake Windigo.
Yup a lake on an island on a lake.
Paddling started out easier than the first as we headed up the west shore.
As we made our way around, the wind really picked up and dark clouds were in the distance.
We struggled to get around the tip of the northwest tip of the island, took a short break and then paddled in the calm shore waters to the Lake Windigo portage.
As soon as we made it to the portage it started raining.
Pouring. It started pouring.
I talked to a nice old man about our adventure. He didn't know there was a campsite on Lake Windigo. They'd been swimming here for years.
Apparently Lake Windigo is a popular swimming spot, even in the rain.
As we were canoeing over it looked like someone was at the campsite. Turns out it was our neighbors from the night before who were just stopping to fish.
They apparently portaged their small aluminum boat over to the lake to go fishing.
Minus the sandy beach this campsite was almost nicer.
Camping under some massive pines? Yes, please.
A hiking trail circles the lake but there are no cottages on Lake Windigo.
We ate lunch wondering if might rain again.
I'm guessing some of the local islanders had built this table and shelf.
Usually I'm all "leave no trace," but this was kind of nice. If not a little dangerous with pointy ends on each side.
The only thing the campsite was missing was a bathroom, or we couldn't find it.
Pooping in a hole would have to do.
I wanted to check out the trail that goes around the lake.
It started growing darker as we made our way around.
I guess the rain was indeed coming, but we had no cell service.
The rain turned into a torrential down pour. We passed one cottage and someone offered us to come in until the rain let up.
We'd let the lazy kiddos stay behind, so we politely refused. The downpour killed my oldest full frame DSLR I usually bring along just for canoe rides.
By the time we got back to our site the rain had stopped.
We convinced Theo to go on another hike with us.
What else were we going to do?
Another trail from the campsite leads back to the our campsite from the night before.
Scott picks on me for my bug net enclosure but at least I'm bug free.
There weren't many bugs on this side of the island. So, I'm not sure what she was hiding from.
We had a few people hike through our site while we were here. The next morning as we were packing up, a couple families came over to fish right at our campsite. Right in the way of where we needed to leave. Really? You couldn't find another spot on the entire lake??
This time I got to drive the canoe.
I'd later look up that I'm not supposed to be in the front of the canoe. It can make you go around in circles. Whoops.
There was no one at the portage today.
Until next time Star Island.
Yet another windy day.
We made pretty good time crossing to Cedar Island (part of the Leech Lake Reservation) and then back to Norway Beach.
3-2-1 and we're back. With having the canoe on top we couldn't use our roof box. The trunk was stuffed to the gills.
We settle on lunch at the Canal House Restaurant at the Stony Point Resort. Food took a while, but only regret not getting the salad bar.
Near Walker we spotted the Wiener Mobile.
Follow that sausage!
We made another stop in Hackensack for ice cream.
If you want too much ice cream definitely make a stop at Sun and Fun.
This happened to be home of Paul Bunyan's girlfriend. More like Minnesotans couldn't claim Paul Bunyan so they had to make up his girlfriend.
Paul Bunyan is a part of all the northern forests and (Nor Cal).
I told Meadow to make a comic book about our summer adventures.
I guess we know how she really feels.
TBH I feel this way sometimes too, but you look back and realize all these crazy trips were worth it.
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