This past weekend I got to check one more State Park off on my quest to visit every State Park in Minnesota. We went to Forestville Mystery Cave State Park in Preston MN. It was our annual camping trip with all the kids and grandkids.
We of course had to take the cave tour. We did the hour long tour with everyone. The kids all like it other then Eli at the end when he was getting tired and got scared about getting out. He kept asking how we were going to get out of the cave.
Cassie is doing some explaining to Liam and Eli. They look pretty interested
It was hard to take pictures in the dark but I got a few. Below is Oliver
The above picture is of one of the rocks in the cave that looks just like a big mouse! It was pretty cool looking
Amy spent the whole trip getting in the way of my pictures
A few more cave pictures
Funny story from the caves, Jose was all worried about bats so of course we made light of the bats. Well right after we got in the cave a bat came swooping down and flew right next to Cassie's head. It was pretty funny. The bat flew around us for a few minutes. Josie did good and did not even get scared.
I am not sure why this picture looks black and white since I did not change any settings on my camera when I took it or filter it after I took it. But it ended up looking pretty cool.
After our cave tour we set off to find some water. Since the park is on the Root River there is not really any swimming beaches but we managed to find some water to cool off in.
It had plenty of shallow area for the kids and deeper areas for the adults to go in.
The water was so clear
Josie and Oliver checking out the river
Rick
Christa and Jese
Nick going down stream to the deeper water
Rick swimming against the current in the river.
Cassie just taking it easy with baby girl Jensen
This picture is funny. They could see fish in the water so they all just stood around looking down into the water.
Christa decided she was hot and figured she would get all went even if she was not in her swimming suit.
Liam looking cute!
The dogs also got to go swimming in the river. Morgan went right in but Otis was not liking it to much. He is so tiny so the current would sweep him down stream pretty fast. Good thing we had him on a leash so he did not get to far away.
Eli was all tuckered out after a day of caving and swimming
Josie thought her hair would be a good place for some marshmallows
Christa decided that she needed a little rest too so Otis joined her.
Rick, Jese and I went for a 4 mile hike on Saturday afternoon. We may have taken a wrong turn to start the hike off but we managed to get on the right trail eventually.
We took the spring creak trail. It was a pretty flat trail, easy hiking
At the end of the trail was this beautiful cave, cliff, creak.
Jese checking out the cave
The water was so cold! By the time we made it across it our feet were numb.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Rick that I have ever taken!
The cave
Just some cool pictures that I took on the hike
On our last night there poor Eli had had enough and just fell asleep.
Jese took these two pictures of Rick and I. I love them both!
We had a great time.
Here is my review of the park. It was a beautiful park with lots of hiking trails. The only trouble is that it is also a park that allows horses on pretty much every trail. So most of the tails we went on had lots of spots that were tore up and muddy from the horses and had horse poop everywhere. I knew this before we book our stay so I can't really complain about it. It is nice that the State has a park that caters to horse riders. We did not get to do a lot of hiking because we had all the grandkids with us. If we go back I would like to do some more of the trails.
It was great that we were able to find several places to get to the river.
We stayed in a electric site and so did Amy. Cassie and Christa stayed in the camper cabins. The sites we were in were very nice, lots of room between sites. Cassie and Christa loved the camper cabins. They were very clean and roomy. They both wish that they had bathrooms closer to the cabins. They only had outhouses by the cabins the shower house/flush toilets were up by the electric sites.
The cave tour was lots of fun and a must if going to the park.
Overall I would give the park a thumbs up!
Oh I almost forgot to talk about our biking in the park. Most of the trails you cannot bike on so we mostly biked on the roads in the park. Liam loves to bike with Rick so they biked around a lot. After one of the bike trips Liam came back talking about this huge hill they biked on. Rick told me Liam could not make it up so they walked to the top and then biked down. So when Rick and I went for a ride the last night I told him to take me to the hill. If you have ever been to the park it is the hill going up to the horse camp. Well Liam was right it is a huge hill! I could not believe Liam made it almost all of the way up . It was pretty much the biggest hill I have ever biked up and we have biked a lot! We were in granny gear for most of the hill but I made it all the way to the top...just barely! Going down was fun and fast! I am a chicken so I was using my breaks a lot:)
So there you have it another great camping trip. Now we have to wait another 3 weeks before we get to take the camper out again....
Sharon
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