Monday,
August 21st – Thursday, August 24th
Lebanon
Hills Regional Park Campground, St. Paul, MN
As we headed south towards the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, we
crossed the Mississippi River a couple of times. Each crossing showed us that
the river was getting wider and wider, as some smaller rivers were converging
into the Mississippi. Also, we happened to be traveling on the date of the
total eclipse of the Sun. We were in an area where we were able to see an 85%
eclipse. At one point we stopped at a local Walmart to shop and found a young
man in front of Walmart that had a 6 inch square black piece of filter glass and he
was letting people view the eclipse through that black glass. It was really
exciting just to see one glimpse of the eclipse. The eclipse was really
something special.
As we continued to head southeast through Minnesota, we
again drove the back roads. We are always in amazement of the agricultural
areas in this state. As we approached Minneapolis we were shocked to see what a
large metropolitan area that it is. We drove around to the southeast side of the
city and arrived at Lebanon Hills Campground. This is a county park with
amazing mountain biking trails and a beautiful campground. The mountain biking
trails are what actually brought us to this area, along with the fact that we
were able to see the Mississippi River again. The campground is a top-notch
park with everything we needed. Also, the mountain biking trails were
accessible right from the campground.
The first day we took a drive around town and went to a
historic park along the Mississippi River in the St. Paul area. This was
historic Fort Snelling, which was active during the Civil War. This Historic
Site is on the western bluffs of the Mississippi River, at a higher level
where we could look down at the river. We also drove around to other parks where we
could be at the river level to view it from there.
During the four days there we spent most of our time on the
mountain biking trails. We were so pleased as the trails were very well-engineered
and maintained, with trail markers the best we've ever seen. We truly enjoyed
the flowy trails that had an intermediate level of technical and obstacle
challenges.
Surprisingly, Kurt had mentioned that he was interested in
going to the Mall of America, the largest mall in the U.S., in terms of number of stores and total floor area. The Mall has 4 floors and over 7 million square feet. I was not so excited
about visiting this mall as I am just not a mall person, but during my research
of the mall we found one of our favorite restaurants is there, Cantina Laredo. There
used to be one near where we lived in Palm Beach Gardens and it was absolutely
our favorite Tex-Mex food in the world, but it had closed down a couple of
years ago. With that knowledge I said “heck let's go”. I just wanted to go to
eat and maybe just stroll through the mall little bit to check it out. The mall
was absolutely the largest one I've ever seen in the US. It was crazy that
there were duplicate stores in various parts of the mall. The huge central
atrium of the mall was filled with an amusement park for children and families.
Most of the amusements were Nickelodeon sponsored. It was so large, we
actually got tired of walking around and headed back to the campground.
After four days there we were ready to move on to our next
destination. Next stop being Dubuque Iowa, where we found a campground that was
right on the Mississippi River. I knew Kurt would love this as he is a huge
river fan and loves to watch barges.
