"The Gopher State"

After two fun-filled weeks of pioneering and land-running, I was honestly ready to declare a homeschooling holiday and just stare at the wall for a few days. I decided; however, to push through with just one more week of school before our holiday. This week we moved onto state number three: Minnesota. I was going to go with the whole "where we all grew up" trend and do Missouri next, but then I decided we had better do Minnesota while it was still summer so we could site see as part of our schooling. And site see we did. After learning all about Minnesota in our states books, we took a weekend field-trip to see some of the famous sights in our own lovely state. Since we have already been to the Mall of America, the old Pillsbury flour mills, Lake City (where water-skiing was invented) and the Mayo Clinic, our first destination on this site-seeing tour was Itasca State Park,



a beautiful area about five hours north of our Rochester home. We invited some of our adventurous friends to join on us the weekend tour, and decided that camping would be the best (not to mention cheapest) way to take it all in. While we almost had to cancel the trip due to severe weather (we were literally sitting in a tornado warning while we were supposed to be loading the car!) at the last minute we just "took off", arriving at our camp site a little after midnight. The next morning we cooked a big breakfast feast,



and then headed out for the great adventures of the day. After all, Itasca State Park, though probably unknown to most everyone in the U.S., is actually quite a significant location. Within the park lies the beautiful Lake Itasca--headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River. You can hike up to the lake and take a swim,













pause to enjoy the view,





or simply wade across the great river at it's most shallow and narrow opening.





We couldn't resist doing all three. And it was actually quite an awesome experience. Afterward we paused for lunch in the back of the truck,



and then spent the better part of the day just enjoying the scenery. One aspect of the scenery the kids especially enjoyed was this giant eagle's nest we came across. Amazingly enough, just as we spotted it, two eaglets poked their heads up and then proceeded to take their first flying lesson right in our view. It was awesome! And appropriate to our Minnesota weekend since our state has such a high population of the bird.



The next day we broke camp and made a six hour loop back to our homes through a number of stops. Here we are at the Paul Bunyan and Babe Monument, (it was a blast studying a few tall tales!)





and at the Judy Garland home.





We also saw some of the old lumber and paper mills, but somehow failed to snap a picture while we were there. All in all, the weekend was a blast. And left us more than ready for a well deserved home schooling vacation! (aka. the beautiful world of simply hanging out instead of holding 4-6 hours of school each day!)