Minneopa State Park

Wednesday was supposed to be nice, and it was.  Really nice.  80 degrees plus.  Set a record in the Twin Cities for that day.  So it worked out well that we planned a trip down to Minneopa State Park near Mankato to enjoy the weather with the top down and drop off a Cards Against Humanity expansion for Klund and Mrs. Klund.

The Klunds are off sampling wine, but they have housesitters.  Serial killer in a van housesitters.



Minneopa was a little park.  And the water wasn't exactly running high.  But it was good for an hour of amusement.  These signs always confuse me.  Shouldn't ALL pets be on a leash?  Even if they're exotic instead of domestic?  I'm pretty sure they mean, "don't worry about the squirrels", but those aren't really pets.  And if they were.  They'd need a leash.


This sign sort of grossed Eryn out.  I dared her to lick the ice flow in the falls to see if it tasted of fecal matter.  Then she said, "How would I know if it tasted like fecal matter?!"  I said if she's smelled it, she's tasted it.  Which seemed to bother her even more.  There was a more in depth sign that pointed out sometimes the falls are green with algal blooms and sometimes brown from sediment, and fecal matter is there pretty much 24x7x365.  A result of being at the end of the watershed in a heavily farmed area.


Even without a lot of water they were pretty.  This is the upper falls.


And a nice picture of Eryn looking at them.


Here she is with Minneopa Falls behind her.  For a moment, I thought this was all there was to see.  So why would you leave Minneapolis and Minnehaha Falls?


But there was more.

Panorama

At the end of the sidewalk were steps that led down into the area below the falls and back up again along a ridge.  No geocaches as it's a state park, but perhaps Eryn can get herself Chived for doing what she wants.  Not exactly dangerous.  The sign is there because the fence is washed out way back there behind her.


You can get down below the lower falls, and there's still a bit of ice hanging out.  This photo would probably bother Eryn.  It looks like she's posing, but she's really just trying to get her jacket off.  Remember? 80+!


The falls without people in the picture.


But not really.  If you could blow it up enough, there are carvings almost everywhere.  It's one of the most scratched up areas I've ever seen.  Next to the falls, High on the walls right by the falls.  On the cliffs near the falls.  On the cliffs opposite the falls.  Next to the stairs going down and going up.  It's graffiti central.  I think the best one can hope for is that archaeologists of the future find it interesting.


Here you can see the carving in the context of the falls.

Panorama

Eryn sitting near the falls.  My wife was amused to see ERYON carved near her.  She didn't do that.  She knows how to spell her name.


The use wasp nests for bulbs in the state parks.  We're that hardcore in Minnesota.  I'm surprised they leave it there given it's near the picnic area.  You'd think everyone would be surrounded in wasps.


Oh no!  But that's only a fall, not falls!


There we go.  Two is officially fallS.


We stopped for a sandwich in Mankato and enjoyed all the dust devils and wind.  Not hard to believe Minnesota is in a drought.  And hit the rest stop on our way home where we were treated to this near the Cambria warehouse.  Apparently he's driving a lot more than we were.