St. Paul, Minnesota

September 14, 2023

The heatwave followed us from Duluth down to St. Paul, and we were grateful to have an electric site where we could run the air conditioning. 

Little bits of fall color on the drive down to St. Paul Doesn't look like 90+ degrees, does it?

We found Lake Elmo County Park to be a very pleasant park with nicely spread out campsites, lots of lakes, and miles of beautiful trails. (We seemed to have forgotten to take a picture of the campsite.)

One of the many lakes at Lake Elmo Park

It proceeded to cool off the following day to more seasonal temperatures, and soon we were running the heat at night. Lake Elmo was conveniently located only about 20 minutes or so from the kids' neighborhood in St. Paul. We had a fun time visiting with them and their friends, as well as some friends of our own. 

Alan's closet watermelon was coming along nicely...

The little watermelon that could And yes - it is really growing in his closet

In a store parking lot, we happened across a bug that looked like it should be in the Amazon rain forest rather than Minnesota...

The giant water bug (Lethocerus americanus) a.k.a "alligator tick". Growing up to 3", they can eat small frogs, fish, and turtles (!)

On one of our non-visiting days, we rode our bikes around the park.

We enjoyed our stay so much, we plan to go back next year!

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