State Parks Wrap-Up

 A week ago, my husband R.J. and I completed a goal we have been working on since June of 2016: we have visited all 66 of Minnesota’s state parks. Back in the summer of 2016, we were up on family vacation with my extended family, near Park Rapids, when we decided to take a little day trip to Itasca State Park. It wasn’t far from where we were staying, and it is, after all, the headwaters of the Mississippi. As we entered the park, we made the decision to buy a yearly pass rather than just a daily one. Our sons Joseph and David went with us, and we all waded where the Mighty Mississippi begins. It was a fun hike. On the way home from that same vacation, we were driving past another state park, Mille Lacs Kathio. Since we had a yearly pass, we decided to break up the trip and stop and take a hike there.

Us, at Itasca State Park

It was fun to go to the parks and hike for an hour or two, so we kept going. Soon enough we picked up a map that had all 66 state parks on it, and we started writing in dates beside the park names as we hiked there. We thought it would be kind of fun to see if we could eventually hike at all of them. Somewhere along the way, we decided that our goal was for the state parks only, not the recreation areas. Of course, there were parks where we had hiked before, some of them many times, but this was a fresh slate. We needed to see each park through this new lens of ours. Along the way, I took pictures. That’s what I do! Eventually, we fell into a routine. I had to take a picture of the park sign as we entered, and somewhere along the trail we had to take a “state parks selfie.” When we first started that selfie tradition, we were doing it by holding out my DSLR camera at arm’s length. That is not an easy feat! We graduated to using a cell phone when I upgraded my phone. That first summer/fall we hiked at 16 parks. We were on our way!

You can see me holding out that heavy DSLR to take the selfie. 😄

By the next summer, we had picked up a State Parks license plate to replace our annual sticker. We were all-in. Once we had hiked at all the nearby parks, we started planning trips to pick up the parks that were more than just a day trip. I honestly thought we would be working at this task for ten years or more. It seemed almost unattainable.

I love taking pictures and I love making Shutterfly books, so I pretty much always knew that there would be a Shutterfly book coming out of this experience. Initially, I thought it would only be one book, but then I remembered that I’m me and realized that each park would need at least a two-page spread. It also finally dawned on me that I didn’t have to wait until the end of the journey to create the first book. In February of 2020, I finished the first volume that had our first 33 parks in it, hiked in 2016 and 2017.  Because I was looking back a few years to create that book, there are not as many details about each park (especially the early parks) as I would have liked. I do like the pictures, though! I have been working on the second book since the time I created the first one, entering each park as we hike it. 

The first Shutterfly book

I just completed Volume 2, and that one is just the way I like it, filled with park descriptions and our stories as well. It hasn't been printed yet, as I am still proofreading. 😀 On the last page of the book, I included some questions and answers about our experiences. I thought it would be fun to share those.

1. Which park is the furthest from your house? How far away is it? Lake Bronson State Park is the furthest at 453 miles from our home, according to Google Maps. (It's also the furthest as the crow flies, at 382.31 miles.)

2. Which park is the closest to your house? How far away is it? Carley State Park is the closest at 22 miles from our home. 

3. How many parks have the word "Lake" in their name? In our state of 10,000 lakes, 15 out of 66 state parks have "Lake" as part of their name. Another two have the French "Lac" in their name.

4. How many pictures has Liz taken on this journey?  Trick question! Nobody knows that answer; however, it was 83% more than R.J. wanted and 33% less than Liz wanted. (That's marriage.)

5. How long was your shortest hike, and in which park? Our shortest hike was zero miles at Hill Annex Mine, where there were no hiking trails and the park was closed. Yes, we’re OK with that. We arrived there not knowing that the gate would be locked shut on a Sunday. We walked around for a bit and read all the signage the park had to offer outside the gate. Tours were suspended due to COVID, so we couldn’t have had that experience, and really – we’re all about the hiking. Zero miles it is!

6. How long was your longest hike, and in which park? Our longest hike was infinite miles at George H. Crosby Manitou. In our minds, we are still hiking it. 😂 Look here to find the blog I wrote about that experience. (We don't really know our longest hike. We didn't keep track.) 

7. How many years did it take you to get to all those state parks? It took us seven seasons of hiking to get to all the state parks. Here is the breakdown, year by year: 2016-16 parks; 2017-17; 2018-0 (after we went to Prince Edward Island, we didn't have the desire to travel anymore that year); 2019-5; 2020-9; 2021-14; 2022-5.

8. What was the biggest take-away from all those miles of hiking? We often get asked our favorite state park, and that question is impossible to answer. I love different things about different parks, and the experience we have at any given park is often tempered by the weather on the day we hike or the amount of bugs we encounter. I like this question better. We learned that Minnesota is filled with a diverse landscape (a big shout-out to the glaciers!) and that there is an incredible amount of beauty in our home state.

9. Would you do it all again? Well, likely not ALL, but we will certainly return to many of these parks. We have no plans to get rid of our state parks license plates. This has been a wonderful journey and we can't wait to see what's next!

10. So, what IS next? Do you have another quest in mind? We are still figuring that one out. You are welcome to make suggestions! As of now, I guess the closest thing we have is that we are working toward seeing the rest of the 48 contiguous US states that we haven’t yet visited. We have ideas for trips that would make that happen but nothing is planned in the immediate future.

So there you have it! Our state parks adventure is complete. If hiking (or even just experiencing nature) is your thing, I encourage you to go for this goal as well. Don’t worry about the timeline, just get out there and enjoy our great state of Minnesota!

Our completed State Parks Map!