The weather was finally beautiful in Minnesota…not raining or windy so we decided to do a quick test run of our camping stuff. Chad found a great FREE spot near Henderson MN – only about 30 minutes from home. We packed everything up, including the 2 dogs and headed out after work at about 4:30. We were hoping to be pretty much alone, but it is surprising how busy this little county park was! People with horses seem to like to camp and use the nearby trails. We managed to get a great spot, looking west over a deep ravine – no leaves yet so great sunset view! The dogs were alittle antsy, so rather than setting up camp right away, we decided to take them for a “quick walk”.
The path we found started near the entrance to the park. It was wide and pretty well maintained at first. After we found the river and creek at the bottom of the steep hill, the trail got much less worn and was hard to follow. We ended up crossing the creek a number of times and nearly getting stuck in the thick mud many times. After making a large loop, up and down some really steep hills we finished right near Ruby. We only walked about 1.5 miles but this took us nearly an hour! Whew…
I made sausage/zucchini/red pepper tinfoil packets on our cookstove for dinner. They turned out really good and we enjoyed the evening under the stars! Rocky slept in his bed, in Ruby’s backseat and we slept great in the Roofnest! It got down to about 45 degrees but we were toasty and comfortable. The biggest issue we had was with some nearby campers that had a generator running all night and morning! So annoying!
We had scrambled coffee, eggs and smoked sausage for breakfast – very yummy! We were home by 11 and spent the rest of the day organizing and adapting our gear based on what we learned!