Summer in November (4 parks in 4 days)

Let me tell you about November in Minnesota. It’s cold. It’s possibly snowing. It’s grey and dark and gloomy. It’s Olivia’s birthday month, but still. November is usually a bit rough here.

But this year, like many things, was different. For the better, mind you. November started off with some abnormally warm weather. Chris decided to take some vacation, so he had a nice four day weekend. We decided to be outside as much as possible. I had to dig out some capris that I had just packed away for the winter. It was strange because I always thought it was going to be a lot colder outside than it really was. I mean, I was in tank tops that weekend.

Thursday | The park reserve | 66 degrees

We’ve been to this park before and decided to take the hiking backpack for Emelia since there were portions of the trail that weren’t paved. We walked 2.5 miles and Olivia did great walking the whole thing. She loved taking Chris’s phone and taking her own pictures.

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We even dug out our old Nikon, dusted it off, and took some old fashioned non-phone photos. Years ago (like 2014) I took some photography classes in preparation for our trip to Colorado. It’s sad, but I lost so much of that knowledge. It makes me realize though how the Nikon is still superior to our phones.

We discovered a playground that we hadn’t noticed before on our previous walks, and despite my nervousness at all the kids, we let Olivia play there for a few minutes. It was a pretty cool place.

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Emelia sat in the pack the whole time, watching her sister.

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Friday | The walk along the Rum River | 75 degrees

I have zero photos from this day (I didn’t get the idea to do a post on this until the following day, but we headed out after picking Olivia up from preschool and went to a nearby small town where we like to frequent. We got some toasted marshmallow steamers from my favorite little coffee shop and walked along the river. Olivia did take a sprawl and we felt bad because we had a good 3/4 mile or so to walk back to our car, but she was a trooper. There was an art center we came across that does art classes for kids and after talking to a staff member, we got a flier for some virtual art classes they were giving this winter. It would be fun if there was one Olivia could do given her love of art.

Saturday | The dam | 74 degrees

After lunch, we drove out to the dam and walked a path we’d never done before along the Mississippi. I was glad we had the jogging stroller because much of it was unpaved, but it was a beautiful trail. We ended up walking 3.5 miles that day. Olivia was dragging toward the end but perked up once we walked to the actual dam along the river.

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I still can’t believe how gorgeous the weather was. It seemed like a small gift from the shittiness of 2020.

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The girls were fascinated with the dam, even if Olivia had her hands clamped over her ears (her newest thing whenever there are loud noises).

Sunday | The nature center | 72 degrees

Sunday, the last day before the cold weather would come creeping back in, we ended up at a nature center—one I actually grew up going to on a regular basis. We brought the hiking back again since it would have been rough going with a stroller. I think Emelia liked being up high.

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We found some turtles out sunning themselves in the ponds and looked closely for frogs but none were found. Olivia was so good once again, keeping up. We knew this would be our last really nice walk outside until spring, so we made sure to enjoy it.

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