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We left home Thursday evening. Melanie had dance practice at the High School and so we picked her up and kept going. Not far, we just wanted to tow the trailer and check it out before we got too far from home.

That first night we stopped in East Grand Forks…

From there, we drive to Grand Rapids (not Grand Forks or Park Rapids… ) MN. We stayed in a “resort” campground, which is just a fancy word for overpriced campground. It was very nice, very pleasant, pretty, on a lake… but I have to be honest, I’ve paid less for motels. But it was nice. That night we went into town and watched the races at the local dirt track. It was surrounded by trees and we kept expecting a car to go off the track and hit a tree, but everyone stayed safe.

The next day, Saturday, we went further north and east, almost to Duluth, and stayed for a night in Hibbing MN. We camped at the fairgrounds for free, and watched the races that night there, also. Later that evening and Sunday it rained, and it rained hard! We got a little over an inch. That reminded us why we bought a camper instead of using tents! 🙂

We took off from there at about noon, we waited for the rain to die down before going. We were headed for Bemidji and a state park there, but as we drove through Chippewa National Forest, and passed Norway Beach Camp Ground… well, it was beautiful and we just had to stop!

Now that third picture is the beach, just behind our campsite. Cass lake; shallow, warm, sandy beach. Wonderful swimming, but almost too shallow. We could walk out 300 or 400 feed and it stayed sandy and it stayed shallow. That picture was taken from about waist deep water, you can tell a little how far from shore I was.

We stayed at Norway Beach for 4 days it was so nice. It was hot too, 90+ degrees and we spend one whole day w/ the Air Conditioning running while we played games inside the camper! Nicholas and I took the bicycles out one day, we were out for about 3 hours, rode for about two of the, we think 6 or 7 miles. I didn’t know I was so out of shape… 🙂 We got up one morning and walked about 2 miles or so through the forest on one of the trails in the area and that was very nice too. It was so hot we only had one campfire, to cook marshmallows of course, and no one missed them the other nights. 🙂

On Tuesday we packed up the pickup and headed down by Park Rapids (not Grand Rapids!) to see Heather. Boy we miss her. Heather is working down at Camp Wilderness, a Boy Scout camp down there. She went just for 2 weeks as a volunteer, to get some hours in that she needed in order to be a camp counselor for the Girl Scouts. But, she was just there a few days when they offered her a job and she’s been there for over 3 weeks now. She’s finally coming home next weekend. Finally! Boy we miss her. So anyway, we picked her up for hugs and dinner on Tuesday. We went to the Logging Camp, a nearby resort with a logging theme, a gift shop, and tremendous food. Boy it was good. All home cooked, and served at rough hewn tables “family style”. We picked what meat we wanted and it came with unlimited sides like bread and beans and coleslaw. Yummy! If you’re traveling through the area around Lake Itasca and Park Rapids MN, it’s worth the time to look them up.

So anyway, we finally left the Chippewa National Forest and headed home on Wednesday. On the way we just had to stop at Bemidji State Park, just to see what we missed. We liked it, but were glad we stayed where we did, it was nice. This is Lake Bemidji and the State Park there. We pulled into a camp site like we belonged there, cooked lunch and went swimming… 🙂

Thanks for reading!