Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: the Kettle River, at a guess

Normally, Mondays are out for State Park driving (unless we stick very close to home) because Shawn goes into work. Shawn has been battling some stomach issues for the past few days and so stayed home sick yesterday. Her bad fortune, however, opened up an opportunity for Mason and me.

I looked down my list of State Parks and decided on St. Croix. Mason and I had been here several years back and greatly enjoyed our hike, though my strongest memory of that particular hike was JUST HOW MANY ticks we shook off out body and then continued to find all the way home. I was reminded of this when I checked the Trip Adviser reviews of St. Croix State Park in the hopes of divining if there was something, in particular, we should set as a quick destination. The consensus (including, if I recall correctly, people here) was to give the fire tower climb a go. As I was reading through the reviews I noticed what seemed to be a funny trend: BUGS. There seemed to be almost a kind f argument raging between the people who posted TOO MANY BUGS and those that replied BUGS ARE PART OF NATURE. Being firmly of that second camp, I packed our extra-strength bug spray, lots of water this time, and we headed north.

I was not prepared for the Biblical proportions of bugs, however.

I am talking A-POC-A-LYP-TIC levels of horse flies and mosquitos. Like, at one point as we were driving towards the Fire Tower, Mason casually says, "Do bees follow cars?" I looked out my passenger side window and, after one landed on our car (which was traveling at least 15-20 miles per hour) we determined these were not nice, fat bumble bees, but HORSE FLIES. Giant-ass horse flies!  And they were, seriously, keeping pace with our car in a way that felt ready-made for a Stephen King horror movie.

We did not let this deter us. however.

We stopped first at the Fire Tower. I will confess to you all that I was fine going partway up, but my fear of heights is strange. I'm okay with climbing things if I can't see open ground through slats. The stairs were open and so I tapped out after only the first platform. Mason made it all the way to the top and took some photos of the spectacular view.

My view was mostly from the ground, looking up.


Image: Fire Tower at St. Croix State Park from the safe, sweet ground.

Other than the end-of-the-world level horseflies, it was a great driving time. I think Mason put in a full hour just going around the various roads. He even agreed to drive out past the ranger station where the posted speed was 50. I don't think he cracked 45, but he gave it a go. AND managed to stop in time for an indecisive deer in the middle of the road. 

However, we didn't make it home until very late. 

Still a good time was had by all.