Yuki (and Brody's) RV Adventures: The Land of 10,000 Lakes

Greetings from Minnesota!

We are spending 20 days in Northwest and Northeast Minnesota. Both are very beautiful parts of the state. As some of you may have heard on the news, Minnesota did not pass their state budget on July 1 and all state services were shut down, & over 20,000 state employees were laid off. That also meant that all the state parks were closed, yes the parks that mom had booked months ago for the July 4th holiday. Luckily, at the last minute, mom found a great little RV park for us in Bemidji, with lots of room for me to play ball in our "front yard".

We stayed for a week to relax and enjoy the beautiful Lake Bemidji, and the many other huge lakes in the area.

Mom and dad were happy as we were right next to the 100 mile paved Paul Bunyan bike trail - so off they went for long bike rides while I caught up on my sleep.

One morning we all got up at 5:00 in the morning so dad could go fishing. In this area, you need a boat to do any serious fishing, he wanted to catch a walleye, but no luck this time.

Our next destination was Voyageurs National Park, near the Canadian border. Voyageurs is named for the French-Canadian traders who paddled Minnesota's northern waterways over 200 years ago carrying loads of beaver and other fur pelts.The park is dominated by its 30 lakes and is best explored by boat. We stayed at the Harmony Beach resort, right on Lake Kabetogama, one of the larger lakes at the park.

Here is the swing that mom and I would sit on each afternoon to watch the boats (actually I was looking for chipmunks.)

One day mom and dad took a ranger led boat tour of the park.

Lots of beautiful greenery and small islands eveywhere.

They saw many bald eagles. Can you see one in the tree?

Another day they took a canoe ride in a canoe similar to the ones used by the Voyageurs.

and led by rangers in period costumes, french accents and all.

Looks like mom is ready to paddle!

Dad hired a guide and a boat to go fishing and he caught his limit of Northern Pike and we had one for dinner that night. It was delicious. Mom thought she took a picture, but it was a video so I tried to insert it here - hope it works.

Dad made sure our windshield was clean before we took off.

Our next stop was Ely, a small, but popular town, at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness, part of the Superior National Forest.

We got a great national forest campsite at Fall Lake, with a big "backyard" for me.

Dad and mom decided they wanted to try and canoe on the lake so they rented a huge, but stable canoe.

The next morning, they got up early and watched You Ttube videos on how to canoe, but from where I was sitting (in the car), it didn't seem to help them very much. Lots of the time they just went around in circles, with dad yelling at mom to "Paddle, Paddle"!!!. Somehow they did get out on the lake and about 2 hours later managed to make it back to the dock without tipping over.