Charles Lindbergh State Park, May 2011

Our first camping trip of the season. It's been a wet and cold spring here in Minnesota, but we managed to get out for a nice long weekend.

Charles Lindbergh State Park is a small park that has a museum and the boyhood home of Lindbergh that you can tour. They only have about 15 electric sites. We did get out for some hiking, but the trails were pretty wet.

Office as you check in.

Charles Lindberghs boyhood home

Campsites

Bathrooms

Hiking trail

Our site

Itasca State Park, December 2010

We drove up to Itasca State Park after our stay at Chase on the Lake since it was such a beautiful day and we've never been to the park in the winter. You can see from the photos below that it's a beautiful park in the winter.

Chase on the Lake, Walker, MN December 2010

We went to Chase on the Lake in December, 2010 because I got a great deal on Groupon. 1 night hotel with 4 hours of snowmobiling plus a free dinner in their restaurant. The place is very nice. It's an old historic hotel, but the rooms are very spa like. They have snowmobile trails right off the hotel so we didn't even have to drive anywhere. The hotel is also located on Leech Lake so we saw lots of ice fish houses.

Gull Lake COE Park, October, 2010

We camped at the Gull Lake COE Park in early October, 2010. This park is great in the spring and fall when the weather is cool as they have loads of wood you can burn for just $5.00/day. The sites are all pretty private. To get to the lake you need to walk across a small bridge. They have a short hiking trail as well.

Charles Lindbergh State Park May, 2011

First trip of the year was to Charles Lindbergh State Park. This park is located just outside of Little Falls, MN. It's a very small park - only 15 electric sites and another 21 sites that are non-electric. There are some nice walking trails and path along the river. These trails always seem to be wet and boggy in the springtime. This weekend was no exception. There is also a park area with playground equipment and you can tour the Charles Lindbergh boyhood home and the museum.

St. Croix State Park - Labor Day 2010

St. Croix State Park - Riverview Campground

St. Croix State Park - our site

St. Croix State Park Beach area

St. Croix State Park Visitor Center

Lake Carlos State Park - July 4th, 2010

Entrance to upper campground


Lower campground sites


Upper campground bathroom


Our campsite - upper campground


Lake Carlos - view from lower campground

Lake Carlos State Park is located 10 miles north of Alexandria. They have 2 campgrounds. The lower campground is right on the lake. All of the roads in the lower campground are tarred and there is a tarred bike/walk path to the beach from this campground as well. In addition, the boat landing is next to this campground and the visitor center is just around the corner. There are 2 bath facilities with showers at each end of this campground. The pluses of this campground are that you have lake view sites, the tarred roads for biking and the proximity to the beach and boat landing. The downside of the lower campground is that when it's windy you'll definitely feel it and you can't use your awnings. The lower campground fills up very fast.

The upper campground is much woodsier. The sites are a bit more spread out. There are 2 bath houses in this campground as well. When it's windy on the lake, you can come to the upper campground and barely notice so if you like more privacy this is the campground for you.


This past weekend we stayed at the upper campground - only because the lower campground was full. It ended up being a good choice as it was extremely windy 2 days and we notice that you couldn't keep anything out in the lower campground or it would blow away.