Minnesota Week 03

Aug. 22 - Aug. 28, 2021

Sunday, we moved to St. Croix River Resort near Hinckley, MN.  The drive was pretty uneventful until we got to see a bear run across the road a few miles before we got to the RV Park.  There is not a lot to do around this area but the park is beautiful.  Our only down side is no satellite reception...or maybe that is an upside. Roku to the rescue again.

Monday, we didn't do much but we did walk down to the St. Croix River.  It looks like a good river to float. I took advantage of the clubhouse to cut out the counting book for my great nephew and its accompanying blanket.  I took advantage of the wonderful outside weather to do a little reading.

Tuesday, we visited the Franconia Sculpture park in St. Croix Falls. There was some weird stuff there for sure. They even have a resident Guinea Hen who was hanging out on their back porch and trying to talk up her reflection.  We had dinner at the Fish Bowl Bar and grill. It was prime rib and grilled oyster night.

Wednesday, I spent most of the day catching up on getting my blog posts written and ready to be posted. And then I continued reading part 1 of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn...scary as hell, it is about life in the Soviet forced labor camp system by someone who was actually there. Why am I reading this you might ask, well the old saying about "those who forget history are destined to repeat it" comes to mind. And with people calling themselves Democratic Socialists, I thought I'd read a little about what they really are and how they operated in the USSR.  This may have been covered in my history classes but if it was I didn't really pay attention back then.  

Thursday, the rain has started so we just hung out today. It is kind of nice after all the activity we did last week. I wasted a lot of time on Facebook and cooked. And of course we watched the s*&% show unfolding in Afghanistan. 

Friday, we explored the local town of Hinckley.  We started with a local quilt shop, Quarry Quilts & Yarns.  They had some really beautiful quilts on the wall and I found some more Minnesota fabric.  Next we were going to visit a couple of waterfalls but one was closed and the other required a 4 mile hike.  That was a little more than I wanted to tackle with the threat of rain.  We visited the Hinckley Fire Museum.  It was pretty amazing.  On September 1, 1894 a fire moved thru the town like a tornado.  The flames soared 4.5 miles into to sky, it destroyed 250 million acres and three towns in just 4 hours! 418 people were killed in the fire as well. Can you even imagine? We stopped at Tobies Restaurant for dinner.  They are famous for their caramel pecan sticky buns. I enjoyed their fried walleye and we brought home a half dozen of the sticky buns.  They are huge and they are GOOD.