camping in Itasca

We took the family camping for our vacation. At the suggestion of my daughter, we headed for Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to see where the Mississippi River begins. Here you can see my children walking across the great river (they are pretty much in the middle of the Mississippi River in this photo)...

The park is a State Park in Minnesota and is very well maintained and with a wonderful information center that easily held the interest of the kids.

We camped in an old (six year old), Wal-Mart brand tent, which probably saw it's last days in the wilderness. I had encouraged my wife to let me buy a new tent, on sale, before we left, but she insisted this old one was just fine for this trip. However...


Thursday, August 25, we took the kids on a miserable three mile hike. 'Course we didn't know it was going to be miserable at the time. It had rained lightly, almost more of a heavy mist, earlier in the day, and then we started for our hike (we belong to the State Park hiking club -- most parks have a designated hike for club members -- to prove you hiked the path there is a password about half way which you log in your hiking book). We were maybe a third of a mile in when the mosquitos came out and were extremely viscious. We hadn't had any problems with bugs for the first two days there, so we hadn't even thought ahead to the possibility of mosquitos. We kept our sweatshirts on to protect us from bites as much as possible, but the air was extremely humid from the heavy mist and the rain still to come. We did manage to finish the hike and see some interesting things along the way (a loon, not far from us swimming casually in a lake, and a stand of trees that were in the process of being felled by beaver).

As we get in the car to head back to camp, it begins to rain. A light, but steady rain. So, we drive around the different campsites, waiting for the rain to let up. I stop at the ranger station to ask if they know what the forcast is, and they tell me it's a 50% chance of scattered showers (they tell me as I'm getting wet!). Doesn't sound too bad, so we head to the tent. As we get there, the rain is coming down harder, the sky is darker, and lightening is flashing all around us. We are seeing lighting strikes inside the park and some thunder is nearly instantaneous with the lightning it is so close. We check the tent and two sleeping bags are already soaking wet. Our cheap tent is "cabin" style, rather than "dome" and while the rain is supposed to run off, it tends to gather and pool above the open roof, and then run down in to the tent.


We sat in the car and waited to see if the storm was going to let up, but when it didn't, we gathered a few belongings and headed the half-hour to the nearest twon and took a hotel room for the night. Wimps. The next day was sunny and we were able to dry most everything out before packing up (we were scheduled to leave anyway). Neighbors told us it rained like that until about 11pm, so we were glad we didn't stick it out. Rain is okay, but the combination of a leaky tent and the many lightning strikes discouraged our trying to tough it out -- with young children, especially.

We are, however, going to look at tents today!