HB V

is older than it's ever been and now it's even older

1/12/2002

Never too early…


This winter has been extremely mild and warm, with precious little snow. On one hand, that’s really bad, because Mag and I have been saving some money for snowshoes and we have little need of them now. There is not enough snowpack to do any winter recreation around here and the temperatures have been above freezing for most of this week. On the other hand, at least it’s been comfortable here. The other thing I’ve been thinking about is a possible early start of canoe season—if there isn’t much ice on the lakes it will take less to thaw in the spring. With that in mind, I’ve been pondering the places in Minnesota where a canoe is the ticket to the best camping possible. Here’s a checklist of campsites I’ve got my eye on for next summer. Each of the following sites has at least one canoe-in campsite where you load all of your equipment into your boat and paddle to a remote campsite.

  • Bear Head Lake. We went here twice last summer (map). It has two very nice sites in different bays of the lake. Nearly four hours away, it’s located on the road to Ely.

  • Banning State Park. We didn’t go here last year; it has a canoe campsite on the Kettle river downstream from the put-in point (map). Some rapids mean that we might not choose to go here. We like the easier trips.

  • Charles Lindbergh State Park has a campsite upstream Pike Creek from the put-in near where the creek feeds into the Mississippi. This looks promising (map).

  • Glendalough looks neat; there are a series of glacial lakes that intersect and the middle one has a site on the other side from the put-in. About three hours to the west, we didn’t go here last year (map).

  • Lake Bronson is about as far away in Minnesota as we could go, in the Northwest corner. However, Mag and I really want to visit here because the canoe-in sites are on an island (map.) We are thinking about going here for Memorial day.

  • Maplewood is where we went first last year. It’s about a three hour drive west from the Twin Cities, and has a couple of first class sites to choose from (map). We will go here for sure this year.

  • St. Croix State Park on the St. Croix river has a campsite or two. This would be a fun place to do a camping trip on a piece of a big river (map).

  • Savanna Portage is a park that deserves a second look at a more favorable time of year. We visited here at the height of summer last year and the flies and heat were enough to make it not so much fun. However, the trails are top notch and the campsite was very cool (map).

  • Scenic State Park was the last one we visited. You may recall I blogged that at the time. This was probably my favorite from last year (map).

  • Rice Lake is the closest on this list, at about a one hour drive away. The canoe-in site has five campsites clustered around it, so we probably won’t go here in prime camping season. However, if it remains mild we may risk a March or early April jaunt down here to get us going this year (map).


I can’t wait for spring. Too bad we haven’t had winter yet.
It’s (not) good to be the king

An interesting article on how Prince William might refuse the crown. The way the author makes his case, I certainly wouldn’t want to do it either.

William is asked to give up his privacy, his sexual, religious and political freedom, any career he might want to pursue, any life he might lead - and for what? For the glory of one day being King? A glory that consists of, um, unveiling statues and chuntering about in carriages, waving like a buffoon to an increasingly resentful and chippy public? Would you do it?


From the stupendous Linkmachinego, a British blog that has only gotten better over the year and a half I’ve read it.

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