Visiting Itasca with North Dakota Friends

A few weeks ago my friend Siri and I realized that Minnesota and North Dakota had teachers convention at the same time this year, and although they got two days off from school and we only had one, we decided it might be quite fun to do something together and settled on visiting Itasca to experience the Headwaters of the Mississippi.  I hadn’t ever been to Itasca, so I thought it was a good idea too.  Our husbands had various commitments, so it was a mom and kid trip.   Siri arranged for hotel rooms and on Friday afternoon we headed out.  I’m thrilled to say that the car ride to and from Itasca went wonderfully!  When we arrived the kidlets swam and swam and swam.  In fact, there was extensive swimming every day.  We were such a crew that we may have overwhelmed the other hotel patrons in the pool area, but really the kids were all behaving well.  It was just that there were a lot of them!

In fact, wherever we went, people remarked, “Wow.  That’s a lot of kids.”

Saturday morning we had breakfast in the hotel.  My kidlets LOVE breakfast at hotels.  So many choices!  And the choices usually involve sugar cereal and sugar yogurt and sugary muffins or pastries, and in this case they also lucked out and were able to have waffles both mornings.  After eating we headed out for Itasca.  I got the car full of boys and Siri drove the car full of girls.  I’m not sure what her car trip was like, but mine was exceedingly quiet.  All of the big boys were in the back playing a video game that Josiah and Micah brought along for the car ride.  All three of them were crazy obsessed.

Since none of them get very much screen time, unlimited access to video games in the car was really exciting.  When they were later  asked about their favorite part of the day, at least two of them replied that they really liked the car ride.  Hmm.

We stopped at the visitors center.  I managed to read a few signs in the museum, but not many.  On our drive just up the road to the headwaters, I passed a few of the places I had read about in the visitor center.  I stopped the car to read a few more signs, which was met with a little disgruntlement from the back.  There was rampant concern that I was going to get lost since Siri’s car was far ahead.

Let’s just pause for a moment and bask in the marvel of this picture:  eight kids all looking the same direction at the same time.  They are standing on the first bridge across the Mississippi River.

She had big plans to get her shoes and socks off while her mom wasn’t looking.

Everyone crossed the rocks at the headwaters several times, but only one kidlet waded across the Mississippi.  It was a might chilly!

We left the headwaters and drove to see the biggest White Pine in Minnesota.  It was gargantuan, more than 300 years old.  I loved it, and unfortunately didn’t manage to read the sign about it.  Go figure.

To get them to cooperate for this picture, we told them they had to be in the picture to get lunch.  Unfortunately then we had to follow through and give them lunch, and in the process missed seeing the biggest red pine tree and had to zip rather quickly through the old growth pine forest.

The girls spent most of their time walking attached together.  The boys spent most of their time walking whacking things with sticks and racing around in circles.

These two were not the speediest walkers, but they were happy and had a good time.

Josiah and Mr. Sneaky Pants think a lot a like.

It makes me very happy that these two first babies, who spent so much of their toddlerhood together are still good friends even though they live hundreds of miles away from each other.

We climbed a fire tower in the early afternoon.  Or maybe I should clarify and say that everyone except Mr. Trouble on Feet and I climbed the fire tower.  Mr. TOF was a slow walker, and by the time we got to the fire tower, everyone else was at the top, and Mr. TOF is just too cautions to give all those steps a go, so we watched from the bottom.  We ended the afternoon at Itasca with a short hike.  The distance was very short, anyway, but by that time our littlest people were running out of steam, and Mr. TOF was the slowest hiker in existence.  He walked the whole way and happily, but it took FOREVER.  The hike was a little loop on the map, and not far, but one section of it was a minimum maintenance trail we discovered later.  That made a lot of sense, because there were a LOT of obstacles to navigate on the trail, which made it all the more adventuresome.

The funniest moment of the day was near the end of that hike., after we’d been going over fallen trees and under fallen trees and around fallen trees and through piles of leaves.  All the big kids were far ahead, and Kari and Mr. TOF were slowly making their way down the trail with extensive encouragement from the mom contingent.  Siri said something like, “Kari! Keep going! We’re almost done hiking in the forest!”

And Kari looked up at her seriously and  replied, “What forest?”

We ended the day with supper at a German cafe in Park Rapids and lots and lots more crazy swimming.  At the end of the day The Banana was so exhausted that she asked me to read to her and fell deeply asleep before I finished the first page of the chapter.