Public Housing

Having stayed at a private campground after attending a wedding in Wisconsin, my wife, Rhonda chose to extend our trip and camp at a state park for a Walden Pond-like experience without all the fuss.  It wasn’t that we couldn’t have driven straight home after the wedding, but that defeats the whole point of camping – staying somewhere else when you could be at home. The countryside in that part of the world is beautiful, so we decided to see it during the daytime instead of dodging deer at night.

The next day, with a trailer still in tow, we pulled into Interstate State Park. That particular state park has a Minnesota side and a Wisconsin side, with the St. Croix doing its best to keep them apart. We chose the Minnesota side, as we didn’t want to wear out our welcome in Wisconsin, and we already had paid for the season pass, which grants unfettered access to all the state parks in Minnesota.

The private campground had prohibited tents; the state park encourages tenting but limits the length of the vehicle-trailer combination. Fortunately, (or not) we were able to make the cut-off for length at the state park so I backed into a spot with a beautiful view of the river.

Several times during our stay we saw a paddle-wheel boat laden with waiving passengers. The first time or two I waived back, but after that I only nodded in their general direction, as I was grew annoyed at their tour-boat style of enthusiasm.

A site or two from ours was a young family in a tent. The vinyl-lining of the tent did little to dampen the sounds of the mother hollering at the toddler and the toddler crying in response. On the other side was a trailer so small that my father would’ve said, “you couldn’t change your mind in there,” yet three adults crawled in there that night to escape the rain. The mind reels.

Before I started a fire to cook our hot dogs, I mistakenly volunteered to go for a walk. I knew Rhonda wanted to go for a walk, and I had calculated that walking around the small campground circle would have us back to our trailer in no time. However, I had not counted on the walking trail, which was partially hidden from view, but it was too late to back-out, hence my offer would be seen as shallow and insincere (which, of course, it was).

Rhonda loves to walk, I enjoy sitting, but there we were walking in 80 plus degree heat. Luckily, it was also humid so I could sweat through my shirt while avoiding poison ivy and certain death should I stumble off the path and fall hundreds of feet into the waiting waters of the St. Croix.

I struggled to keep up; it really is amazing how long a mile and a half is when you are going up and down over hills and through woods. We finally reached the end where it was suggested we take another way back.

We followed the fill-in-the-blank style of directions to get us under the highway, through the town and back home, or at least the camper. The return trail was on an old railroad bed, which had the advantage of being on an even grade without all that up and down business that nobody likes. Other than the distance, the only problems we encountered were the missing trestle and the hobbit-size culvert.

Many years ago when the train was running there was a trestle that spanned a deep ravine, but it was no longer there, so we had to negotiate our way, first down then back up, on steep stairs with only a smattering of hand-rails. The trail ended at a dank culvert, where we walked hunched-over. When we finally reached our camper Rhonda suggested I go shower, as it looked like I had just walked out of one.

So ends Part II of this travel essay. I apologize for the length, but in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “Not that the story needs to be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”