Blue Mounds State Park

We've been staying at Blue Mounds State Park here in Minnesota, but this morning we're hitting the road and heading towards Yankton.  There is still a lot for me to tell you about the area, especially the city of Sioux Falls, but for now I'll just fill you in on the park itself.

The campground has 71 sites, 40 of them with electric.  We made our reservations online since we were arriving on a Saturday, but if you come on a Sunday or later you'll have your choice of sites.  Just about everyone was gone by Sunday afternoon, there's less than 10 sites occupied now.  The new shower building was beautiful but the water was tepid at best so I used ours in the camper after the first night.

There are 15 miles of hiking trails, but they are all across prairie.  Most of the park sits atop an outcrop of Sioux quartzite, which we even had a chunk of at our campsite as you can see in the above photo.

One day we walked for an hour from our campsite out to the top of the cliffline and took the Upper Cliffline trail out about a mile and then back.  One of the surprises here is in addition to the abundance of prairie grass and flowers we found spots with cactus growing!  The area is one of several in Minnesota where cacti are found.   Who knew?

The park also has two dams that form two very small "lakes", one of which is good for fishing and swimming.  I found it to be a source for a different variety of flowers than on the prairie, but I'll save that for another post.

The bike trail is only 2.8 miles long, and Wayne and I took it out to the historic quarry and back our first full day here.  On the way back we ran into a little girl with the cutest carrier on the back of her bike for her dolly.  Bitty Baby was  back at home, but I think we made her day when we asked her if she'd pose with her bike for us!