Chippewa National Forest and Morning Star Resort

Now that Heidi is getting older, we are doing all we can to make sure she gets to experience new things.  She had never been camping in a tent before.  Shawn had never been camping in a National Forest before.

So, Justin made reservations and we all headed up to Walker for a weekend in Chippewa National Forest.

We stayed on Pike Bay which is part of the Cass Lake chain.

I just love driving up Hwy 10 and Hwy 371.  All the small towns have so much character and the scenery is beautiful.  Once you hit Hwy 371 you see Paul Bunyan just about every 40 miles.

The campground is on the Mi-Ge-Zi Trail and overlooks Pike Bay.

The girls had a lot of fun swimming.  The water is very shallow until a long way out so it was pretty warm when the sun was out.

They took a rest and sun bathed for awhile.

And built sand castles as best they could with no buckets or shovels.

Justin picked up two of those Camp Chef things.  You put bread and apple pie filling in it, set it in the fire, and after 5 minutes you have a hot apple pie.  We had these when we were kids and loved them.

So Justin and Dawn used them for lunch to make grilled sandwiches.

Justin left his in a bit to long!!  I told him I was going to put this in the "What's for dinner" section on my blog as something not to make.

Dinner was much better.  Thanks to Grill Master Shawn.

Heidi enjoyed riding her bike around the grounds with the other girls and looking for wildlife.  One of the girls was sure they saw a bear so the took Shawn out looking for it.

Shawn explained that if you happen across a black bear you should yell "Hey, get out of here bear!!" and throw a rock at it.  We all took a turn practicing scaring away pretend bears.  It was a riot!

I heard they found some frogs in a hole.  I think the plan was to set them free.  But we advised they did not stick their arms in any dark holes in the forest.  I would venture to guess it's not a frog in there.

Our wildlife sighting were limited to the caterpillar on the stick in Heidi's hand in the picture above, chipmunks and squirrels that Libby treed, a Bald Eagle that blurred past, and this strange little fellow:

Not sure who he is but he hung out for about 10 minutes one night.  Libby never even noticed him.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed for the resort.

We were all a bit hungry so we pulled into the 371 Cafe for breakfast.  Gracie and Heidi were connected at the hip the entire time they were together.  They are about 3 weeks apart in age and both will start Kindergarten this fall.

Aren't they adorable?  We had a bit of a child exchange program going on that weekend.  We started the weekend with Faith and Ariel, Gracie was at home with an ear infection.  Before we had dinner on Saturday night, Gracie joined us.  Then after dinner, Ariel got sick and went home.  Good thing we were only 20 minutes from the resort!

As soon as we arrived at the resort, the girls dove in the lake.

And Hunter, the strangest dog I have ever met, begged for a game of Frisbee.

After swimming, there was time to play with the new kitten.  And that's what Heidi did until it was time to jump in the van and head back to the cities.

Another first in the books, great memories in our minds, and the spark of an idea for next summer.  And so ends our busy month of July.