Lake Shetek State Park, June 2012

This photo says it all! Our camper cabin was on a lake, on a bike trail, in the middle of southern Minnesota nowhere, and surrounded by beautiful wilderness, wildlife, and weather!!!

Watching the sunset by a perfect wind-blown campfire.

Happy soon-to-be-bed-goers, excited to be sleeping in a camper cabin again!

The Lake Shetek monument and burial grounds for the settlers who died in the fight against the Sioux Indians in this area in 1862.

Our mode of transportation for the trip.

Part of the Casey Jones bike trail that connects our campground to Currie, Minnesota.

Admiring the prairie of Laura Ingalls Wilder territory!

Looking for frogs.

Where's Mathieu?

There's Mathieu!

The purpose of our trip was 1) to see another beautiful Minnesota state park, and 2) to see the End O' Line railroad museum. Cait adored our tour guide, Brittany, and hung on every word she said.

Cait ringing the old-style railroad bell. It was LOUD!

Mathieu checking for kid-sized trains.

A set up of Currie, Minnesota, when the railroad was prominent here back in the late 1800s.

A small-scale version of the hand-push turntable that used to operate here. We took a spin on the actual turntable, one of only two operational turntables in the country that sits on a huge ball bearing, allowing two people to easily rotate one big heavy engine 180 degrees. It's no longer used to rotate engines since the railroad line no longer goes through here, but the museum does give tourists rides on it.

This size engine is more Mathieu's speed.

The old train depot and telegraph office.

Mathieu was much more interested in what was outside and not what was inside. Especially considering there were Big Creepy Mannequins inside the buildings.

Cait typed on an old typewriter and tried using an old telephone, the kind where you bring the ear piece to your ear and talk into the mouth piece (just above her head). She put the ear piece to her mouth and listened through the mouth piece. No one answered, how disappointing.

Another small-scale town, this one of nearby Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

On the ride out of town back to our camper cabin, we stopped for 'shack', as Mathieu used to say, or snack at a lakeside bench.

Our view at snack time. We never passed a soul on the bike ride into or out of town. Population maps show that Minnesota has a population of <1 person per square mile out here. We definitely noticed this and it was great!

Reading books before bed. Apparently, they're more interesting when read upside down with butts in the air. Note the string of band-aids on Cait's leg. A minor pedal injury.

Mathieu crawled into Alpha Dog's sleeping bag early one morning and fell asleep. I decided to snap a photo of them, because he was so cute cuddling there. The flash surprised him out of his sleep. I just love how the photo captured his reaction!

~ Yours Truly Feeling that Lake Shetek is my Second Favorite MN State Park (Bear Head is still #1)