So, after some last minute scrambling (is there really any other kind?) we left on Friday afternoon to start looking for places to get married. First, we went to Mille Lacs-Kathio State Park up by Onamia on the sorthern point of Mille Lacs. It was a pretty nice place, we got a campsite, hiked around on trails so steep they were marked with a line that looked like an EKG, sort of a pictograph of how the hills were and what your heart rate would look like after treckking up and down them. There's a little penninsula that juts into Lake Ogetchie (sort of a side lake to Mille Lacs, an old wild ricing lake) where there are remnants of a Dakota village. We ended up (sssshhhhhh!) bringing some blankets and sleeping in the open air there. It was really amazing, the stars were really bright (despite the weird pink glow on the horizon from the casino in the distance) and we saw a couple shooting stars!
Verdict from Andrew: nice place but the 'energy wasn't right.'
Wild River State Park was next, we drove out there Saturday morning. We went right to the trail along the St. Croix which was really beautiful. The sandy trail was really narrow and sandy, it was like you were walking in the middle of the woods since the path was only a few inches wide. By the time we got there it was pretty warm in the early afternoon so when we spotted some little islands in the middle of the river we stripped to our skivvies and swam out there. Dear god, river water is cold. It was really nice though. We left thinking that this was a serious contender.
About 3:00 we drove down to Donna's in SE MN. On the way, in the nice warm car, we started to get really sleepy so we looked for a park on the way to nap in. We pulled off in my ex-husband's childhood stomping grounds to go to Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park. Just as we got a few miles from Nerstrand we had a blow out. Fuck. Then when we went to change the tire, the jack (which was the crappy one that came with the car and wa srusted through on one side) fell over and twisted. So we had to flag someone down and borrow a jack. Then we went to Northfield to get the tire replaced, which tooka few hours. We ended up getting to Donna's around 9:00 pm, by then it was pretty much dark. We had a nice talk after I introduces Andrew and she showed us her INCREDIBLE hippie-haven house. We turned in around midnight. I got up and made breakfast for everyone, and she showed us the land. Basically, she has a sheep and goat farm with the barn and pasture on a couple acres on a nice, rolling hilltop-- and acres and acres of steeply wooded, boulder-strewn ravine.
Andrew really thought it was the best place to do it, and got along great with DOnna, who'd been thinking about putting up a stone circle of some kind for years. Solooks like that might happen with Andrew and his students coming down to work on it.
Then we headed home in the afternoon, after stopping in briefly to seem the natural spring at Beaver Creek Valley State Park. More tenant problems (well, a problem that Alison needed resolved, not a problem with Alison, who's a sweetie) to deal with, but otherwise it was good to be back at the house.
