Brett Favre Territory (Lower Minnesota and Wisconsin)

Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Wabasha, MN

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the land of consumerism. Where all your needs should be met, as long as your pocket book is deep enough. Welcome to the place where you can buy some magnets, ride a roller coaster, eat some frozen yogurt, get your hair styled, buy a new outfit, read a book, get your eyes checked, and visit an aquarium. Well, when you are in Minnesota, there is only one place to do all of these things.

Jen and I decided the Mall of America was something that we had to experience and getting out of the car for a nice walk sounded like a good idea. We walked around the place as we were looking for nothing in particular. The need to stretch out legs was greater than the need to waste money. By our estimation we walked about 2 miles around the mall. Each level of the mall, of which there are four, plus a basement level that houses the aquarium, is a little more than a half mile each and we explored pretty much all of it with the exception to a couple of areas.

Leaving the Mall, we headed towards Wabasha, Minnesota. It turns out that Wabasha is where they filmed Grumpy Old Men. Wabasha is also the home an eagle research center and museum. We drove down to the Mississippi Riverfront on which the center was located, but it was closed. The location was very pretty, and this was our first glimpse at the Mississippi River in its massive glory. The houses in the area were all very nice and quaint and had spectacular views of the river. It started getting dark outside and we still needed to find a place to sleep.

The drive into the nearby Hardwood State Forest was our sanctuary. We drove into the forest with a keen eye out for the mysterious campground. The surroundings were semi out of a horror film. There were backwoods houses that had random defunct cars and furniture out in their lawns and scattered amongst their farms. As we drove further into the forest we finally saw the sign for the campground. We drove up the sketchy looking hill and were surrounded by even more scary looking trees. At the top of the hill was a person standing with a flashlight walking around. Luckily the guy kept cruising and wasn’t around as we reached the top. Located at the top of the hill was the bulletin board for the campground with all of the info for checking in and such. It also had the name of the campgrounds.

Kruger Campgrounds is where we slept, and that’s Kruger as in Freddy Kruger, the guy with knives attached to his fingers who gets kicks out of killing people in their dreams. Kruger Campgrounds, aka the best name for a place to sleep, was not too great for tenting, but we found a nice patch in the woods that would suffice. Luckily, Freddy Kruger must have had the night off, as we survived the night. Freddy knew that people would be camping out in his campground, so he had some friends cover his shift. His friends were bloodsuckers by the name of mosquitoes. The mosquitoes in Kruger Campground were ruthless. It forced us to setup the tent in record time. We managed to get into the tent with only a couple of battle wounds.

Wisconsin

Our next voyage was into the land of cheese, home of the Green Bay Packers, and great accents; Wisconsin. We drove along the Mississippi River through rural Wisconsin as we headed towards the Wisconsin Dells. Jen was feeling pretty under the weather, so I drove fairly quickly into the Dells area. Wisconsin Dells should change its name to the land of water slides. They have more water slides and water parks than any other place that I have ever seen. I talked Jen into walking around, telling her that it would help her feel better if she wasn’t cooped up in the car. We got up and stretched our legs and she felt a little better. We found a cheese store and bought some really good cheese dip that we used to eat with pretzels. Following the Dells, we kept pushing towards our next destination. We headed towards Chicago to hang out with Noah, and we couldn’t have been more excited.

Random Facts

Pictures Jen Took = 4 (flowers below)

Pictures Mike Took = Less Than 10

Horror Movie Campgrounds = 1

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches Eaten = 26

States We Spent Less Than 24 Hours In = 2

Funny Signs Seen = 4 (2 pictured below)