#25 Willow creek Wisconsin is wonderful

Every campground I called in Minnesota said no pets were allowed. We ended up lodging at a place in Wisconsin called Willow Creek State Park and I cannot say enough good things about how beautiful this place is. It was about 15 minutes east of St. Paul. It was the great Prairie so instead of mowing the grass they have this chest high wildflowers and grass everywhere with just an occasional path cut through the middle of it to get where you need to go. It was really cool because it was obviously and attempt at prairie restoration.

We got there about 9 o'clock at night and I tried to back into a heavily wooded area and I should have gone with the easy ones that I ignored that were really for big rigs.

The one I had picked seemed near a lake and a dump station. It was late and dark and a tight turning angle. It seemed like I could never quite get the RV backed in to the site correctly. I tried several times I got a little carried away and stubborn and backed up too close to a tree and ended up bending the rims on the bike again. It would be worth mentioning that my instincts told me that it was too wooded and I should not try but I did anyway.

It should be worth mentioning that India also said before any damage was done that we really should move on because this is not a good area and when she got to the easy site but I wouldn't listen.

I saw this sign on an RV and I could relate

The morning of our first day was really looking for a bike repair shop. Savannah and I took the bikes into the bike shop and he began the estimating and he said they would be most likely be ready on Friday. Keep in mind this is a Monday and I only wanted to stay two nights so this was not great to hear.

The packages in St Paul would be available at the lockers and the post office on Tuesday. I talked to the guy at the bike shop got he said he could probably be done Thursday as a favor and I appreciated it. He said it would be several hundred to replace the bent rims on the bikes and to give all three a general tune up.

I pointed out before that's part of my education process. Spending money is how I know I'm learning something dumb . Every time I learn an important lesson it seems to cost a lot of money.

Randall strikes again. Everytime I learn something, it seems to cost money.

I could listen to India for free, I wish I could learn to do that more.

Savannah joins me when I go into town sometimes and we did what we call fake bonding. We took the bikes and got that squared away but then we she goes in with me because she knows it somewhere along the way we will find some free Wi-Fi. We pretend is bonding but it’s really Wi-Fi motivated. We laugh about it as follows. I’ll say, Hi Savannah do you want to go ride into town”. She’ll say, “No I ‘m good. I‘ll say ‘we could do some dad, girl bonding. She knows that means were going to find some WI FI and she grabs her shoes and comes running. Yes Father that does sound nice. We both acknowledge it fake but its fun to play it out and we laugh about it. Sneaky as I am it turns into actual bonding at some point and we end up getting a slice of pizza or an ice cream and life is good.

The next day we messed around at Home Depot or something like that got some groceries did some bonding and headed home. I wish I could say we did much else that but I don't think we did a whole lot. We just goofed around and the next thing you know it was Wednesday.

I knew that it some point we needed to go see the namesake of the park which was a creek and its waterfalls so I want ahead and planned on doing that sometime around noon or so. We went toward the trail head and we park illegally at vacant campground because I didn’t see an official parking. The walk was a nice hike and it was about a mile and a half down a dirt trail and we followed Willow Creek. At one point in the middle it opened up into a gigantic prairie into a big sprawling Savannah like my daughter. We followed it on down and finally came to the falls which had a bridge going to cross the river. You could walk up in the falls and play in them and I wasn't dressed for it but I had to get wet. I went all up in the falls and played in them and in this particular case India was our photographer and I had asked her to get some pictures of me playing and being silly but she didn't use the zoom feature so I kind of like an ant in most of the pictures. Even if there's no good close up pictures of it I had a great time and the images are in my head. Still all the pictures above show the beauty of the area very well.

Getting the mail and packages at St.Paul was our main focus and so in the most predictable way we planned on spending two nights there well we started this process on a Sunday night and we left Thursday afternoon 3 p.m. St. Paul has traffic about like Washington DC and that's amazing that it seems like a small town but they apparently have too many people there because it is really clogged up like parking lot even on the interstate every afternoon from 4 to 6 o'clock.

We wanted to go to a see some gardens but it was just such a traffic nightmare we just gave up. I think if you lived there and you could plan your day is better and maybe get to a decent area and drop the car and ride the bike and enjoy the town We did go into the middle of town and see the Fitzgerald theater where Prairie Home Companion is originates from but traffic was thick we couldn’t see a way to stop.