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The Central West End is the neighborhood we chose to stay in, which is strategically located between Forest Park and downtown St Louis. It is a safe neighborhood, and Saint Louis University’s campus is only a block away from our accommodation. Even before the trip, we were very well aware that St Louis consistently ranks among the most dangerous cities in the US every year. In fact, we heard about a high school shooting incident on TV on the second night of our stay, which occurred just 3 miles south of our accommodation. We also drove past the bright collapsible spotlights and reporters’ vans parked beside the school on the following rainy evening. It’s worth noting that the high crime areas are mainly concentrated on the north side of downtown St Louis and in East St Louis. East St Louis is technically not part of St Louis since it is located across the Mississippi River in Illinois.

We allocated a full day to explore the Gateway Arch National Park and downtown St Louis. Knowing that parking in big cities is always problematic and costly, we left our car in the parking garage for the entire day and explored by foot instead. Our combo tickets covered a tram ride to the top of the Gateway Arch, a short documentary movie, and a riverboat cruise. It was fascinating to learn about the purpose of this arch and how President Thomas Jefferson played a pivotal role in the westward expansion by acquiring the Louisiana Territory from France. On the other hand, the riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River in the afternoon was a rather forgettable experience. Apart from admiring the giant arch from different angles and enjoying the beautiful fall weather, nothing was interesting outside that area, especially on the Illinois side. In the evening, we drove across the river to watch the sunset overlooking the St Louis skyline from the Illinois side.

We visited several public parks throughout the stay to capture the fall colors. In addition, we took advantage of the free attractions in St Louis and its vicinities, such as the St Louis Zoo, St Louis Art Museum, Missouri History Museum, World Chess Hall of Fame, and Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. Besides covering the city attractions, we hiked in Lone Elk Park, Castlewood State Park in Missouri, and Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois. One of the trip highlights was the Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour. The guided tour was 2 hours long, and it wasn’t cheap, but we got to drink lots of beer to make up for the price. Our tour guide also shared many interesting stories, two of which stood out. One story was how the brewery founder originally wanted to name the current Busch Stadium as Budweiser Stadium. However, the Major League Baseball rules prohibited naming a venue after an alcoholic beverage. So, the owner circumvented that rule by naming it after himself and introducing Busch Beer later. The second story was about Walt Disney’s ambition to open a second theme park at St Louis Riverfront (where the Gateway Arch is currently located). However, the founder’s great-grandson vehemently opposed this idea after discovering that the theme park would not serve beer. Hence, Disney World was built in sunny Florida.

Our drive home included a stop in a small city named Hannibal. When we drove past this city on our way to St Louis, the city’s name piqued my interest. My impromptu research discovered this city is definitely not named after Hannibal Lecter (because it would be silly). Instead, it is the boyhood home of Mark Twain. I vividly remember my struggles with the college’s English reading assignments about Huckleberry Finn’s adventures. Every student was required to share their opinions after reading the assigned chapters. In the class, 2 nerdy students dominated the discussions among themselves and the teacher. Besides being lazy, the idea of speculating based on a storybook was odd to me since we could have read further chapters to learn about Finn’s next adventure. I digress. It is also worth mentioning that Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain refer to the same person, whereas the latter is the pen name of the earlier. As we drove home, we passed by a state park named Wakonda in Missouri, which we obviously had a few good chuckles at. And no, Black Panther is not a Missourian.

The overall trip was enjoyable. We were blessed with excellent weather and stunning fall colors, not to mention the gas price was considerably lower in Missouri. We tried several classic St Louis foods such as St Louis-style ribs, toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, and pizza with Provel cheese. We also had several fantastic Chinese cuisines in the Chinatown area. Apart from a few ghetto areas we had to drive through near downtown St Louis, the rest of the neighborhoods were generally very safe for us to explore.

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We headed out early and began our hike at 9 AM. The forecasted passing shower didn’t happen that morning, although it was very chilly with the temperature hovering below 40F. The campground still had quite a few die-hard campers, especially at this time of the year. We hiked leisurely on relatively flat trails for 5.8 miles in under 3 hours.

After the hike, we headed to Faribault for lunch. This small city — named after Alexander Faribault, who set up a fur trading post there — has a similar population size as Winona. It is safe to say that most small cities in the US — regardless of how ethnically diverse they are — have at least one great Mexican restaurant that the locals universally love. After having our fajita, enchilada, and margarita, we explored Faribault’s Historic Commercial District, which consists of many well-preserved historic buildings from the 1880s to 1950s, before heading home.

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We started our day by heading to Fort Ridgely State Park for a hike. It was so cold in the morning that the rain turned into snow flurries when passing by Mankato. Fort Ridgely is the fourth oldest state park in Minnesota. It served as a military post to keep the peace as the settler-colonists pushed into the Dakota homelands in the mid-1850s. This fort was named “Ridgely” to honor three army officers of the same name who died during the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848. We hiked 3 miles below the freezing point before heading to New Ulm for some fantastic hot German dishes for lunch. In the afternoon, we explored the historic downtown and visited several small local attractions before hanging out at Schell’s Brewery — the second oldest family-owned brewery in the US. We continued with more German dishes for dinner at a different restaurant before calling it a night. Last year, our visit to North Dakota introduced us to various German food and expanded our already-broad taste palate. At least we can now comfortably order German dishes other than bratwurst and sauerkraut.

The next day, while having our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, we overheard chatters beside our table that the Twin Cities had snowed. Unfazed by the snow heading in our direction, we proceeded to hike 5.5 miles in Flandrau State Park in the morning. While the temperature was as cold as the previous day, the hiking experience was much more pleasant because we didn’t have to battle the brutal wind. We were glad the snow didn’t make it here. After our light lunch in downtown New Ulm, we headed home.

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Minneopa State Park is Minnesota’s 3rd oldest state park — after Itasca and Interstate. Minneopa means “water falling twice” in the Dakota language, most likely referring to the rather impressive Minneopa Falls. The 2-tiered waterfall and the bridge across the waterfall vividly reminded us of ​​​​Multnomah Falls in Oregon, albeit the latter was much on a grander scale. After the hike, we drove to another part of the state park for a more extended adventure. Many visitors chose to drive through the bison range, which we also checked out later, but we hiked the 5.2 miles loop around the fenced bison range. Our idea was to walk clockwise in the morning because it was more exposed under the sun on the west part of the loop. Still, our super scientific strategy didn’t pan out because it became cloudy and breezy in the afternoon.

As we reached a hill overlooking the valley at Seppmann Mill, a park volunteer approached and educated us about the bison in Minnesota. The state park currently has 50 bison — the maximum number of roaming bison allowed, given the land size. Out of the 50 bison here, 18 were breedable females, and the park had a record of 19 bison calves born this year, meaning one bison had twins. Each bison was genetically tested to ensure none of them carried cattle strain. When the herd grows over time, some bison are either transferred to other locations for breeding to preserve the pure wild bison species or sold for their meat. For comparison, Blue Mound State Park has the most bison in Minnesota — about 100 of them — and it is one of the world’s last remaining herds of purebred bison. We were fortunate to witness a large herd of bison resting lazily on the other side of the fence during the hike. It was amusing to see many vehicles moving at a snail’s pace in the bison range, hoping to spot the bison. Unfortunately, most of these majestic beasts gathered far away from the dusty road. As we drove through the bison range after the hike, we rolled down the window to capture the flora. The vehicles behind us immediately stopped and looked in the same direction, thinking our laser eyes had located the elusive fauna. After our late lunch at 3:30 PM, we briefly explored Old Town Mankato and Mankato State University before heading home.

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The Historic Fort Snelling was recently reopened to the public in May this year after more than 2 years of rehabilitation and improvements. Part of the 1904 cavalry barracks houses a new visitor center. Because we were too cheap to pay for the $6 fee at the historic fort’s parking lot, we used our annual pass by parking near the state park’s actual visitor center under the Mendota Bridge. Then, we hiked half a mile to the historic fort’s visitor center to purchase admission tickets. Considered one of the most popular state parks in Minnesota due to its proximity to the Twin Cities, the history behind Fort Snelling was complicated and dark, to say the least. Behind its strategic location at the confluence of two rivers, this site was a concentration camp for 1,600 Dakota following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Back then, the U.S. Army supported slavery at the fort by allowing its soldiers to bring their personal enslaved people to handle domestic chores. In World War II, many second-generation Japanese Americans were recruited here to serve as translators and code breakers.

We watched a few demonstrations by the costumed interpreters within the fort’s wall. The funniest moment was after several soldiers reenacted a skirmish in an open field, and one lost a fake grenade. An announcer on a PA system calmly narrated that this was the first time the soldiers had lost a grenade, and they had to scour through the field looking for it. Although we could have easily spent half a day at the fort, we left after an hour when it began to drizzle. Instead, we decided to do a 4-mile brisk hike around Pike Island. Our initial idea was that the tall trees would shield us from the rain, except that it rained so heavily halfway in. Unfortunately, some parts of the trail did not have enough trees to serve as rain shelters. The good news was we remembered to bring our small dry bags along this time to prevent our cameras and bottled water from getting wet. The bad news was we didn’t bother to bring umbrellas or wear rain jackets. As a result, we were already drenched in rain when we made a mad dash out of the trail. We ended our wet adventure by having hot and spicy Thai cuisine for lunch in St Paul.

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We started our drive at 8 AM to a nearby gas station first and stumbled upon our neighbors heading to Wisconsin for a hike in La Crosse. So naturally, we were excited to rent 2 kayaks upon arrival at the park headquarters. So excited that we paid the money, we immediately jumped into the car and drove towards the boat launch area, only to turn back around to pick up our paddles. Although both canoe and kayak cost $15 each for 3 hours, we opted for the latter since we figured we would have no problem navigating the calmer current in the marsh.

Voyageurs Canoe Trail is the only water trail in Perrot State Park, a 3.5-mile loop around Trempealeau Bay. Many red-winged blackbirds sang loudly in the arrowheads and wild rice-filled marsh right beside the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge. These black songbirds look like crows from afar but have distinctive bright red and yellow shoulder patches. We saw one turtle sunbathing on a toppled tree trunk and several elusive beavers swimming at a distance — too fast for us to photograph them. The first half of the adventure was tiring because we had to paddle against the current on a breezy morning. On our way back, no paddling was needed as we allowed the gentle breeze to push our kayaks downstream in circles like a compass gone haywire. French Canadian explorers came to this area in their canoes in the mid-1600s to expand the fur trade. We doubt these voyageurs also floated aimlessly like us. Our kayak trip was a little over 2 hours long. By the time we were done, the temperature had become considerably warmer, which wasn’t surprising due to the looming heat wave in the coming days. We stopped by the coffee shop in downtown Winona for a delicious lunch before heading back home.

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On the first day, we drove 3.5 hours straight to Duluth for an early lunch at Duluth Grill. This restaurant has grown so popular in recent years that we stopped coming back due to a long queue of customers waiting just to be seated. Fortunately, there was no queue this time, and we took the opportunity to dine outside. Outdoor dining is one of a few good things coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic (another is working from home). It was never really a thing, especially in Minnesota, due to the short warm season. Now, this trend is here to stay, hopefully. After lunch, we cut through the long queue of customers to pick up some take-out sandwiches — our dinner meal — at Northern Waters Smokehaus before strolling to Canal Park. It was worth noting that we nearly turned a pedestrian into roadkill for dashing across the busy road without looking at both sides. As we hiked the 3.5 miles of Silver Creek Trail in the state park, we forgot to apply any bug spray and left it in the car. The mosquitoes ate us alive, and we didn’t take too many pictures as we hurried to get off the trail. As more friends arrived past 6 PM, we were already done with our dinner, took our bath, and hid in the screen house from the relentless mosquitoes in the windless evening. We chatted with friends and went into our tent at midnight.

As expected, it rained the following early morning. We lazily got out of the tent at 6 AM even though we had been up an hour before because the birds couldn’t stop chirping loudly in the campground. Thankfully, our screen house allowed us to prepare the group breakfast in the rain: porridge and sodium-rich SPAM — to be exact, 12 insane cans of Hawaii’s most beloved food. Given our super spacious campsite, other friends set up 2 more rain shelters so that all of us could gather and make meals together. Our camp ended up with 2 screen houses, 1 canopy, 2 tents, 2 vehicles, and 14 adult chairs. So grandiose that a friendly park ranger stopped by to remind us to limit up to 3 items — a combination of cars and tents — in any campsite in the future to reduce footprint damage outside the designated area. The weather was a tale of 2 stories: wet in the morning and beautiful breezy sunny in the afternoon. We went for a 4-mile hike to Forbay Lake and back — mostly on a bike trail, and this time, we remembered to apply the bug spray. Our friends made delicious hot pot meals for dinner, and we chatted by the fire at night until midnight. The temperature plummeted at night, and we braced for the mid 40Fs the following day. One of our friends reported a leaking problem with their new air mattress, and they had to sleep in their vehicle that night. We discussed whether they should crack their vehicle windows and the likelihood of them ending up on the front page news the next day for passing out in the vehicle in the state park.

The following day was cold as expected, but it was bearable, unlike the camping trip 2 weeks ago. Our friends also didn’t pass out in the vehicle. After helping others pack after breakfast, we left at 10:30 AM. The unexpected big lunch in the Twin Cities made the last stretch of driving difficult. Still, we battled our sleepiness and drowsiness and made it home safely.

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On our way to the state park, we first indulged in delicious Korean meals in Eagan before arriving at the campground at 1:30 PM. Our friends booked 4 campsites. As we were the first ones to come, we chose a site that would fit 2 tents. Knowing that 2 families had large tents, one with a pop-up camper and another with a towable RV, we measured each campsite carefully. We went through many unnecessary hypothetical scenarios before deciding on one. Unfortunately, it was super breezy in the afternoon. At one point, the strong wind nearly blew our tent away as we assembled it. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone else at the campground to witness such an embarrassing moment. While the tent was staked down, we also placed all our gallon water jugs to hold it down. The last thing we needed was to return to the campground only to find our tent had rolled like tumbleweeds to other strangers’ campsite. After assembling our tent, we hiked the Two Rivers Loop trail for 5 miles before heading back to the campground at 7 PM. By then, most families began arriving on site. We sat by the fire at night, and the temperature dropped to 42F when we went into our tent at 11 PM.

As the first light pierced through our tent, we woke up at 5:30 AM while the rest of our friends were still fast asleep. It was freezing in the morning at low 30Fs, and we burned plenty of firewood to keep warm. A couple of our friends reported bird noises that echoed loudly like car alarms for almost an hour at 4 AM, but we heard nothing because we slept with our earplugs on. The campground was almost at full capacity that weekend and the atmosphere was lively, with the kids playing and bicycling around. The warm sunny weather greeted us in the afternoon, and we did a short hike while the rest of our friends rode their bicycles or explored the nearby trails and river banks. Since our campsite had 2 picnic tables, it became the official gathering point for everyone, where we prepared our meals and sat by the fire together. It also helped from a money-saving perspective, given that firewood bundles cost $6 each. We bought a total of 7 bundles to keep everyone warm. It was odd to see everyone wearing winter clothes at the end of May. Everyone slept early that night, but we stayed by the campfire until 10 PM.

We departed a little sooner after breakfast than others on the final day since we live the farthest away. Although this was an icy camping trip, we were glad it didn’t rain, and the chilly weather helped keep the annoying bugs away.

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