Before heading up towards Minnesota, I looked at their DNR's website for some state parks to visit. I noticed that Fort Snelling was basically within the Minneapolis City limits. I figured this would be a good park to visit first, so I did not have to wander around the state too much after I first arrived and did not know my way around. So one of the first weekends I was in the Twin Cities, I visited the park.
On may way to Fort Snelling though, I first stopped at a surplus store that I had heard about called Ax-man. They were basically an Army Navy Surplus store crossed with an Electrical Engineering department. They had just about any kind of old electrical crap that you could ever need, and plenty that you did not. Items they had ranged from motors to an iron lung. I did not have anything in mind that I could build, so I just gawked around the store for a while before leaving.
Not quite the normal welcome sign for a state park
After my hiatus shopping, I headed towards the park. Fort Snelling State Park, however, was in a location quite different than many other state parks. Rather than being in the woods or some other semi-remote location, it was smack-dab on the edge of Minneapolis, right next to the airport with an interstate highway running through the middle of it. Despite its location it was still a very nice park, and because of its elongated shape, by the time you got to the other end of the state park, you actually were in a relatively unpopulated area. You still had a pretty regular stream of airplanes going over your head though.
I was too cheap to pay to enter the actual fort (I guess I did not feel like learning that day), so I walked around the outside of it, and hiked one of their trails near the river. The trail was only about three miles and went around a small island. One odd thing that I discovered on this island though, was a sign on the farthest corner of the island which said "Hiking Club. The password is...*******" (You did not think I would expose the password on my website did you? Go outside yourself and discover what it is, along with many other things). I had no idea what this was at the time. Later at Wild River State Park, I would read that the hiking club was something setup by the DNR to encourage people to hike their trails. These passwords "proved" that you had hiked X number of miles. Then they had different tiers for the total number of miles that you hiked, and got patches and the like for each level you got to.
I only hiked a sort distance, because I really wanted to go biking further around the park. Although I was not an avid biker, most places do not allow you to ride bikes on the trails that are not paved mini-highways, so I wanted to take advantage of the fact this place did. I rode along a trail that was located along the river for about seven miles. My plan (based on my trusty map) was to cross near Highway 77 and somehow meander my way back home. This was all well and good until I tried to cross over the river there. The bridge, you see, was closed because of "structural failure". The bridge was still standing though and looked study enough to me (or course I do not play with dirt so my evaluation was probably wrong). It was not really possible for me to just ignore the sign either, because someone has erected a fence which made getting on to the bridge (especially with a bike) nearly impossible. So I was forced to turn around, upset because it looked like I would have to retrace my path to get home. Luckily though, I found a trail that was not marked on my map, but went along the opposite side of the river. I was able to take that back and eventually find my way home, with only limited backtracking. But I also must mention that that bridge was on the very southern edge of the park and a good distance from where I was living, so my legs were extremely tired on the way back. I really need to learn how to better estimate how much I can handle before I find myself ten or fifteen miles away from home.
