Day 4 7/9

Weather a pretty large thunderstorm last night at the international falls campground. It swept up pretty quick and raged for a couple hours. Something in the tent leaked too, so the base of the tent ended up getting wet. After a little debate, we slightly rearranged the driving plan to include Fran Jevne state park, which I didn’t even know existed on the rainy river. It’s the smallest park in the state  at only 200- Some acres. There’s a nice two mile loop there so I ran that, then ran out to 11 and down a gravel road for a little bit before coming back and looping it again. Not a park worth going out of your way for, but worth a stop if you’re headed that way. There’s non-reservable campsites up there that looked really nice too, albeit with no facilities.

Headed to Big Bog rec area next near red lake. It was pretty sweet. Actually a lot bigger than I thought. There’s even camping in the southern unit. We hiked the mile boardwalk and back after a picnic lunch. Drove back up to baudette and are now catching up on internet before heading to Zippel Bay for the night.

Checked into zippel bay late this afternoon and had no problem finding a site. I’d estimate 25% capacity or less. Got a site in the loop closest to the lake, so it was only a quarter mile from the lake, although in hindsight, I’m not sure how much of a difference that would have made. It was a nice enough site, woods, fairly separated from neighbors. Again though, only 3 other sites on the 18 site loop were taken. Ate another dinner of Alfredo and tuna with some s’mores to boot. Topped it off with some lake of the woods beer we found at a liquor store a few miles from the park.

This part of the state started to have significant agriculture, but also still lots of mixed conifers/aspen woods. It looked a lot like near our cabin. 

Zippel leaves something to be desired for a park. There are basically no trails and nothing really to do but hang at the beach. With that said, the beach is phenomenal. It also reminded me a lot of Lake Superior south shore, with warmer water.