Day 8 7/13

Paddled back across Annie Battle for the standard run/hike to start the day. Glendelough doesn't have a ton of trails, but they are nice. There's a bike path around the lakes for maybe 5-6 miles and a number of spur trails that branch of from it. I maybe it 10 miles without a repeat, which is always a plus.

It seems like a really family friendly state park. Cart in sites are a little work, but honestly not much, and then you're treated with a little more space. The same was true for the paddle. Annie Battle is gorgeous. Super clear and sandy. I messed around fishing for a little and caught a decent panfish on the second cast. And then not another one. All the same though, another kid-friend activity.

It seemed well used too. After a string of days in lesser-used parks, it seemed a lot more like William O Brien than anything we'd been to in the NW.

Headed home thereafter, with only a pit-stop in St. Cloud at Val's drive up to highlight the afternoon.

All in all, it was a pretty dang fantastic trip. It's kind of cool to create a trip entirely within your state to places you mainly haven't been. One week of travel and we only totaled 1,185 miles; something like Bozeman or Missoula one way if you were headed west.

I also ironically smashed my road trip bird record. 84 species, which I think might to some extent be because it's my home turf and I know the highest percent of birds here, so it's a heck of a lot easier to limit down what it's "not" when you come upon something you don't know.

We talked a lot about how it'll be nice to be able to picture "Warroad" when they talk about the weather, or "Hallock" when Collin Peterson has a quip in the paper, etc. I think we both left with a better perspective of that part of the state and (hopefully) a better understanding of the people that reside up there, even if just a little.