Jay Cooke State Park Camping Trip – 5/14/16

Jay Cooke State Park is a must see for anyone in the twin cities.  It is about 2.25 hours away from Minneapolis, and is worth the drive even for just one night of camping.  The campsites were incredibly clean, as well as the entire park.  The ranger was super friendly, and they allow dogs.  My favorite part of the park is that it sits very close to an incredible river, the St. Louis.  The hiking trails run right next to it, and you can veer off the path to the river at any point and hang out one of the awesome rocks that rest on the rivers edge.  We took our dog, Zelda, with us on her first camping trip.  She loved the trails, loved drinking fresh water from the river, but was not fond of sleeping in our tent.  It was extremely cold when we were there at night- the low was 30- and it even snowed when were having a campfire.  I think the cold, combined with sharing a small new space for her, was a bit outside her comfort zone.  One thing that was nice about the cold, was that we didn’t feel guilty having a fire anytime we were at our campsite. When we woke up day 2, there was ice on our tent, and we were chilled to the bone.  We started a fire, lit up the grill and made a ton of eggs and soup to heat our insides.  There’s something so cozy about sitting by a campfire and eating breakfast.  It had been too long since my husband and I spend some time alone in the woods.  It was refreshing to be with each other, but also with one another in nature.  What I love about camping is it puts me in my place.  It reminds me that there is something much bigger than me, and my problems are not as big as they appear to be.