2020 09 19 - State Park, Rice Lake

We are on a state park walking trip this weekend. We stayed in Owatonna last night so it would/should be a short drive to the park in the AM.

We saw the 1st brown sign for us to exit the freeway. If there were any signs in town, we missed those. Ended up coming to the park off of US-14. Didn't see any signs there either. Finally saw a sign a mile or so before the park. But we made it.

Office is closed today.

We found the parking area near the picnic area. There were a few cars there, I had thought I would mention parking, rest rooms, paved paths, etc but now realized all of that information is on the website.

The 1st half of the parking area was less than half full, the 2nd half only had one car. But for as many cars that were in the picnic area, we saw a lot of people today. And a lot of dogs.

Restrooms were open. Running water in the sink but a pit toilet.

Here we stuck mostly to the hiking path. Not sure why each place seems to have one listed as a hiking path, but they do. Marked with little blue signs.

We started by the picnic area and headed north east along the lake. The path got quickly single file for a ways. Then wide enough for a four wheeler and then later mowed and back down to single and then wider again.

For all the room this park seemed to have, the walking path seemed to go almost through some of the walk-in / tent camping areas.

We did loose the path at one point when it crossed and then followed the road, but we found it again when we got to the lake.

Our walk here was just a couple of minutes over one hour.

After we were done walking, we drove through the other camping area's. They were mostly full, parked every other space for social distancing.

Then we drove about five miles to a local cemetery and walked there for only about five minutes before finding the grave stones we were looking for.

From there we would stop and eat, fuel, and then drive another two hours to our next state park.