Capstone Day 4 and 5

Started the day by waking up and my phone was dead so I had no idea what time it was. Today we were packing up to go to my aunts house in Mankato for a night as there were absolutely no campsites available anywhere as a lot people had the same idea for memorial day weekend. Since we were heading our we decided not to start a fire for breakfast and instead had granola with banana and milk as well as some lemon bars and fruit, it was random but super tasty. We then had to do the reverse process of setting up and bring everything back to the car in the cart, surprisingly we were able to do this in just 3 trips. It was around 1:00 pm by the time we were packed up and we left to Nora's (my aunt) house.

Sibley Park where we ate lunch on Sunday 5/25

Once we got there we laid out all of our wet gear, put all of our food in the fridge and freezer, set out the cooler to dry, and chatted with my aunt for a bit. Then we took amazing showers that made me feel so clean after, then started some laundry. After that we went to as restaurant for dinner, which I will say was my least favorite meal all trip. Overall this day was a perfect reset and nice to hang out with my aunt.

Set up at Minneopa!

The next day (Sunday May 25th) we woke up from an amazing nights sleep on air mattresses that felt like luxury compared to the hard ground. After putting all of our food and laundry back in our bags and coolers we said goodbye to my aunt and headed out. We stopped to get some bagels and then went to Sibley park, a place my dad went to growing up. We ate our bagels sitting in a garden then walked through their petting zoo and did a little loop of the park.

Tent set up!

Best dinner

Then we stopped to get some groceries, specifically oat milk, cinnamon rolls, and more fruit before going to Minnopa State Park. We got there about an hour before our campsite check in was but luckily it was empty so we got to set up a bit early. We explored a bit then got to setting up our site. When we were putting up the tent I sliced my thumb open a bit but besides that it was way smoother that our dark and rainy Nerstrand set up. While Ella organized our tent and made it look cute I started the fire for dinner, something that was so much easier with dry kindling. We then made what was by far my favorite meal of the trip, veggie fried rice and orange chic'n (vegetarian chicken) with some warm chai. After that we hung out by the fire and made some camping mango sticky rice, which was ok but nothing special. That night we enjoyed a dry, rainless night and I will say I slept pretty well.