5/31/22 Moose Lake, Minnesota

 5/31/22  Happy Anniversary (#47)

We relax and have a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage with oranges this morning.  It is 58 degrees now but still a little misty and overcast.

Before arriving, we purchased a permit on-line to visit three open pits to search for agates.  This area - Carlton County - and the Lake Superior area are well known for them. We decide to check them out at the Soo Line Pit, which is near the tiny airport.  As we park, it begins to rain lightly so we don rain jackets and proceed.  Unfortunately if it isn't laying in plain site, we aren't going to find much, as the soil is mucky and sticky and not conducive to digging.

  Oh well.  We find a few interesting rocks, but nothing spectacular and decide to go talk to the ranger at the campground to get a better idea of what we're looking for and where we might go. But he's not there till 10:00.

So we go into the town of Moose Lake and look around.  We stop at a shop which looks interesting to find some post cards for the grandkids. 

 It is a rather large shop which houses a multitude of items!  Part of it is new things, mostly souvenirs, t-shirts and decorative type things.  Another part is a re-sale shop with all sorts of items of clothing, kitchen things, books, toys and whatnot (Mostly whatnot). And between the two areas is an ice cream counter.  They DO have postcards, so we pick up a few featuring animals.

To celebrate our anniversary, we head to The Lazy Moose for lunch. The lady at the shop recommended it with "they make everything from scratch" and suggested the only alternative was the bowling alley which apparently is also a bar and restaurant.  Limited menu, but nice folks and we enjoy a burger (Beth) and a turkey and cranberry melt (Greg).  Home made fries too.

Turns out there used to be another restaurant in town.  But it has a For Sale sign now. Rednecks in Minnesota?

We go back to the campground to check out the geology display and talk with the ranger.  He is relatively new here and doesn't know a whole lot about rockhounding, but was pleasant enough. 

 The displays were nice and we learned sort of what we should be looking for.  Many of the items on display were cut and polished, so looked quite different from anything we'd find in the pit.  We decided to give it another try at the Hatchery Pit. It was a little bit of a hike but the rain has stopped. Again, we find plenty of rocks and a few interesting ones, but nothing to write home about. Lots of deer tracks around.

Back to the campground. We check out the lake (Echo Lake, not Moose Lake) and picnic area which is covered with dandelions.  We have seen them everywhere along roads and fields.  They are really quite pretty - for a weed, haha.   No one here today, of course, but it is a nice area.

A few geese as well.  We must be on a flyway because we have seen them the whole way from Arkansas to here.  Some fluffy little ones as well.

 Back to our site to shower, plan the next few days and do some housekeeping.  We run the heater tonight as the temps will drop to the 40's by morning.