Exploring Murphy-Hanrehan Park

Exploring Murphy-Hanrehan Park

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for June 14, 2020

Minnesota re-opened restaurants for indoor eating this weekend.  We still choose to eat out at the patio when given the opportunity, though.  It's still kind of scary going in public buildings!

We've been doing all sorts of walking lately.  The dog doesn't know what to do with all the extra attention.  He's going to be totally lost if things ever do get back to normal.

On Thursday night, we went to a pool party hosted by our good friends, The Korkowski Family.  Good food, good friends, and a nice pool make for a pretty fun summer's eve!

This crew has the tendency to get a little rowdy, but usually my wife keeps me in check enough to be a good boy.  Usually.

I have driven by Murphy-Hanrehan Park for many, many years but have never stopped by to check out it's trails.  We decided to bring that streak to an end this weekend.

We drug Blue along even though he has been getting walked way too much lately.  He doesn't seem to mind.

We had a very aggressive crayfish try to stop us on the path.  He held up his little claws like he meant serious business.  I stooped down to take pictures and video of him and he eventually backed down and slithered off into the pond.  He looked delicious.

We didn't see many other critters along our walk, but I did catch a glimpse at this frog.  Unfortunately, he refused to engage with me.

On Sunday, we decided to re-visit Murphy-Hanrehan Park again, this time planning to meet with the Korkowskis.  They are old pros at this park so we looked forward to following their lead through the woods.

  

They told us about this scary troll bridge we'd have to cross and that it was infested with snakes.  I ran ahead on the bridge to capture some photos of the snakes, but the trolls must not have let them out for the day yet so I didn't see any.  Dang trolls.

Luke has been requesting to go fishing lately, so when we arrived home I asked him to go down to the lake and cast out a couple lines.

I didn't expect to catch anything, but we actually pulled out a few in pretty short order.

We ended up having quite a bit of fun in the hour or so we tried it, so I think we will do it again soon.  Some day, we may even have to get brave enough to actually clean a few and cook them!