Todd Swank: Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan, Minnesota

March 21, 2021

Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for March 21, 2021

I became eligible to receive the Covid vaccination this week so I jumped at the chance. When the nurse asked me where I wanted to receive it, I said put it in my hand. She looked at me confused and then I rolled up my sleeve and said this is my hand. Then I giggled uncontrollably for several minutes until she told me she had other patients waiting. So I took a seat to get my shot.

After I received the vaccine, I asked the nurse if the government starts taking control of me immediately or if I have to wait awhile to sync into their system. She didn't really respond, but I think she was happy when I was leaving.

We were able to get with some friends this week including the Walters brothers and their lovely wives for a St. Patrick's Day celebration. I don't think I have any Irish in my blood, but it's fun to pretend like I do at least once a year.

On Friday night, we went on a run with our good friends, Sue & Ron Korkowski and their nephew, Justin. They called it a walk but they're in a lot better shape than I am, so it felt much more like a run to me.

We saw a flock of Trumpeter Swans on a pond we walked around. Poor things had something wrong with their necks and could only look in one direction. It was pretty sad.

On Saturday morning, my old buddy, Orlando Mazzolini, picked me up for one of our adventures to Mystic Lake Casino. It's always fun waking up with Orlando.

This week was particularly joyous because we also met up with our good friends, Jason & Jen. I hadn't seen them in a really long time, so I was happy we could connect and play some games together.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to a park we'd never been to before called Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Eagan, Minnesota. It's the largest park in Dakota County and encompasses 1869 acres and has 13 lakes and ponds contained within it's borders. We were excited to go exploring.

We found it a bit unusual that the trails were listed as one way, but we asked some other people and they said those restrictions were Covid related. We figured it was only a couple of miles around the lake, what could go wrong?

I was excited to check out this park because I saw a bunch of pictures of these wooden trails and I thought that would be a really neat way to explore nature without having to walk through a bunch of crap on the wet trails.

Little did I know, the wooden paths only covered about 20 percent of the trails and the rest were pure mud. And since the trails were only supposed to be used one way, we couldn't turn back. We had to trudge forward through more than 2 miles of this slippery gunk.

I tried to be nimble, but eventually slipped, fell on my boom boom and covered my jeans in mud. It's a really nice park, but I don't think we'll be back again until we've had a few dry, hot weeks this summer. Then the paths should be easier to navigate.