10 Miles Of F-U-N

Apparently I am not a direct decedent of Magellan. Last weekend Mara, our friend Sasha, and I decided to get out and enjoy the fact that Mara and Sasha had a week off med school. It was awesome hiking weather (60°F & Sunny), and we had wanted to explore the 7 mile hiking trail at Thousand Hills State Park. Armed with a crappy map, lunch & trail mix, and our puppies Linus, Lucy, & Abby the wiener dog.
We set out around 10am and dropped our car at the end of the one-way hike at the Big Bear Conservation Area. Sasha then drove us to the start of the trail inside the state park. The dogs were in their element for sure. Lucy was chasing whatever she could find, Linus was freaking out at every leaf that blew in the wind, and Abby got some much needed exercise chasing our dogs around as well.
Lucy, of course, made us laugh for about 10 minutes while she was fetching a stick. Watching her little brain try and figure out what was holding her back. Pure Lucy...



We got a little side tracked when we mistook where the trail split. We thought we had just lost the trail and spent about 2 hours trying to find it. We were never "lost" since we knew we could always find where we left the trail, but our stubborn ways kept us searching for a trail that wasn't there. Apparently we hadn't gotten to the part of the trail where it split and left the trail early. This led us to hike an additional 3 miles of untrodden terrain which was fun, but left the dogs with quite a few burrs, not to mention the leaves:



All in all it was a lot of fun to be outside with the puppies, and the walking was a great stress relief for Mara & Sasha who start classes again on Monday. Here is a map of our super hike (detour included in red).

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It was a great way to tour Forest Lake!