Big Fish and a Final Beach

On Day 3 we checked out of our cabin in Itasca and headed for Mille Lacs, where I wanted to check out the beach at Father Hennepin State Park. Along the way we stopped to photograph this giant walleye at Garrison. There are a lot of giant fiberglass fish in Minnesota, but this one has a particularly artistic paint job. 


Father Hennepin State Park, on the southwest shore of Mille Lacs, has a huge and showy beach but not much else. We stayed in a nearby fishing motel and just day-tripped to the nearby parks. Day tripping is where the appalling lack of changing facilities becomes an issue, and this otherwise lovely beach was seriously downgraded for that. Not only were there no changing rooms, there really weren't even rest rooms - just a rather nasty pit toilet located quite a ways from the beach. Ugh. How is that even legal? I realized much later that the solution to that problem would have been to stop at one of the park campgrounds on the way in to put on our suits. But until we got to the beach we didn't realize it would be a problem. The beach isn't quite as nice as it looks anyway because there is a moderately rocky entry hidden under that pretty blue water. I was able to pick my way around the rocks and find a sandy path in, but Richard found it daunting and retired to the nearest bench with a book. However, just the sheer size of the beach meant there was a lot of room for lap swimming, so I give it a B or B+.



Da Boathouse, a fun local watering hole near McQuoid's Inn where we were staying. Those are dollar bills stuck to the ceiling with large tacks. There's a story behind that, although not a really compelling one.