After Badlands, we stayed at a couple of parks in North Dakota before making it to Minnesota and Zippel Bay State Park. The North Dakota parks were nice, but nothing special. Both were on big fishing lakes, which made us the oddballs as we neither boat nor fish. One park did, however, have this very snazzy camping duo. I never got to meet the owners, though Moe and I walked past them more than once in hopes of getting to ask about their vehicles. Maybe I should have electric blue striping added to my Kia?

The transition from dry western climate to a more humid eastern woodland was pretty abrupt—as soon as we reached Minnesota, the air turned muggy and the mosquitos came out in force! Maybe not surprisingly, Zippel Bay State Park where we’re staying isn’t crowded (at all). But as we pulled into our camping loop, there was another T@b just two sites away. We had a nice chat with the owners, a bit younger than us: he is recently retired, she’s still working, and they had a beautiful chestnut brown, blue-eyed Australian shepherd named Freya. We got to visit while Moe and Freya made friends.

Later, talking to the father of a family on our other side, we learned that this park marked a culmination of sorts—he’d hiked or camped at every one of the 65 state parks in Minnesota! When I asked him what was next, he said he had yet to visit the two national parks in the state.