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Apple Picking and Minnesota River Valley Bike Ride

I had taken the kids to the farmers market yesterday and Meadow wanted apples. I was like, hey it's apple picking season why don't we get our own? Scott had more shoots south of the Cities so we tagged along again.

The jobs are small, shooting a big chain of paint stores, so we're able to get them out of the way and have some fun.

I chose Whistling Well Farm as they had apple picking only. We aren't big fans of the carnival parts of apple farms. It wasn't too busy and everyone was wearing masks. They also had hand washing stations set up around the farm.

Luckily the trees were small and perfect height for the kids to pick themselves.

For $25 we got to pick one peck of Honeycrisp apples. Quite a deal!

Theo got the hang of twisting the apples off the trees after a little practice.


I always think we're done, but they always add more apples to our bag until it nearly explodes.

We filled our bag up quick. I forget how much faster it goes compared to berry picking. 

We also loaded up on all the things apple in the store: donuts, cider, more apples.

I can't shoot for this company when pavement is wet, so we killed some time at St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park.

There was a cross country race happening so we found a trail that wasn't being used.

We also happened to be near a geocache. 

It brought us to this old foundation. We would have never known this was here if it wasn't for the geochache.

Theo and I were busy eating apples while the ladies looked for the cache.

We found it!

It was pretty empty. Too bad we didn't bring Meadow's hiking backpack to fill it up with old toys.

We were close to the St Croix River and walked to the beach.

Thus the name, St. Croix River Bluffs. Ha.

We let the kids play for awhile.

Not pictured, but some asshats were flying the river in speedboats one after another. I guess they missed the memo that this a national park of sorts.

They were also bad at giving the fisherman proper distance. 

Theo got his whole lower body wet. We didn't bring a change of clothes. Oops, Theo.

Then we hiked back up the trail and checked out the overlook.

Meadow checking out the Fireworks Goldenrod.

After shooting in Hastings and Red Wing, we had lunch in the later. We picked Let Me Cheese U because, you know, kids.

We had hoped to go to the Red Wing Brewery but they don't have outdoor seating. 

The mac and cheese was so rich. I could have went with a small or shared one.

It was good to see a new business thriving despite Covid. Hopefully they can make it through these strange times.

The next day Scott had another shoot in Shakopee and you guessed it we tagged along again. We brought along our bikes to try out the Minnesota Valley State Trail. We parked at Memorial Park to hop on said trail.
 

This trail was more scenic and farther from the roads than Sakatah Singing Hills  State Trail.

This is a much better trail. Leaps and bounds more interesting. At least the portions we biked. 


We made it to Chaska and promised Meadow a treat.

Malts from Tommy's Malt Shop.

This trail had more hills and Meadow still did great. Although she's still not confident on her new bike. Going down hills scares her, but she's getting better.

She really started cruising on the way back.

See you later abandoned Shakopee brewery.


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