So what has the Wandering Dolphin Crew been up to lately?

We’ve been spending time outside and with the dogs!

Since we don’t know how long we’ll end up staying in Minnesota, we wanted to take the opportunity to explore some new places. So, we decided to get a State Parks pass to check out some of the places Minnesota has to offer.

Our first excursion was to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, where we hiked to see the waterfall.

It was a beautiful day and the woods were gorgeous. The trails were a bit muddy, but we did the entire open part of the loop, which ended up being nearly 6 miles.

The dogs had a blast, but we were all a bit sore by the end, having not hiked that kind of distance in a while (we normally do a mile or two).

I took the dogs on my own hiking adventure while Andy was working one day, and we ventured to a park about an hour away from us called Lake Maria State Park.

Even though it didn’t have a waterfall, I thought the woods were more beautiful, and I’d like to take Andy back there at some point.

We’ve also been working on getting some of our camping gear, both our backpacking gear for our eventual long hike of the JMT, and our car camping gear.

We have also been spending as much time on the water as we possibly can.

This has been made even easier for me with the addition of my new kayak.

Ever since I was a young teen, I have wanted my own kayak. And while we had a lot of fun in the tandem we acquired in California (and I mean a lot of fun — like seeing dolphins while kayaking in the ocean and riding the waves into shore), there are many days where I wanted to go kayaking in the morning before work or while Andy is busy. Not only could I not handle the tandem on my own, but I certainly couldn’t lift it down to the water.

So, it was with some regret and sadness that we sold our tandem.

But in the couple of weeks that I’ve had my new kayak, I have gone out more than all of the times we went in the tandem combined. So I’m pretty pumped!

While we try to take the dogs with us whenever we can, we’ve also made sure they get tons of snuggles at home.

And we are keeping up with our wildlife exploration, as well.

We’ll be heading up to the North Shore for an extended weekend of hiking this coming weekend. I know this was just a brief catch-up on what’s happening in our lives, and I hope to have more updates for everyone soon (including an update on what’s happening with our motorhome).

The adventure continues…