Minnesota Summer Photo Diary

This week I learned that the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area was found to have the most extreme weather in the whole country. This was based on the number of days in which heating or air conditioning was needed per year. Considering our winters, this comes as no surprise. But our summers play their own role in these numbers. Hot and humid though they may be, Minnesota summers are adored throughout the state, most likely because our 10,000+ lakes are there to cool us off.

Yes, I was out of town a lot this summer (I haven’t even covered all my summer trips on here yet), but I tried my hardest to make the most out of my time at home.

Minnesota Spring Photo Diary

After long, cold winters, Minnesota is bursting with life come spring. It’s one of my favorite seasons. It’s warm enough outside to spend the day in shorts and t-shirts, but cool enough to keep from sweating. The sun comes out, the trees burst with color and flowers line the sidewalks. It’s a perfect time for afternoons at the lake, chinese-food-picnics, bike rides and reading outside. Here are some of my favorite pictures of spring so far, to give you a taste of what spring is like in the state that’s known for its winters.

5 Natural Wonders of the US in Honor of Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Today is a day to celebrate the earth and promote eco-friendliness. I like to think that every time we visit a national or state park, we are contributing to the preservation of the earth, even if only just a little bit. The US has no lack of parks protecting its natural wonders, and it’s pretty incredible how diverse these parks are in terms of land forms and climates. From lakes to mountains, grassland to deserts, oceans and forests, the US park system has it all.

Frostbitten in Uptown

Today, my sister and I decided to brave the 8 degree weather and spend the afternoon exploring Uptown, a quirky neighborhood in Minneapolis. In my opinion, Uptown has the best coffee shops in the whole city. It also has amazing thrift shops, restaurants, and book stores.

We started off at Magers & Quinn Booksellers. It sold all kinds of books, old and new, and had such an “urban-quirky-bookstore” vibe. My sister and I spent a good half hour there, browsing books and sneaking around people that were there to actually find books to take

The Truth About Minnesota Winters

This week in Minnesota, we got a blizzard. The kind of blizzard that shut down the entire East coast a few weeks ago. But we didn’t even get a day off school. You might think this is normal for Minnesotans. That “Minensota is always snowy”, “it’s always cold in Minnesota”, or even that “Minnesota is a winter tundra all year long!”. Yes, I’ve heard it all, and it’s far from the truth. We do, in fact, have warm summers in Minnesota, and this February blizzard is actually our first blizzard of the season

The snow started Tuesday at noon, and by dusk, driveways had been shoveled repeatedly, rush hour traffic was moving a mere 15 mph on the highway, and kids were coming inside with cold cheeks and icy fingers, eager for the warmth of a steaming cup of hot chocolate

My Favorite Travel Photos

Photography has come to be the backbone of my blog. Of course the writing is important, but it seems like the bulk of each of my posts is made up of pictures! When I first started blogging, I never would have imagined that photos would become so vital to my blog; I thought my main focus would be writing. But alas, I’ve come to love photography and can’t imagine the direction my blog would have gone without it!

Since I have no travel planned for the near future, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken on past trips. I’ve written posts on many of these places, and many of these pictures have appeared on my blog. However, there are a few

Castaway

Last weekend, Minnesota students were once again rewarded with MEA break. MEA is a long weekend given to Minnesota K-12 students every year while a state-wide teachers’ conference is being held. Each year, our church youth group spends MEA up at camp Castaway. We eat good food, stay up too late, sing and worship together, play silly games and laugh a lot.  The camp is in up-north Minnesota, near Detroit Lakes, right in the middle of Minnesota lake country. It’s surrounded by three lakes that are lined with houses and summer cabins and thick forests, and this rural location left me in awe. Every time you stepped outside, you’d breathe in crisp, fresh air, and know that you were somewhere special. You’d see the trees beautifully flaunting reds, oranges and yellows around the camp. And at night, the sunset would cast stunning colors over the lakes, and

Minneapolis: Tourist for the Day

Who says you need to travel far to be a tourist? I live just outside of Minneapolis (yes, in the suburbs, I know, how boring…), but we don’t make it deep into the city very often unless we’re catching a concert or going to an event. Yesterday, we decided to spend the day touring Minneapolis like we had never before set foot inside the city limits. So my mom, my younger sister and her friend and I headed out into the city to be tourists for the day. Of course, you can’t cover all of Minneapolis in one day, but we did as much as we could fit into one afternoon and night.

The North Shore

For Minnesotans, like me, the North Shore refers to the stretch of land bordering Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. It’s one of my favorite areas in all of Minnesota. Lots of nature, but also home to Duluth, a beautiful city right on Lake Superior’s coast. For those who don’t know, Lake Superior is one of the Great Lakes. It’s so vast that it seems like an ocean sometimes; you can’t see straight across it, and instead the water reaches to the horizon. My family loves to travel up here to visit Duluth, or go skiing or camping.

Duluth is so perfect because it combines metropolitan life with nature and beautiful scenery of Lake Superior’s shore. Duluth is also major port city, so it has picturesque

Sakatah Lake State Park

We had originally planned to camp up north, but storm warnings steered our trip south, and so two nights in Sakatah Lake State Park were reserved. Driving through the park, the road was lined with trees and trees upon trees making up a giant forest. The forest bordered Sakatah River, and the state park itself was the forest area that bordered a bulge in the Sakatah river more formally known as Sakatah Lake. When we made it to our campsite, we were literally surrounded by forest. It was awesome.