Hike 42 - Lake Nokomis

So it’s probably clear that I didn’t make my 50 hikes by age 50. In fact, I’m now 54 and finally posting our last hike (to a new place) during that time. Turns out throwing out my back multiple times, selling and buying a house, moving, and two out of three members of this family getting COVID that year impacted this goal. That being said I decided I should probably document our 42nd hike.

Trail: Lake Nokomis

Location:  Minneapolis, MN

Trail surface: paved

Date: 5/15/21

Unfortunately, this happened so long ago that I can’t provide lots of details, but this is a nice city hike on a paved trail. Gotta love Minnesota for the amount of city parks that take advantage of our local lakes as well.

So there we have it. We still go hiking - mostly these smaller walks, but it’s been awhile since we picked a new place. There are so many great places in the Twin Cities area to get outside to explore.

Hike 41 - Lake of the Isles

Lake of the Isles provides for a beautiful walk. Sure the lake and the trail are nice, but the houses that line this lake are something else. I can’t help but wonder what this area was like 100 years ago. The architecture is amazing along with the size of many of these houses. I can’t remotely afford any of these houses, but it’s fun to dream for a moment.

Besides gawking at people’s houses, we decided to do a dog count on this nice spring day. Jesse guessed there would be about 256 dogs, and Riley played it low with 15 so I suggest we start counting. This is a loop trail so we tried our best not to double count and came up with 100 dogs. I’m all about enjoying the walk for what it is, but sometimes it’s fun to add on little challenges along the way.

Trail: Lake of the Isles

Location:  Minneapolis, MN

Trail surface: paved

Date: 3/21/21

The other bonus of this trail is that there are multiple little libraries to explore. Knowing this, we even brought books with us to place in these little libraries.

Jo: ★★★★

Jesse: ★★★

Riley: ★★★★

Hike 40 - Normandale Lake

It’s spring in Minnesota which means that many trails are muddy. We’ve been itching to get out and are still limited by the places we can go with COVID-19 still being so predominant so we’ve been selecting a number of paved trails to keep us on track.

I’m always impressed with the number of trails close to home. We go to a trail near our house many, many times each year, but it’s nice to know that we can hop in a car and have so many options within 20 minutes from home.

I’ve driven past Lake Normandale more times than I can count, but have never given it a thought until searching for nearby paved trails. It’s a nice 2 mile trail with some points of interest. One being a waterfall, and the other is being able to see the ski jump up the hill. It almost makes me want to come back in the winter when people are actually sking down that particular jump.

Trail: Lake Normandale Loop Trail

Location:  Bloomington, MN

Trail surface: paved

Date: 3/14/21

Jo: ★★★★

Jesse: ★★★

Riley: ★★★★

This trail was well maintained, close to home, interesting and dry - no muddy shoes! Plus, there are so many trails near this one (some of which we’ve explored).