A Winter Day in Stillwater, Minnesota

Yesterday Noelle, Sierra and I packed up the car and headed down south to Stillwater, Minnesota for a weekend of adventure. We checked into our hotel last night, went for a swim, and met up with some friends, before turning in for the night.

Today we made the short drive from our hotel to check out town and surrounding area. Our first stop was the St. Croix Boom Site.

It's a place where long ago logs that had been floated down the St. Croix River were sorted and pulled out of the river. I had heard there was a cave there, and so I braved the icy path and headed down to the
riverside where,

sure enough, I found the cave.

We read on an interpretive panel that it was carved out of the rock to provide storage for food used to feed the workers at the boom site.

On our way back to town we stopped by Fairy Falls. The path was icy, but Sierra, Noelle and I were able to get a decent view of the frozen waterfall

by walking in the snow off to the side of the path. On the way back to the car Noelle and Sierra skipped the path altogether and bushwhacked.

We then headed into downtown to walk around and eat lunch at Leo's. Sierra rode a horse she liked

and we walked up a set of stairs to a wonderful view

of Stillwater, the St. Croix River, and the famous lift bridge. We will be returning to town this evening to check out the Ice Castles.