When Life Gives You Lemons, Find A New Park!

We’ve been weathering the storm of the Coronavirus in the US for several months now, and throughout all of the uncertainty one of the things that have kept me going is taking a break and getting outside. In Minnesota, where I live, we have been extremely fortunate to have full access to the outdoors, even during the stay at home order.

I’m also fortunate to still have a job! I work full-time hours, now entirely from home. With the COVID -factor having a major impact on adding extra hours to what working “full-time” means for me, I most look forward to the weekends where I can relax a little bit.

In the early weeks of the stay at home order, my husband and I tried (and failed) to go out one Saturday to 3 or 4 different parks in the city, only to find them all completely packed! It was one of the first nice days in spring, not to mention everyone feels incredibly cooped up, so I guess I’m not that surprised that everyone (including myself) fled to pretty much every available green space in the city. Uncomfortable with the number of people, we made our way back home, feeling incredibly defeated and disappointed.

In the weeks that have followed (Or maybe it’s been months now, TBH I’m losing track of the days!) we’ve had some really epic fails trying to venture back outside. I was almost run off the highway when another car wouldn’t let me in the exit lane (Thank you passive-aggressive asshole driver for that one.) I got in a fight with a stranger when I yelled at her about leaving her dog shit on the ground, and only accomplished making everyone really uncomfortable. (But really though, pick up after your fucking dog…) I’ve been hit on by gross men trolling for sex (ewww) and many more times heading out to a specific destination, only to have to give up because it was too crowded for our comfort level.

Last weekend we tried to get out of the city a little bit and headed down to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, hoping it would be out of the way enough to have a little more space. However, when we finally got there, it seemed that everyone in the Twin Cities had the exact same idea! I’ve never seen it so crowded! There were actually nearby farmers selling space on their land for parking. I mean, good for them to find ways to make a few bucks right now, but there is no way if the park is that full that everyone is practicing safe social distancing.

This time though, I definitely wasn’t ready to just give up and head home. We had driven about an hour to get out there and there was no way I was going home empty-handed! When you sit on your ass for days on end staring at a computer screen (kind of like I’m doing right now in fact) you start to go a little crazy! Desperate times, man.

Instead, I pulled over just past the park entrance so we could pull up a map and figure out somewhere else to go. The park ranger stopped a minute later and gave us some ideas of other parks nearby that we could try. We took his advice and headed off in the other direction to find this new park.

And find it we did! I had never heard of Sakatah Lake State Park before last weekend, but it’s one I’m not soon to forget. Located just outside of Fairbault, MN, the park is actually extremely easy to find.

Although not nearly as large as Big Woods, I found Sakatah Lake to look and feel pretty similar, with just a few key differences. There isn’t a waterfall at Sakatah, but there is a decent-sized lake and a few wooded trails to follow.

The park is surrounded by fields that bring in a wide variety of birds and has a bike trail that could take you all the way into Fairbault if you were so inclined to ride that far.

We walked for a few miles before the weather started to turn a little cold and drizzly. Neither my husband or I have ever really minded the rain (unless we’re camping, which seems to always happen to us whenever we try to camp, lol) but these days I find myself being really thankful for crappy weather because it usually means we’ll have the place to ourselves.

And, who am I kidding, part of my liking the rain is so I can wear this cute-ass jacket I got after seeing it on Netflix’s Sex Education season 2. But I digress.

We managed to turn an unfortunate situation into a great one by being flexible and just going wherever the day took us. We “discovered” a new place because we were open to it and open to salvaging the day, even if it wasn’t what we had planned.

So if you ever find yourself needing to change your plans on the fly because of unforeseen or uncontrollable circumstances, just go with it and see where the day takes you.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, when life gives you lemons, find a new park.