After Rainy Lake and the International Falls area, we headed to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We stayed at a campground in Park Rapids, MN called Willow Acres Campground. Willow Acres was less than a year old when we visited. It was one of our favorite campgrounds to date.

The campground is approximately 25 acres and has only 8 campsites. We stayed there for 3 weeks and on the weekdays, we usually had the whole campground to ourselves. Even on weekends when all the other campsites were full, we could barely see our neighbors through the trees and tall grass. It was like we were living in the wilderness.

Great to see good ole’ friends

One of the main reasons we ended up in the Park Rapids area was to see our good friends the Browns. Scott and Tammy were members of our church in Morton, where Scott was the youth director and Tammy was a kindergarten teacher. They moved to the Alexandria, MN area, about an hour south of Park Rapids, where he is now the pastor at two really small country churches.

Scott & Tammy had no idea we were coming, or even in the state for that matter. Covid19 was in full force when we were there, so they were having church outside. The congregation just sat in their vehicles and tuned their radios to a station and Scott’s sermon was broadcast in their cars.

Scott was at someone’s car visiting when we pulled in. He glanced at us and did a double-take. Needless to say, he was shocked to see us and came right over to visit. Tammy was not around, so he went to get her and just told her someone wanted to talk to her. When Tammy walked up she just had this confused look on her face. Later she told us, she knew us, but seeing us up there just didn’t belong and she couldn’t put us and the location together.

After the church service, we went to see their other church and their home. Then we went out to eat at a local restaurant. Later in the week, they came up to Park Rapids and we went out to eat again at a restaurant in that area. It was really great to see the Browns again and spend some time with them. This is a big part of why we love living the RV lifestyle.

On to the Headwaters of the Mississippi

About an hour to the north of Park Rapids is Itasca State Park, the Headwaters of the Mississippi River. We spent a day there hiking amongst the beautiful red pine forest and WALKING ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER! They have a visitor center with all kinds of information and a scale model of the whole Mississippi River System.

Minnesota DNR has a live webcam where you can go and watch people cross the Mississippi River live.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/Itasca/headwaters.html

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