The Nomadic Butler Clan

Blog Post #38 - Written October 30, 2025 Stay: July 17-18, 2025 From Minneapolis, we drove all the way across the state of Minnesota, to Palisades State Park just across the South Dakota border above Sioux Falls. One of the nice things about this park is its size. It's a small little park, so we could camp within the park and then just walk around and see everything without having to drive an hour (like many huge national parks).  After we arrived and set up our trailer, the boys and I broke out our frisbees and played around in the big grassy field. It was nice to toss the frisbee around and enjoy a simple, relaxing evening with the kiddos. Sometimes it feels like we're always "go go go!" to see everything we want to see  :) The next morning, we had heard and read that we could put-in our kayaks a little down river. So we took our inflatable kayaks down to the river, only to find that the water was definitely not kayak-friendly haha! I don't know if the water le...

Blog Post #37 - Written October 23, 2025 Stay: July 13-16, 2025 We stayed at the Lake Elmo Park Reserve campground here, and our good friends, the Deweys, from Cleveland came up from LaCrosse Wisconsin to see us! We were so glad that Tanisha was adventurous enough to make the 2-3 hour drive by herself with 3 kids, just a day or two after getting back from their own extended vacation somewhere else. We were bummed Cameron couldn't make it, but the kids had so much fun hosting their friends for a sleepover in our trailer. It was nice and cozy with all 6 kids stuffed into the back room and Tanisha sleeping on our couch (which pulls out into a bed). Our first day we went to the Como Park Zoo & Conservatory. The kids had fun together, but I don't remember too much about the zoo itself. I think it was just so blasted hot! We got a few pictures, but not many.  I apparently enjoyed the conservatory/botanical gardens more, since I have lots more pictures from that part (even though ...

Blog Post #36 - Written Oct 22, 2025 Stay: July 10-12, 2025 From the Upper Peninsula of Michgan, we drove west to Ashland, Wisconsin. It felt like we were re-entering the real world.  We stayed at Kreher Park Campground, which is right on Lake Superior, next to the Ashland Oredock. Our first full day here we drove up to Bayfield, WI for a boat tour of the Apostle Islands.  The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is a beautiful group of 21 islands in Lake Superior with lots of cool geological rock formations and sea caves. They also allow kayaking, hiking, and camping on most of the islands, but that didn't quite work for us or fit in our schedule. So we just did a sight-seeing cruise around and through the islands. And since we were there in the summer, we missed what we're told are spectacular ice caves (brrr, I can't imagine how frigid that boat ride would be!). And apparently they have black bears that frequent the islands. One black bear kept getting into the camping are...