Hennepin Canal

This is one of our favorite places to explore. The trail is well maintained and it’s only a couple of miles from our house. Once Natalie is a full fledged bike rider, we will go on longer bike rides. If you want to read about the history of the canal, visit this site.

A stamp under one of the old bridges along the trail.
Some of the locks have picnic areas. There are also a few with camping areas. The girls and Brandon may do that, but I’ll hang out at home. I like the hiking and being outside, but dislike camping. And something else you can’t see in this photo are the mosquitoes eating up my feet. It took them a while to show up, but they did. Once we got to walking, it was okay.
Before I started work, Natalie and I would drop Morgan off at school and then head to the canal to walk and throw rocks/walnuts in the water. I showed her how the light walnuts floated so she could watch them go over the waterfalls/locks.
The girls call the locks “waterfalls”. They were flowing pretty good despite a pretty dry summer.
This bridge is just cool. And you can drive over it which I was skeptical of since pretty much all the other bridges have rotted away. But I watched another car go over, so I was reassured.
These are the typical foot bridges across the locks. I was surprised Natalie went across like it was no big deal. It’s loud and normally that makes her resistant but not this time.
I needed to be higher to capture this better but at this point in the canal it actually goes OVER Bureau Creek. The engineering is impressive when you think about how long it’s been around.
This is looking the opposite direction from the previous picture. You can see the creek down below.

We don’t typically see too many people when we are there. Holiday weekends are busier but still not crowded at all. It’s just a great place to take in some nature and explore.