Staying at Flandrau State Park
🚲 We enjoy biking in the park, discovering an observation tower and Mount Tom. The sunset view is magnificent.
🏛️ We visit historic sites like the Castling House, which survived the Dakota War, and learn about the German heritage of New Ulm.
🗿 We climb a 102-foot monument depicting Hermann the Cheruscan, an ancient hero, and enjoy a panoramic view of New Ulm.
🏊 We cool off in an amazing swimming pond and have the place mostly to ourselves in the evening.
🌳 Despite the hot weather, we embark on a walk in the park’s trails, looking forward to a refreshing swim afterwards.
🍨 Our search for ice cream leads us to various towns, and we finally find it in New Ulm.
🍻 We have a unique experience at a German beer garden and distillery, trying different beers and learning about the brewery’s history.
right ah head out everything looks good we can already hear Emmy starting to cry yep it’s already started as soon as we got into our site we headed out on a beautiful bike [Music] ride do you have any idea what weird sound this is if you guessed Sand Hill cranes you are correct cranes are among the oldest living birds on the planet and a close relative to these Sand Hills were found in Nebraska estimated to be about 10 million years old the rest of the evening we saw a lot of white tail [Music] deer wo wo wo oh oh wo woah woah [Music] [Applause] [Music] we finished our evening relaxing outside and playing a friendly game of cards Lance’s amazing toolbox what did you just do Lance tried to rig your seat go and then I put another wrench there and zip tie that so I can’t slide back so it shouldn’t be able to fall back don’t you need that piece no I got a million pieces but it’s not going to go anywhere think Lance just macgyvered my seat we’ll see we were talking about old shows in the ‘ 8S my Gyer we had so much fun on our trail yesterday we’re headed back out today and just going to explore around uh probably be on some roads too because that was the majority of the trail that we did yesterday but it’s gorgeous out let’s go do it later that day we decided to take a hike around some of the really cool Trails they had in this park [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we were really excited to have a nice little beach at this Campground so we walked down to it and cooled off in the waters while the sun set and afterward yes we went into town in search of ice cream we finally get our ice cream we’ve been looking in every small town for weeks and weeks and weeks there’s either only deiry Queen which we don’t do or they close super early like at 5 see that face that is Lance does not want to do this right now he wants to get his ice [Music] cream how close were you to not getting this oh I was getting it it if we had to drive back home it was cash or check only Lance didn’t bring any cash luckily we had a checkbook in the glove box he was panicking and another evening we took another bike ride in the park and found Mount Tom we found a whole another area to the park when we were biking and look at an observation tower how far you can see this is a real tree right here 1002 [Music] 1003 we knew a storm was coming and we didn’t want to ride our bikes back in the dark so we brought our bikes back and drove back over here to watch the sunset it was magnificent we also had a great view up here of the storm coming in I literally could stay up here all night it’s got a fantastic Breeze you can hear all the Crickets storm coming in yeah this is good stuff lightning time to leave from the site in Sibly State Park and head up to our next site I think it’s called fland dooo it’s a hot one today [Music] I read that the city we were in called New Alm had historic German downtown in the Dakota war of 1862 the city was attacked twice by Dakota soldiers from nearby reservations on the Minnesota River retreating behind barricades that protected the city center local citizens spot back however much of the town was burned down this castling house was one of three downtown buildings to survive that Dakota War one of these buildings became a refuge for women and children during the attacks they gathered in the basement and placed a keg of gunpowder in the center of the room with the understanding that if the barricades were breached someone would light the fuse that responsibility was given to Mary Ryan a young woman 6 months once pregnant however after the attacks on August 23rd the Dakota withdrew all this history was making Lance hungry for yes ice cream no Lance not now is Lance shot into the ice cream place this said dinner first and they recommended a place called kaiserhoff kaiserhof kaiserhoff if you uh want to try German no it’s German Lance obviously so we’re GNA try German tonight well I’ll be trying German Lance get chicken fingers or a burger chicken [Music] probably reg kaer [Music] h so I to in to get the sampler so we’re trying a bunch of different German food so we have German ribs looks fantastic red cabbage ger potato salad and work withut and what was this called again shitel schetzel schetzel you ready you like it snel and [Music] gravy after dinner we continue to drive around looking at some beautiful historic homes and we also found out why it’s called fland Drew state park it was his bravery that saved the to th000 towns people in 1862 when they were crowded behind a barricade surrounded by 650 Dakota Indians when it looked like they were doomed he let a charge of 40 men that caused the Indians to retreat and then another relaxing evening hanging out with my girls another beautiful morning and this is how we cut Lance’s hair on the road to keep him looking tiptop sopped along the road CU this lady has just Gorgeous Flowers probably Jo want to get some pictures of them [Music] we’re getting ready to check out this German beer garden Distillery we don’t really drink beer but it’s a he he has some here and there couple of year maybe more of a wine guy um but it’s supposed to be like beautiful grounds and there’s supposed to be a peacock here so let’s go check this out [Music] after walking around the grounds we went into their Museum where we learned the rich history of this Brewery including some cool old Contraptions and we learned that the whole in the the side of the barrel is called the bung hole Lance decided to try some of their local beers here K he’s going to try the Shell’s flight starting with deer [Music] brand and of course you can’t have a a sampler beer without a Rotel and of course I couldn’t let Lance without a friendly shuffleboard competition next we visited this 102t Monument towering over New Alm depicting hertman the chusan an ancient hero whose Army liberated Germany from Roman rule in 9 ad it took nearly a decade to complete this more than 4,000 lb statue and it gave a beautiful view overlooking this beautiful tiny City Woo is there more there’s a lot more look at these Lions he did it scary but you did [Music] it more can go there’s a little step thing up there going to do it are you really yeah you did it babe how do you like it I just can’t let go of the okay I’m not a fan of heights and I’m ready to get down okay we just walked up I conquered all the way to the top of that it’s probably five stories total and she got out you can’t see it but she got out by the statue up there which is really cool good job babe time to head out and get in the water it’s so hot today we heard they have a place called the swimming Pond here so we’re going to go check that out what an awesome surprise this swimming Pond is like a huge homemade pool with a Sandy Bottom and our watches said the temperature was 88° so on the top of every hour they do a break and everybody gets out and we don’t know how long maybe 15 minutes or so and the good part is everybody’s leaving CU it’s around dinner time it’s like 6:00 so we’re going to pretty much have most of this place to ourself now which is how we like it spent the evening nerding out on a little NE grass Tyson that the escape Velocity Escape Vel what’s the difference between exit and Escape Vel and then there’s Emmy living her best life the next morning we got up fland Drew State Park had some excellent trails and even though it was 92° out we headed out for a walk the best part we knew that swimming area was calling our name when we got done we got to go it was so much fun off on a dirt road God knows where I don’t know where we’re going couple dogs just chased us down drove by a Serial Killer’s house but it’s fun time of our lives Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair I think you got that wrong Juliet Juliet wrong still wrong your lordship can I come up yes you may what are you talking about he said spit the lugie out I call my lugie Herman I said don’t feel bad Herman she didn’t know your name wasn’t lugie see that face that is Lance does not want to do this right now he wants to get his ice cream I know it’s like the there’s one guy sitting in there it’s dark are open to 10 he’s probably like closed like two minutes ago it say open the time we got two hours and she’s going to sit here and talk about it for 20 minutes let’s go get the damn ice cream and you can do it afterwards a sampler PL so we can try some different German food Karma I’m so excited we sorry