Grab the valuables and head for high ground

June 08, 2013

Grab the valuables and head for high ground

Following the big graduation bash, I backtrack a few hours to the south and visit Mark White, park manager of Forestville, Mystery Cave State Park in SE Minnesota. Mark and I have known each other since high school in Saint Charles, IL, which makes us old guys now. Mark lives in a log house on 3 acres out in the countryside of SE Minnesota - very peaceful setting. The original plan was to go fishing for walleyes on the Mississippi River about 60 miles to the east, but mother nature changes those plans. I arrived around 4 PM on Sunday, and by 5 the first of several severe thunderstorms roll through the area. It rains "cats and dogs" off and on, and by Monday the area is seeing severe flooding in the Root River and its tributary creeks, one of which flows by Marks property, down below his bluff. We can hear the creek roaring, and numerous roads in the area are closed due to flooding. Although Mark is off on Monday, we head to his park to survey the scene - the group picnic area is under water, all of the streams are way out of their banks, and the road to the main cave entrance is wiped out by a significantly flooding branch of the Root river. This is at least a 50 year flood if not a 100 year flood. So we don't go fishing, but seeing the dramatic flooding was more interesting, since I'm about to go fishing in the BWCA for 8 days. The area is a good trout fishery when it's not flooding.