Maplewood MN State Park 2025
During this trip P was almost 9, T was 7, and V was 7. June 19-22, 2025
We were looking for a new MN State Park to visit. This looked like a fun one! My younger sister joined us with her husband and 3 kids.
We had site 1 and they had site 2. These sites were great as they were both right by the water and very close to the showers and flush toilets. There was a vault right across from us, which can be ideal with small kids. The building with the flush toilets and showers had outdoor sinks for washing dishes. This was really helpful and made washing dishes a lot faster.
I heard that this park was beautiful in the fall, and I can see why, so many deciduous trees! There are also a lot of lakes in this park, and I could see how it would be a good fishing lake. My family didn't go fishing this time. The weather was really hot while we were there, so we were grateful that we had electricity.
The first night we had Mongolian broccoli beef and there wasn't any food left over! We try to make it so we don't waste food, but I think we could have had a little more food for this dinner. Thank goodness we had some cowboy caviar, that was able to fill up the adults. Our kids were full off of the Mongolian broccoli beef.
The fist full day, we had pancakes and eggs for breakfast. After we cleaned up from breakfast, we hiked up the Hallaway Hill Overlook after breakfast. It was already so hot out. Since the trailhead shares a parking lot with the beach, we had brought our lunch and swimming stuff. After the hike, we changed into swimsuits, grabbed lunch and walked down to the beach area. It is a little bit of a walk, so you won't want to bring too much stuff with you. We had a picnic lunch and swam. The water was nice and cool, so it was a great way to cool off. That night we had Philly cheese steaks for dinner.
There was a big storm that was rolling through that night. The park staff rolled through and said it was a tornado watch. I couldn't sleep, so I read my book and watched the radar. At one point, I got up to use the vault toilet. I saw a bunch of people in the shower building with the doors open looking at the sky with their phones out. I asked if they were notified of a tornado warning. They said the park came by and told them it was a tornado warning and to get to shelter. From talking with them, I believe they were at one of the campgrounds that didn't have a emergency shelter, so they were told to get there as they wouldn't have had time if it changed to a tornado warning.
I got back to the pop-up and talked with Marcus. While we were deciding what to do, we saw the camp host usher his family to the flush toilet/shower building. We finally decided to head to the restroom parking lot. We all got into the truck and drove there. We were more worried about the wind knocking over a tree onto the pop-up, since it looked like we were no longer in a tornado threat. Therefore, we just stayed in the truck until the winds calmed down.
The next morning, I walked around camp, our side of the campground had small to medium sized sticks/branches down. However, across the road, on my sisters side of the campground, they didn't have debris down. We had blueberries, oatmeal, waffles, and yogurt. After breakfast, we went over to to see a family member's new house that is close to the park.
They didn't have damage on their property, but there was damage at his neighbors. We got back to camp, and had lunch. That afternoon was so hot! We took a rest in our pop-up, then headed to the beach to cool down. On the way there we could see that there had been and still was some debris on the road.
Just being on the beach was so much cooler that being in the campground. This park looked like it had some nice trails, but it was just too hot to hike. For dinner, we had hamburgers.
The next morning, we had eggs with hash browns, vegetables, with oranges on the side. After breakfast, we packed up and got ready to head home.
This park would be great for people who love the water. Spring and fall would be a great time to visit. I think the summer would be lovey too if we had a boat, or if it wasn't so hot out. You can rent boats at this park, which is also nice.
