It’s kind of become a tradition of sorts to visit a state park on Labor Day. Ross and I were with my family in Wisconsin this past weekend, and there’s a Minnesota state park only a half-hour from my parents’ house, William O’Brien State Park.

William O’Brien is located near Marine on St. Croix. On the DNR website, it says the park highlights are camping/fishing, canoeing on the St. Croix River, cross-country skiing, naturalist programs, bird watching and oak savanna restoration. The park appealed to us from the photos and descriptions, so we headed there early Monday afternoon. The cool thing about the DNR website for some of the state parks I’ve noticed is a section called “only have an hour to visit?” The section gives a few ideas of what to do when you’re in a time-crunch. For example, with William O’Brien, one can either walk the Riverside Trail, which goes by the St. Croix River, Lake Alice and the 100-year-old pine trees or explore the visitor center “as you investigate the animals and plants that call the park home.”

As we drove into the park, we saw the swimming beach area. There were only a few brave souls in the water, mostly kids, as the weather wasn’t overly warm.

We decided to check out the Riverside Trail first. It’s a little more than a mile and a half, and I like going by bodies of water on hikes — the rushing river, the bubbling stream or the serene lake. The trail itself was manageable — it’s fully accessible — no major inclines, nice views of the lake and plenty of rest areas if you just want to sit and look at the lake. Admittedly, that’s where I took most of my photos.

Since we still had to drive back toward the southwestern part of the state, we kind of, sort of, carefully planned our next move. The park has an interpretive center, with a few activities for kids and a couple of interesting signs/posters. One was advertising “Plan to buy your new ’57 (park) sticker — it’s your badge of admission to 64 state parks during the entire year.” Another was “stand up to a sturgeon,” so Ross had me pose next to a drawing of the state record sturgeon. It was 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 92 pounds and four ounces. I’m not near that height.

William O’Brien has 12 miles of hiking trails that take visitors through the woods, wetlands and restored savanna. Our last stop in the state park was the Prairie Overlook trail, which is near the Rolling Hills Savanna Trail. I was hoping to see a few Monarchs flitting among the flowers and the sumac, but I was disappointed as I only saw one. I overheard another hiker wondering if there were going to be any butterflies out and about as I pointed out the one lone Monarch. Don’t get me wrong, the Prairie Overlook did have some pretty sights with the red sumac mixed with the yellow flowers.

The clouds overhead threatened rain for a good portion of the afternoon and for about 10 minutes or so, we did get sprinkled on. Thankfully it wasn’t a downpour as we were definitely not prepared for that. Although it seemed like the hike was taking forever, it was still a good workout with pleasant views. Ross noted that the age of the folks we saw on the Prairie Overlook Trail was younger (maybe early to late 20s). Different strokes for different folks? But at least we have another “new to us” state park checked off our list.