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Camping on the Blue Earth River, Minnesota--Kimberly Musser

As told by Kimberly Musser
Mankato, Minnesota

Story Narrative:

This story was collected as part of a collaborative effort to record the state of American lakes, rivers, and waterways as well an attempt to uncover what water means to Americans. Listen to other stories recorded by the Minnesota Humanities Center for their We Are Water MN initiative, an outgrowth of our national traveling exhibition "Water/Ways."  

"Kim: My name is Kim Musser and I work with the Water Resources Center at Minnesota State University - Mankato and I have three wonderful triplets.

Emma: My name is Emma and I’m 10 yrs old.

Lucia: My name is Lucia and I’m 10 years old.

Oliver: My name is Oliver and I’m 10 years old.

Kim: Along the Blue Earth River just below the dam, there is a lovely county park. So our tradition is to go and camp along the river. We love the spot. We do bonfires along the edge of the river and people are fishing there and so it’s fun to see what they caught.

Oliver: Usually we play in the river. There’s an island around the campsite where you can walk over.

Lucia: And usually when we waded across we had to watch out for like the rocks with moss on it because it would be really easy to slip. Emma: One time when we went there the tide was up and it was really hard to get across because the water kept on rising and there was like, where they rocks were, it would go up.

Oliver: And then once we got there, we ate food over there like cereal and stuff in the morning.

Emma: The mud is also really fun. I don’t know why but it feels good.

Lucia: And usually when we go in the mud we put our feet in and it sinks way down and that’s really fun. …

Kim: And then finding critters along the side of the river is always a delight. There is one pond that always has frogs, so that ’s an important stopping place on our little adventure.

Lucia: There’s like this big rock you can go walk to, it’s really big and we always go up there.

Emma: We call it pride rock.

Kim: It’s a little bit dangerous and you have to scramble across these huge, old, downed trees and climb up over the brambles, so to actually reach the top of pride rock is an accomplishment.

Oliver: Yea.

Kim: More than anything I want to inspire that curiosity in them to try and understand the natural world and understand the critters that we share the planet with in hopes that they’ll also try and help improve the environment throughout their lifetime and have that be an ethical piece of who they become.

Emma: When the trees are moving and the leaves, I don’t know what it sounds like, but it sounds really cool. Lucia: Sometimes you can hear ripples of water. It’s actually kind of calming.

Oliver: When it’s at night, it’s so cool to hear it because you cannot hear anything else. Like there is no talking you can just hear all the animals and creatures and water.

Asset ID #6674

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