Minnesota Camping and Adventure Group

Keep your golf game HOT throughout the winter! Play courses worldwide! Half off Tuesdays. Every Tuesday starting January 14, 2025 through March 25, 2025. Amount to play will be divided by number of players. Four players would pay about $22. If you cancel less than 48 hours in advance, you will still owe your portion.

Keep your golf game HOT throughout the winter! Play courses worldwide! Half off Tuesdays. Every Tuesday starting January 14, 2025 through March 25, 2025. Amount to play will be divided by number of players. Four players would pay about $22. If you cancel less than 48 hours in advance, you will still owe your portion.

We will be arriving the weekend AFTER the Pella Tulip Festival to avoid the crowds!

Elk Rock State Park is located on Iowa's largest water body, Lake Red Rock. With more than 50,000 acres of public land to use, the Red Rock area boasts a wide array of recreational opportunities.

The park's thirteen miles of multi-use trails radiate from the equestrian campground and can be used for riding horses, hiking, and mountain biking or snowmobiling in the winter. The trail system winds through a variety of habitats, from woodlands to remnants of native prairie and offers a variety of wildlife viewing opportunities. The lake is a major stopping-off point for waterfowl and other migratory species in both spring and fall, including white pelicans and bald eagles. Trails are occasionally closed due to wet conditions. Contact park office for current trail status.

Lake Activities
Lake Red Rock and the Des Moines river provide great fishing opportunities. Elk Rock has two different boat ramps to access Lake Red Rock. There is a six lane ramp located at the entrance to the park, while the second is located on the back side of the park near the park office. Anglers can try their luck fishing for bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass, channel catfish and a variety of other fish around the lake.

Elk Rock has two campgrounds for campers. The nonequestrian campground has both electric and non-electric sites. A modern shower building and trailer dumping station are available, as well as a self-dispensing firewood machine located next to the shower building.

Nearby Attractions:
Knoxville, six miles south, is home to the Knoxville Raceway and Newton, twenty-three miles north, is home to the Iowa Speedway. Both hold a number of racing events throughout the year. The Dutch community of Pella, ten miles northeast, has many shops and attractions, and celebrates its heritage with their annual Tulip Festival, held on the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of May. Approximately twenty-two miles west is the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge and Prairie Learning Center. The center offers a movie, interactive displays and bookstore/gift shop all related to the natural history of prairies and prairie restoration. The refuge has hiking trails and a drive-through bison/elk enclosure. Roberts Creek and Cordova Park, just north of Elk Rock, are popular fishing, boating and picnic spots.

You can reserve your campsite in the Modern Campground on February 7, 2025.

RESERVE JUNE 15, 2024!!

Governor Dodge State Park is a 5,270-acre Wisconsin state park outside Dodgeville in Iowa County, Wisconsin. Named after Henry Dodge, the first governor of the Wisconsin Territory, the park contains geologic features indicative of the Driftless Area.

GEOLOGY
GOVERNOR DODGE STATE PARK
Most of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota once looked much the same until a series of four glaciers inched their way across the northern United States. Massive sheets of ice "peeled off" hilltops and filled in valleys from Canada to Kansas, leaving a vast, flat expanse in their wake.

Due to certain geological "quirks of fate," southwestern Wisconsin was bypassed and encircled by the four glaciers. The area, therefore, stands as an "island" of hills and valleys amid surrounding plains.

The term "Driftless Area" is given to this region because it is devoid of drift or the accumulated rock and soil left by retreating glaciers. More than 5,000 acres of this unique "island" make up Governor Dodge State Park. As you make your way through this magnificent park, you make your way through time itself.

The beautiful sandstone bluffs, such as the one pictured here, date back 450 million years, to a time when vast, warm seas covered the area. These seas deposited sand, layer upon layer and then retreated. Wind and water began to carve into the ancient, flat seabeds—century after century, carving ever-deeper valleys.

Today, you can stand within those valleys and view the park’s many bluffs, seeing for yourself the layers of ancient sand—pages of time locked within rock.

You can reserve a site in Twin Valley Campground 11 months in advance-June 15, 2024. You might want to reserve a few days ahead to ensure a spot for the weekend and cancel those days later. Twin Valley has electric sites but the showers may not be turned on at this time. A Wisconsin vehicle admission sticker is required. I am looking at site 335e.