North Dakota’s State Parks Are a Treasure
MINOT, N.D. — “I don’t want to leave, Daddy.”
Those were the words of my 4-year-old son, Cooper. He and I were in the process of packing up our tent on a recent Sunday after a weekend at Lake Metigoshe State Park.
Though it’s more accurate to say that I was packing up the tent, and Cooper was racing up and down the campsite and demanding I time him.
He’s told me he’s faster than Sonic the Hedgehog, though not quite as fast as The Flash. He’s working on it. My job, even as I endeavored to wrestle a tent into a bag that suddenly seemed designed not to hold it, was to provide a vocal count measuring stick for his progress toward that goal.
The plea to stay at the camp came abruptly. As if it had suddenly dawned on him that the fun was coming to an end.
“If we don’t leave, we can’t come back,” I told him.
