I grew up in the fantastic town of Madelia, MN just about 25 miles West of Mankato. Madelia is a small town of roughly 2,300 people, just big enough to have everything you need, yet small enough to have a true small town feel.
My dad was a grain farmer and retired about 5 years ago. My Mom and Dad still live on the same farm I grew up on 5 miles West of Madelia.
Grandma and Grandpa’s farm is easily my families favorite place on Earth to visit. It is so peaceful and beautiful and my parents make us feel completely at home when we visit. Sadly, we do not get to the farm nearly as often as we like, but we did manage to get almost the whole family there this past weekend (Keegan stayed in the city at a friends house).
It was a perfect time to visit the farm as it was Madelia Park Days. Madelia always has a fantastic parade, fireworks and much more all culminating at the city park at the South end of town.
We made it down on Friday and were able to stretch our legs and run a bit at the farm before heading into Madelia for the parade (Friday night at 7pm is Brilliant!).
While the whole parade was awesome and included many tractors and old cars, the best part was a man dressed like the Pied Piper with a group of about 9 geese walking in front of him all dressed like Mother Goose. These geese stayed in a perfect pack and walked back and forth to both sides of the road during the parade without much (if any) help from the Piper. Meanwhile, the Piper was carrying around a baby racoon, which he dropped right onto Mikaela’s lap. She nearly freaked!
After the parade we headed down to the park where we got to see old friends, eat some cheese curds and drink some Schells Beer.
After hanging around in the park for an hour or two we went by the local swimming pool to get a perfect view of the nights fireworks. This was Isaiah’s favorite part as he hooted and hollered after every flash and bang.
Saturday was a great day spent being lazy around my folks farm while the kids ran wild. This is something that we love about the farm, you can really let the kids just run without nearly a care in the world.
It was a fantastic weekend seeing family, grandparents, friends and relaxing at our favorite destination.
