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Rochester, Minnesota combines the busy city center of a large city with the quiet suburbs and nature walks of the rural towns that surround it on every side. That means you don’t have to look far to find ways to have fun in the Great Outdoors when you live in Rochester, or if you’re one of the many visitors who end up in town thanks to the world-famous Mayo Clinic. Regardless of why you’re here, there are definitely places to have some outdoor fun.
Quarry Hill
The Quarry Hill Nature Center takes its name from the old stone quarry that helped build some of Rochester’s first buildings. You can still see the quarry if you decide to wander through the park, and you can follow the handy signs to find it. In fact, since those first buildings sat where downtown Rochester is today, you can easily walk to Quarry Hill from the center of town by following a paved nature walk that starts just east of the river.
Silver Lake
Silver Lake is just north of the skyscrapers but still well within the downtown Rochester area. Silver Lake is a human-created lake that was once used as a coolant reservoir for the local coal plant, and when the plant was in operation it kept the lake warm and made it a popular spot for Canada geese and other migrating birds. These days the coal plant is out of commission, but the lake is still a popular spot for both migrating birds and humans who want to enjoy a lovely walk or rent a boat to take out onto the water.
Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo
If you head northwest out of town along Valleyhigh Road you’ll come across Oxbow Park. Oxbow offers visitors a wilderness park that’s still in shouting distance of Rochester, and they offer primitive camping sites you can reserve between May and October. The park is also the site of Zollman Zoo, a modest place that displays a few dozen wild animals native to Minnesota. The zoo is an active rehabilitation center, so the animals that stick around in the exhibits usually have permanent injuries or are too adapted to life in confinement to survive in the wild.
Cascade Lake
The Cascade Lake Park is a relatively new addition to the nature areas of Rochester, Minnesota. The area is an artificial wetland dug out while developers built some of the residential apartments in the area, and it offers some lovely views of the lakes and nearby homes. At the north end of the lake area you’ll find the biggest pedestrian overpass in the city, and while you’re on the bridge you’ll see two highways, a frontage road, and a nature path that keeps going north until it meets up with the Douglas Trail, a 12.5-mile trail system.
While you can surround yourself with busy streets and tall skyscrapers by walking down Broadway in Rochester, Minnesota, you don’t have to walk far to find yourself in a great spot to have some outdoor fun.
Image by Tony Asleson is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0
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