Covid-cation options in minnesota include new tiny cabins and grain silos

The couple plan to add canvas safari tents with queen beds next spring. Cuyuna, which became a state recreation area in 1993, has been reinvented as a mountain biking destination. My friends

and I explored on foot and by boat instead, hiking Milford Mine Memorial Park, which honors 41 miners who died in the state's worst mining disaster. Two scuba divers waded in one of

the 15 former mining pits filled with crystal clear water as we kayaked past orange and yellow trees on the shoreline, stained in its signature red dirt. A week before, I had embarked on a

solo trip to Alexandria, Minn., about 130 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. There, the landscape flattens into cornfields — a fitting place for grain bin silos revamped for lodging. Last

year, Anne Larson and her husband, David, transformed four silos from a family farm into eight minimalist rooms. I arrived, no other person in sight, unlocking my room with a keycode and

collapsing into bed, staring at the circular wood-paneled ceiling overhead. Windows overlook trees and a little lake. Some farmers shake their heads at grain bins turned into bedrooms, but

Larson said most people are intrigued. She grew up on a nearby turkey farm and after reading an article about converting grain bins into living spaces, she embraced the challenge of creating

stylish rooms in the unusual space. "It's just not a normal build ... most builders build in squares," she said of the 13-sided bins, at one of the two event venues she runs

in Moorhead and Alexandria. She began offering them on Airbnb this year when she's not hosting events (mostly in the winter and Sundays through Wednesdays).