O’Brien County, Iowa — As things open up from the pandemic-induced closures of earlier this year, one place they’re opening up is the Prairie Heritage Center, and it’s associated O’Brien County parks.
O’Brien County Naturalist Charlene Elyea says that things are returning to some semblance of normalcy.
(As above) “The parks are really looking full. We encourage people to come on out to the parks and go camping, or just enjoy fishing, and hiking and all those things. It’s great to see people out there.”
Elyea says O’Brien County’s parks have all kinds of camping available.
(As above) “We do tenting, we do RVs and we have cabins, as well. So we’ll do the whole deal.”
In addition to the County Parks, she says the Prairie Heritage Center is also back open.
(As above) “Prairie Heritage Center is currently open Wednesday through Friday from 9:00 until 4:00. And so we’ve been having people stop in at the Nature Center, and it’s always great to see them, I’m so happy they’ve welcomed visitors back to the Center. It’s a little bit different, you can’t do all the touching that you normally do. It’s more just looking around our center rotunda, but it’s great to have people out, and they enjoy hiking on the trails out there, as well. So we are making our way back to normal, which is awesome.”
Elyea says they have something special for people to take in this coming Tuesday.
(As above) “Coming up on the June 30th date…this is gonna be from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning out at Douma Park. You can come out and check out our brand new campground out there. The event is called ‘Guess Who’ so we’ll be talking about animals that live in the area, and kind of a little guessing game as folks go along the trail, so that should be fun.”
Tuesday morning’s event is described as a “guided/self-guided” event, and will begin with information provided by Elyea, before those attending head out on their own on the trail. Douma Park is located southwest of Sanborn.
