We are gluttons for punishment.
Well, “punishment” really isn’t word for it. Maybe “challenge” is the word for it. As we progress on our journey to be more healthy, exercise more, have more fun and do more Splorin’ — we find ourselves continually trying to find more challenges. Ever since Wyalusing and Rib Mountain state parks, we seek out more elevation changes. (well, Mike for sure, Tammy, not as much 😉 This week Mike finally might have suggested our match — Perrot State Park in Trempeleau, WI.
But first, we want to give our faithful readers (thanks Carrie and Angela!!) a glimpse “behind the scenes” of the meticulous planning that goes into #SplorinSaturday. To find breakfast and supper clubs, we diligently search the interwebs to find interesting and cool places. Mike opens Google Maps to roughly the area where breakfast will occur, and searches for “breakfast”. Tammy does something similar but focuses on a specific town/city. This time we both came up with the Sunflower Cafe in Whitehall, WI. Turns out we both were right!! Arriving in downtown Whitehall, we easily locate the cafe only to find — not another single person (aside from the waitresses and presumably a cook) in the building. It was completely empty!! There were enough tables to seat about 80 people, yet we were the only ones there. This was yet another new thing for us — usually our breakfast stops are packed. The restaurant lived up to its name, with sunflowers EVERYWHERE!! It was very cute.
“Traditional” omelettes and salads were ordered and consumed. We were ready to leave and thought it would be funny to arrive, eat and leave without another customer coming in. If Tammy had not had to go to the bathroom, (again) that might just have happened. But a mom and two daughters came in right as we were getting ready to leave — oh, well… It was a great little place to eat!!!
Next stop — the state park!!! As we got closer and closer, we kept asking ourselves which bluffs would we be climbing. Those of you unfamiliar with the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota and extreme northwestern Illinois, need to understand that the Mississippi River is banked on both sides by massive bluffs, river valleys, and plains that provide amazing views and (thankfully for us) great hiking opportunities. Arriving in the park, it is impossible to see exactly what we are in for — the trees arch over the road and all you see are trees on one side and river on the other (in this case, the Trempealeau river). Again, Mike has “The Plan” and had already advised that we were in for some serious elevation changes today. In fact, the first hike was going from river level up to the top of Brady’s Bluff, an elevation change of approximately 400 feet in less than 1/4 mile. And we were up for the challenge.
Foreshadowing — the very first step on the trail was literally onto a flight of steps (thankfully only about 10 steps), but the trail then began to wind it’s way through a vertical valley that was absolutely gorgeous!! Many, many stone steps were placed to get us up, up, up the bluff. We then encountered some steps much like the ones we did at Governor Dodge state park, and then we got to real live wooden staircases that seemingly went on forever. We kept meeting people coming down the steps, so we had to keep stepping off to the side to allow them to pass (we didn’t mind much because it allowed us to take breaks). There were many places where stone steps had been placed so precariously that there was only about 12 inches of clearance before you would step off the side of the bluff. Thankfully during those portions there were trees on either side so a fear of heights did not come into play much. We stopped and enjoyed the view, and caught our breaths, in several places along the way. Finally, we made it to the top of Brady’s Bluff (the first time) and the view was completely breathtaking!!! Looking down from there is was amazing to think that we had just climbed that entire way up.
After enjoying the view for a while. Mike informed Tammy that this was only the first time today that she could enjoy this view — we would be climbing this bluff again but from the other side! So, while we had hiked up 400 some feet, we would be hiking back down 400 feet and then back up 400 feet yet again. Lots of elevation changes!! We left the top of the bluff and began hiking down the back side. While all downhill, it was pretty cool to be going down the top of a ridge. The footing going downhill was not the best — there were no steps so trying to keep from slipping was a challenge. Mike, master of jinxes, asked “I wonder how slippery this would be if it was raining?” <yes, insert more ominous foreshadowing music>. On the backside of Brady’s Bluff we started traveling side hill below Perrot Ridge. It was pretty cool standing in the middle of a field between Brady’s Bluff and Perrot Ridge and able to look up and see where we had been (and were going to be again), and where we were directly going.
A little way down the trail we began the climb to the top of Perrot Ridge. This was a climb!! It was almost straight up. The last 100 feet was literally scrambling over rocky outcroppings. Once at the top, the view, again, was amazing!!! At one point in time there was a bench, but all that was left was a little piece of it. Tammy sat on that and Mike sat on the ground while we took a quick break to enjoy some water. Once again we were off down the back side of the ridge. We knew we had to go back down and loop around and it was a wild walk — again down hill without the aid of steps. Thankfully we were going in the direction we were, I cannot imagine have to climb down that rocky outcropping we climbed up.
On the far backside of the ridge we heard some loud noises not too far off the trail. We stopped and listened and could hear something moving through the woods, lots of foot noise and an occasional breaking branch. There was nothing to be seen, but it sounded so different than all the deer we have seen — we’re convinced it had to be a bear. Nothing else made sense, but obviously we could not confirm (or deny) that it was a bear. (Sorry Carrie) Further along the trail we heard lots and lots of yelling. Fun type yelling not not trouble type yelling. It was most definitely people enjoying themselves. Mike who has adopted the crotchety “get off my lawn” mentality, was less than impressed. The closer we got to being right below the top of Perrot Ridge it was obvious the people were up there having a good ‘ole time. Mike was wondering how they got the keg up there….but the keg was probably in the campground. As we got closer to the trail that leads up to the ridge, they popped out in front of us. All noise and full of vim and vigor. They didn’t look old enough for beer, but who knows…. We followed them down to the park entrance — they headed to the parking lot, we headed for Brady’s Bluff….again!!
Once again, we met a LOT of people coming down the bluff. One group was a family of 6: Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad and a 4 (ish) year old, a 1 (ish) year old, and a dog. The 4 (ish) year old was walking. We commented on how what a trooper he must be to be climbing this bluff. Dad told us he rode in a backpack on the way up and the baby was in a front carrier. Wow — so Mom and Dad were the rockstars here!!! We kept feeling like we were making great progress climbing up. We broke into an open field with an awesome view of the Mississippi … an towards the top of Brady’s Bluff. Looking very closely we could see little tiny dots up there that were people on the trail that we were on. It was at this point, we knew we were still a LONG way from the top. But we kept pushing on. We ran into a couple on the way down — they asked Mike to take their picture. Of course, Mike was all over it, having them stand this way and that — go up a little, go down a little, etc. It was a great view to watch them descend the hill.
At the end of taking the pictures it started to mist, quickly turning into a very light rain. The guy grabbed the phone from Mike and said “it’s raining, we’ve got to get going”. We still had about another 100 feet of vertical distance to the top. It became pretty darn slick on the trail with the light rain. But, it never really rained hard. <foreshadowing –no need for music this time> Once again at the top — we enjoyed the view, but since it was raining, we didn’t stay for long.
We now were heading down the trail to the car. We knew exactly what we were in for and being that it was all downhill — it was actually pretty enjoyable. It is kind of funny, the narrow rock steps that weren’t too bad on the way up, were super slippery because of the rain on the way down. Once again we met a lot of people on our way down (their way up). The couple behind us kept reminding the people headed up: “don’t worry, it is only 1298 steps up”. LOL. We finally made it back to the car and some much needed water and almonds. That was a LOT of elevation change. Mike happily told Tammy that was about the end of our difficult walking — the next trail we were going to be taking was designated for cross-country skiing and that it will be pretty level. (can you picture Tammy rolling her eyes at this point? 😉
As we began this next hike the skies opened up and started raining pretty hard. Thankfully we were in the woods and did not have to endure much of the rain; the tree canopy blocked a lot of it, but we had lots of dripping from those trees. The first mile or so of this trail was exactly what Mike had promised — pretty level with a couple of ups and downs. But, as we approached the back portion we saw the first hill. It was a big downhill (Tammy dropped her first of many F-bombs of this hike here). Mike’s fancy watch that he uses for GPS tracking of all of our hikes (how we know how far we’ve gone, etc.) also measures the number of “flights of steps” we’ve done. It’s pretty hilarious – the watch tells Mike that he should to d0 flights of steps every day. So, every “10 flights of steps” it tells him he’s reached 1x, 2x, 3x, etc. of his goal. Mike has started being the “The Count” from Sesame Street and saying (very loudly): “50 flights of steps, ah, ah, ah…..”. With all the climbing we had already done, it was surprising that we had not surpassed our previous record for flights of steps (which was 121 at Rib Mountain). We approached a sign that read “Tow Rope Hill”. Mike wondered aloud where the tow rope was. At this time he also checked how many flights of stairs we had climbed on his watch. We can’t remember the exact number, but let’s just say it was 90. We climbed up Tow Rope Hill, and up, and up, and up….. At the top, we were both out of breath and had to stop for a breather. Tammy glanced to the right and saw yet another hill (and yes, F-bombed it). Mike’s watched now said that we had gone up…..91 flights of stairs. WHAT?!?!?! We just climbed an amazingly long and relatively steep hill. We finally determined that the watch measured flight of steps and vertical distance differently. If the vertical climb is not steep enough, it does not consider it a flight of steps. So elevation change is accurate, but “flights of stairs” is not necessarily representative of REAL LIFE.
We now had a big 3 mile loop to do. Mike was, once again absolutely sure (and obviously, absolutely wrong) this would be basically level. There were a number of very big up and downhill sections. We had to stop and rest halfway up two of the uphill sections. We wondered what in the world kind of cross-country skiers would be able to ski up these hills. They must be absolutely amazing athletes to be able to do that!!! Wow. (Zoe and Sophia — HATS OFF TO YOU!!!!!) We finally made it back around to the top of Tow Rope Hill. Mike checked the elevation on his watch at the top and at the bottom and it said that the hill was 200 vertical feet. WTH? We only got “credit” for 1 flight of steps on the way up — BULL CRAP!!!! We finally made it back to the car, a little bit worse for wear — and Tammy DEFINITELY not trusting Mike for any elevation changes any longer!!! We decided to take another hike on the Black Walnut Nature trail. In Mike’s defense, this trail is described as “relatively flat and is covered with wood chips”. We can tell you — it is neither flat, nor covered with wood chips. Up and down again, we made it through that half mile. We then had a little extra time and headed down the river trail — literally right along the Trempealeau River where we saw people in kayaks and on paddle boards. We were sucking air just trying to keep moving. We passed a dad and son fishing; Mike asked if they had caught anything — “Nothing yet” exclaimed Dad. We headed down the trail and turned around and headed back. 8 minutes later we passed Dad and son, Mike asked “It’s been 8 minutes, any luck yet?” Dad just shook his head and laughed. We then headed for the showers — time to be done for the day. After cleaning up, we stopped to get a picture in front of the State park sign and parked at another supper club — Sullivan’s — where we had gone before #supperclubsaturday morphed in to #splorinsaturday. It is literally right at the entrance to the park.
#SupperClubSaturday this week was to be at Wason’s Supper Club. This is a supper club that we have known about for YEARS!!! It is right on our way to La Crosse, WI and we have passed it about 168 times over our 23 years living in Eau Claire. We have always talked about wanting to eat there but have never made it. We actually had reservations there earlier this year after a show choir competition in Holmen, WI, but it was the middle of winter and we had 10,000 inches of snow (or there about) and we were unable to find a parking spot — UGH!!! It was amazingly unremarkable. It was good, but nothing superb to crow about (like Arthur’s last week). They had a salad bar, but nothing awesome. We missed out on some REALLY HEAVY rain while we were eating and were grateful to not be hiking or driving through it! The decor reminded Tammy of Loretta’s living room as many of our favorite Supper Clubs have and, for that memory alone, it was worth the trip.
After #SupperClubSaturday we were both absolutely beat and we took the “fast way home” which is definitely something out of the ordinary on Splorin’ Saturdays. But we were thankful to be home quicker than usual and to be able to kick back and rest.
Splorin' Saturday 