This week Splorin’ Saturday was off through the deep north woods of Wisconsin (and then some) into Lake Superior. Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island was our destination this week. This time it included a 3 hour drive, followed by a half hour ferry trip, followed by a 10 minute drive. In order to accommodate this much travel, we left at 5:30AM — whew, that was early, but we made it on time!!!
The first hour of our drive was in the dark and through the fog. As the sun began to come up, the low level fog over the fields reminded us of what you might see on an African plain. (or at least what we have seen in movies) Gorgeous! It was awesome to be heading North this weekend instead of heading South on I-94 — a very welcome change. North is Mike’s preferred direction — the scenery is much better and feels more like a “vacation” to him than going the same way he goes for work every Monday morning. Our stop for breakfast was at R Place Cafe near Cable, WI. It seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere but we pulled in around 8AM and the parking lot was packed!! We were worried that we would not find a table – no worries there were actually 2 tables available. We grabbed one in front of a big chalk board where little kids (apparently for years) have been allowed to draw, write and just doodle while their parents eat — very cute. Both Tammy and I had three egg omelettes (ham and cheese for me) and Western omelette for Tammy. They had no salads for us, so I settled for a “salad” of bacon and Tammy a “salad” of sausage patties. If you plan on going here and are not positively famished — order the two egg omelette! They were huge and the ingredients were amazing. “Real” ham and Tammy was thrilled that her Western contained TONS of tomatoes! We kind of sat back off in a corner so we couldn’t over hear the couple of elderly gentlemen of the coffee klatsch at the counter, but the table next to us was occupied by 4 people who were getting ready to participate in the CHEQUAMEGON MTB FESTIVAL. They were geared up and ready to go — just like we were ready for Splorin’.
We took off for Bayfield. We were headed to the Madeline Island Ferry Line to take us over to the island. We looked into just riding the ferry over and renting bikes (or a single tandem bike) once on the other side. However — it was more expensive to rent bikes than to pay to take our car over. Mike, keeper of “The Plan,” had us arriving at the ferry place around 9:30AM (he read that we should arrive 30 minutes before we wanted to be on the ferry) for the 10AM ferry ride. We got there about 9:34. However, after we paid we were directed to pull on the ferry and within 5 minutes we were our way to Madeline Island!! Just in time!!!
We got to the other side and drove on to the State Park and bought our non-resident single day pass for Mike’s rental car. We would have felt bad leaving the car behind in favor of bikes because it would have missed the stop at the state park and the addition of the sticker to the windshield.
This state park did not have that many miles of hiking trails — Mike had planned for us to hike about 7 miles. Given that we were having to take in to account the extra travel time, 7 miles was fine with us. The first hike of the day on “The Plan” was to take the Lagoon Ridge Trail and loop around to the Beach Boardwalk trail. It was supposed to be a 4 mile loop. The weather was cool (around 60 degrees) and since we were way “up north” Mike made the decision not to apply bug spray and Tammy decided to follow his lead. No dramatic music here because there were NO BUGS at all!!
We started down the trail and came to a sign post at the beginning of the trail. It explained that this was a pretty rustic trail. Tammy immediately noticed that there was aalso a warning on the sign post that mentioned a black bear and her cubs were often seen along the trail and hikers should give them plenty of room if they were seen near the trail. Mike was STOKED!!! Tammy was nervoous. Mike, not wanted to delay any further started down the trail. Tammy, being the mature one of the Splorin’ Saturday couple, also noticed a sign saying that the trail was closed because of trees down, standing water and impassible sections. Mike then looked at the sign and thought it looked like it was old — besides it was a small laminated sheet of paper — nothing like the caution tape and saw horses that we saw at Wildcat Mountain State Park alerting us to closed trails. But Tammy was able to convince Mike into at least going to the ranger station and asking if the trail was still closed before we started down it. This was an immediate disruption to “The Plan”. Mike looked at the map and decided we could still do what was to be the second half of the day’s hike which would bring us near the ranger station to ask about the other trail.
So we started off going to the left — only to see other people starting down the trail right in front of us. Mike was not pleased. When “The Plan” is disrupted, Mike is often not pleased. So, after whining, moaning, and gnashing of teeth, Tammy finally persuaded Mike to go to the right instead of the left. We started down the Woods Trail and immediately saw another signpost. Mike was ready to go into hysterics if it said this trail was closed too, but luckily it didn’t. This sign warned of standing water, muddy areas, and other hazards along the trail. Of course Mike had to say “Well, we’ll see if that sign is old too and if there really is mud or standing water on the trail…”. Of course, within the next 30 feet of the trail there were two pools of standing water and mud that we had to navigate around. Mike finally admitted maybe the Lagoon Ridge trail really was closed. Turns out there was a LOT of standing water and a LOT of mud along this trail. About halfway down the trail we passed another couple hiking the opposite direction — there were obviously less experienced Splorers as they only had tennis shoes on (like us early on in our Splorin’ career) and we heard when they hit the mud. The end of the Woods trail was a quite dramatic overlook of Big Bay — the wind was blowing and small whitecaps were on the surface of the lake.
We then walked towards the ranger station to ask about the Lagoon Ridge trail. As we made our way, we went past the overlook picnic area. Tammy said that would be a great place to play cribbage later. We made it to the ranger station and had to wait for the ranger to get done with another customer. As we stood and waited, Mike noticed a BRIGHT ORANGE sign on the bulletin board stating the the Woods trail had standing water and mud and the Lagoon Ridge trail was …. closed. 😦 How could we have missed that when we got our ticket. We waited just to double check with the ranger. She said that the trail had a lot of standing water and trees down. It was a very primitive trail and some people had difficulty staying on the trail without those extra obstacles, and with them, often got lost. We decided that in future Splorin’ trips we should always ask about trail conditions before starting The Plan. (Mike had randomly asked last week at Yellowstone Lake State Park, but not here. 😦 Oh well, that meant definitively no Lagoon Ridge trail. So Mike came up with a backup plan — we would walk up the Beach Boardwalk trail and back down the beach. But that was for later, we still had some more awesome trails to hike before getting to the backup plan.
We made our way up the the Point trail. This was a beautiful trail walking along the top of the rocks right above the bay. Lots of beautiful places to stop and look at the rocks jutting out into the lake. There were also a lot of pretty changing foliage and some more strange looking mushrooms.
We met the couple that had ducked into this trail in front of us and we couldn’t figure how it took them so long to get there — we must have hiked 3 times as far as they did in that amount of time. We also passed a family with a couple of small kids. This trail had a little loop off of it which actually ended up taking us backwards on the Point Trail. Again, beautiful scenery and strange trees. Mike thought maybe we would get back onto the Point trail and meet the same family and couple again. If we did, Mike wanted to ask them if they had seen our twin brother and sister. But alas, we just missed them — by about a minute. Sad.
We made the rest of the way back to the car without much difficulty, yet passing a lot of gorgeous scenery — more rocks, flowers and downed trees. While we were getting close to the end of the trail — Tammy made a very astute observation. We had been walking along the edge of the water for about 1.5 miles and we saw zero sand that could pass for a beach — only rocks along the shoreline. Maybe we would not be able to walk back along the beach on our backup plan, maybe the beach would be 20 feet of sand followed by more rocks. Then from one of the points we were able to see what looked like miles and miles of sand beach – woo hoo, all hope was not lost!!! We were approaching the end of the trail and getting close to the car. Tammy suggested maybe we could just continue on to the next trail instead of stopping at the car. She is such a hiking stud that she didn’t even realize that we had already hiked over 5 miles! Mike was ready for a rest and to check on his right foot (which somehow has a predilection for blisters). Thankfully there were no blisters and the water and peanuts were a nice little break.
We then proceeded down the Beach Boardwalk trail. This was a much more rigid boardwalk than the cordwalk at Andrae-Kohler State Park. It extended along a small spit of land between the lagoon and Big Bay. There were lots of plants and views along the trail – including a red squirrel that scared the poop out of Tammy because it was completely oblivious to us. It just sat there digging in the pine straw trying to find food while Mike took pictures of it.
We made it all the way to the end of the state park on the trail — but the trail kept going into a town park, so…we kept walking. We made it another 1/2 mile or so to where we would cross over the inlet to the lagoon (and presumably to where the Lagoon Ridge trail would be.) We then walked out onto the beach. We thought we would talk the whole way back down along the beach. The water was very calm with almost no waves. We thought we would be able to walk right along the edge of the water where the sand should be more firm. It was very firm — but was also strewn with piles and piles of rocks. It was really kind of strange to see these piles of rocks. They would appears without any rhyme or reason (at least none apparent to us).
The further we got down the beach, the fewer piles of rocks were seen, but the once firm sand right by the edge of the water turned into very “smushy” sand. It became a lot of work trudge along through it. So, after walking about a mile down the beach on the sand, we finally decided to make our way back to the boardwalk to finish the hike on there.
We had talked about maybe trying to go to some other nature trails on the island, but to tell the truth — we were bushed. We ended up doing about 8.5 miles (“The Plan” was only for about 7 miles). We decided to just take it easy and go play some cribbage before getting ready for dinner. We headed back to the scenic overlook to grab a picnic table and play a game of cribbage.
We then went to get ready for dinner. Where we were planning to go was an hour away once we got off the ferry. We wanted to be on the 3PM ferry, but after changing we only had about 15 minutes to make it to the ferry. Mike pulled up in line for the ferry and there were a lot of cars on already and still about 5 or 6 cars in front of us. We didn’t think we would make it, but we got waved up and there was still room for 3 or 4 more cars even after we found a spot (although none were waiting). Again we were in line, on the ferry and on our way in about 5 minutes!! Timing is everything!!! Not only were we almost the last one on, but we were the third car off on the other side. We rocked the ferry (no, not literally)!
Off to #SupperClubSaturday! This weeks installment was taking us to Hyde’s on Buskey Bay. We didn’t have reservations this time because we didn’t know exactly what time we’d be arriving having to take the ferry and all. We knew it opened at 4PM and we were on schedule to get there around 4:15. We know, from previous experience, that when a supper club opens at 4, that doesn’t mean they begin serving dinner at 4. Sure enough, when we pulled up (and thankfully saw another couple heading inside in front of us) we noticed the sign that said bar opens at 4 and dinner served at 5. Tammy immediately was in love with the place. This is what she dreams of when she thinks of #SupperClubSaturday. A kitschy place, with small town feel. Janice the bartender was very friendly talking to the other two local people — they were going back and forth about local people, places and happenings. Janice talked a lot with us too — even though we were “outsiders”. She made us very strong drinks and gave us the run down on the specials. We got to overhear some stories about some of the staff members. We saw the salad bar — but unfortunately the salad bar had more “salads” than ” green salad” on it so we were not able to eat a lot of it, but it also included soup and we splurged a bit on a cup of clam chowder. The pasta salads looked good though. And there was even a dessert bar but we cannot tell you how anything tasted – just that it looked very nice. Mike’s prime rib was good — but not remarkable. “I’ve had a lot worse” was his comment. Tammy had the steak and jumbo scallops. The scallops definitely lived up to their size (big enough to share with Mike) and they were cooked perfectly. She was very impressed. While there were only 4 of us in the restaurant when we first got there, it got very busy, very fast! Our poor waitress was running around like crazy as she was the only one, but she kept a smile on her face the whole time. Luckily, another waitress started just as we were leaving.
We then began the trip home. Thankfully we had already driven over an hour from Bayfield, but we still had 2.5 hours to go. Whew — those get to be very tiring drives for Mike, but thankfully Tammy puts her music on and sings to keep Mike awake. We ran into some pretty heavy rain and saw a couple of rainbows on the way home. But no deer for the entire day. What? A great way to finish the day.
Splorin' Saturday 