Today was a special day. The main reason why we do Splorin’ is because of Mike’s quadruple bypass — taking the opportunity to get in nature, get exercise, and in general to get more healthy. Today represents the one year anniversary of Mike’s open heart surgery (his “Heartiversary”). 365 days since laying on that stainless steel operating table, with his chest cracked open, a machine keeping him alive while his heart was stopped the incredibly talented surgeon and her team were rerouting his arteries in his heart. But, enough about Mike and his silly heart — this about Mike AND Tammy!!! Let the Splorin’ begin!!!
We left 8 minutes late.
We stopped for breakfast in Spooner, WI at Riverstreet Family Restaurant. Walking in we immediately noticed the “Northwoods” style decor — tables that look like they came right out of the local log cabin and different kinds of wall coverings (corrugated steel wainscoting, cedar shingle type wall covering about that, and lots of interesting decor). Tammy had her usual Veggie Omellete with a salad and Mike has his usual..wait…what?!? Mike had a Chicken Fajita Omelette. Interesting thing — every omelette had green peppers in it. Mike decided to try the fajita thinking there might not be too many green peppers — well, no foreshadowing needed — there were a TON!!! But Mike powered through it. Unfortunately no male coffee klatches today. 😦 But the restaurant was hopping and the waitresses were amazing — they kept up with everything and everyone. Also one thing that was super spectacular was the salads. It wasn’t just lettuce and tomatoes/onions. It had veggies and all sorts of different lettuces, it was outsanding!!!
Our first stop of the day was Pattison State Park. We had no idea what to expect. We arrived at the park at a little after 9AM and found the parking lot…..not only completely empty, but covered in about an inch of snow that fell on Friday.
We self registered and headed toward the far end of the parking lot (according to “The Plan”). We were to head over to Big Manitou Falls first and boy, it did NOT disappoint.
At 165 feet — this is, by far, the highest waterfall in the state of Wisconsin. While it is most likely absolutely “Gorgeous” (wait for it….) in the Summer, it is especially beautiful in Winter when it is chock full of ice. In the picture above, you can see all of the minerals in the water based on the rust “stains” of the ice.
Someone took the liberty of adding to a sign that was posted above the falls. They had the very same sense of humor as Mike….imagine that. ;-).
The views were just absolutely breathtaking. Mike even took to crawling all over the rocks. The view from the top of the falls was particularly amazing with the big drop off behind the falls.
This was just ONE side of the falls. We also were able to head to the other side of the gorge(ous waterfall). We were then on a nature trail which would lead us to the bottom of the gorge and right to the shores of the river. Before we got to the bottom, we got a glimpse of the falls from the other side.
Again.. absolutely gorgeous…and the falls don’t look bad either. 😉
We then made it down a couple of hundred feet to the edge of the river. The river held a lot of beauty, some that you could only see by looking up close. Some of the little icicle formations were crazy beautiful. Don’t exactly know how these were formed, but sometimes it is just best to observer the beauty of nature rather than questioning it.
We also saw the extreme possibilities of the river itself. While the water seemed to be at it’s “normal” level we saw many indications of when the water was high. Every large tree was wrapped with debris. This formed at least 10 feet about the current water line. It would have been absolutely amazing to see how fast the water had to have been moving when it was this high.
After having fallen in love with the falls and the bottom of the gorge, we made our way back up the 200 feet to the top. As we got back up to the top, we saw the first other people enjoying the falls — a couple over on the other side. We then headed back to the car — taking the opportunity to take the obligatory selfie by the state park sign.
It was now time to head in the backwoods of Pattison State Park to get some serious miles in for hiking. We stopped at the car to pick up our Trekking Poles. Yes, we bought trekking poles — we had never used them before but decided to try them out. Mike had already read all about the size of each section and set them appropriately. We were complete neophytes with the poles, so this was learning as we go. The first mile or so after leaving the car was on roads and very wide smooth trails to the poles were not much help and were more of an inconvenience than anything else.
“The Plan” had us doing about 5 miles of trails outback at Pattison. We made it about a mile from the car and found a sign that said the trail was close and it was a $200 fine to continue on. There were several other trails that were closed due to storms in 2018, but these were certainly not supposed be any of them. We decided to ignore the sign….for about 50 yards when we noticed the tracks of another hiker turned off and were not going this way. Tammy is a “rule follower” and was concerned about “getting in trouble” so we headed back to the picture of the map. Mike found a way using a connecting trail to get back to the Oak Ridge Trail and the River View Trail — as long as they did not have “Trail Closed” signs along them. Luckily for us, they did not — so we were able to head back out to those trails. While hiking these trails Mike discovered that he LOVES his trekking poles and Tammy discovered that they were little more work than they should be. Tammy did finally start to get the hang of them, but still is undecided as to whether they are worth it or not. As we were getting close to making it back to the car Mike made the observation that we were on the “Overlook Trail”, but had not across an overlook yet. Well we found it — it overlooked the trail that was closed.
We made it back to the car and ready to take off for our next Splorin’ adventure: Brule River State Forest, and specifically the Historic Bayfield Road Hiking Trails. As usual, Mike was having a panic attach that we would not be able to find a place to park Thankfully, as usual, Tammy was right saying “don’t worry about it until we get there”. There were only two cars there….
The description of this 2,2 mile loop trail (linked above) made it sound quite interesting and it didn’t disappoint. A little over a half mile into the trail a very luck buck got up, stopped in the middle of the trail in front of us, only to bound away off the trail. Since we were in the middle of a boardwalk sections of the trail and hikinh single file, Mike was the only one to see it. We made out way along the trail — lots of boardwalks along the trail. It was an interesting hike at the beginning as it was obvious the area was clear cut — maybe 5 years ago — as there was a long of very thin and thick underbrush. Hard to see anything except was right in front of you. We finally made it through the clearcut to more hardwood forest and began climbing uphill. Mike knew there was an overlook somewhere ahead, but obviously unsure where it was.
As we got to an increasingly steep slope we started hearing very loud voices in front of us. Since we were heading uphill we could only imagine they were at the overlook. Again we would have to make a decision, stop at the overlook and share it with other people or just keep hiking. Thankfully the other people made the decision for us, because as we neared the top they said they would “trade places” with us and keep going while we enjoyed the overlook. The picture does not even come close to doing this view justice. What you cannot see in the picture is the gray and green of the trees in the distance.
We followed this group and their dog back to the parking lot. Thankfully for the most part we were able to stay a ways behind them, but there were times we got close enough to be able to hear and see them.
Making it back to the car, we were off to our third park of the day: Amnicon Falls State Park. Boy, if you are looking for beauty per square mile – this state park certainly has to win. There are falls all along through the course of the Amnicon River throughout this park. We parked by the picnic area and head out to the island between the two branches of the river. Everywhere around the island has gorgeous views of many of the falls.
It was just amazing the amount of ice that were there on all of the falls. You would think with water running (falling?) that fast that it would be almost impossible for ice to form. It made us wonder what it must be like after it has been 20 or 30 below zero.
We had had one last trail to do — the 0.8 mile Thimbleberry Nature Trail. We only had a 30 minutes before the sunset — so the race was on. Usually “nature trails” are fairly easy and level — but not this one. We kept going down and down. We finally made to the bottom and started making our way back out. We came upon a nice little openning in the middle of the woods where the juxtaposition of the birch trees against the everygreens was amazing.
We finally made it back to the car and foud that the restrooms in the park office was open with some bathrooms so we were able to change inside — it was lovely!!!
We were now headed off to #SupperClubSaturday at the Dreamland Supper Club. It was all of 7 minutes from the state park. We decided to head to the restaurant a little early since we did not have reservations, just in case. As we pulled into the parking lot (just the third car there), they were literally just turning the outside lights on — BINGO!!!
As we walked in there was…no one…sitting at any tables. No worries we would just go into the bar and have a drink before sitting down at a table — except there was nowhere to sit at the bar. The bartender, aka the owner, said he would seat us in a minute.
We got seated an ordered our customary drinks — except they mixed up the alcohol. Mike got Gin and Diet Coke and Tammy got Whiskey and Club Soda. They corrected that quite quickly. We then ordered “chislics” for an appetizer. Apparently this is a South Dakota specialty. It is beef, lamb or pork marinated in Worcestershire and all sort of highly spiced powders. It was incredibly tasty — will definitely try it again (actually Tammy said she is going to attempt to make it at home)!!!
We then had a relish tray, soup (chicken dumpling with the dumplings) — which was awesome BTW — and a salad. Mike of course got the Prime Rib — which was awesome! Tammy got the steak and shrimp which she said was awesome as well. As usual we had a good time eavesdropping on the table behind Tammy. It was kind of funny, one of the ladies was trying to follow the Minnesota Gopher football game. At one point she walked out the the bar to see the current score. She came back and said there was 2 minutes left on the TV while there was still 8 minutes and 12 seconds left in the game in whereever she was streaming it from, but here comment was “I wish I knew how far behind my phone is…”, was hilarious – how about we just say almost 6 minutes slow?
As usual the best part about dinner was the company…Tammy for Mike and Mike for Tammy. All in all, a very awesome….Heartiversary. A two hour drive home and we both basically passed out from exhaustion.
Splorin' Saturday 