Christmas Holiday plans and work called for a few more weeks off from ‘Splorin.’ But we were determined to get one more day in before the end of the year. After visiting one set of friends from college for our last adventure, we decided we wanted to head to the other side of Wisconsin again to visit with another couple that we’ve known since college. Our destination this week was High Cliff State Park located in Sherwood, WI. The “fun” with this #SplorinSaturday started before it even was Saturday. The weather was looking dicey. Snow, freezing rain and rain were in the forecast. However the more we watched, the worst of the weather was to go well to our west in Minnesota and we were just supposed to see rain. In fact the forecast for Sherwood, WI said rain was supposed to start around 11AM — but was not supposed to be heavy until later in the afternoon/evening. #SplorinSaturday was a go!!!!
THIS. NEVER. HAPPENS. We left 6 minutes early (or maybe 24 minutes late). Mike wanted to leave at 5:30, Tammy decided 6:00 was better and we “compromised”. Unfortunately we are nearing the end of any parks that are close to home, so we had a 3.5 hour drive to get to the park. We’ve explained our methodology for finding restaurants before — most of the time it is the name that makes up our mind. This weeks for breakfast was no exception: Little Fat Gretchen’s in Waupaca, WI.
Of course it was the quintessential little hometown restaurant. Unfortunately we arrived a little late to witness (or eavesdrop) on the old men’s coffee klatch (they were just walking out the door as we pulled up 😦 ). So, we had to carry our own conversation — luckily after 34 years together we are pretty adept at this when we have to be. Omelettes were had and enjoyed with an awesome salad as well!! Of course we drove for 2.5 hours to get there and we were starving so that may have affected our assesment of the food, but we don’t know for sure!!! After getting our fill — it was off to the park!!!
We still had an hour to go to get there….ugh. Along the way we looked for a spot where we could change out of our ‘splorin’ clothes and into our #SupperClubSaturday clothes. We passed a Kwik Trip (more quintessential Wisconsinness) where we could change — awesome, we were ready for some hiking!! As already stated, the weather was not supposed to be that good — we thought we would pretty much have the park to ourselves. Pulling into the park (for once we didn’t have to buy a pass because we had our van with our state park sticker) we didn’t have to stop to register, but Mike wanted a map. There were three cars in the contact station parking lot purchasing day passes … so, we would not be alone. “The Plan” had us starting off on the Lime Kiln trail which is a loop trail down the short end of Lake Winnebago and climbs a portion of the hills below the cliffs. Before we could hike we had to park — usually something Mike does without even thinking. However as we went further back in the parking lot by the trail we noticed that it turned to glare ice — slow and steady got us stopped in a “parking spot”. Next came walking down to get to the beginning of the trail — across that glare ice parking lot. Lots of “walking like a penguin” got us to the trail where we figured there would be no ice. WRONG! Portions of this trail were solid ice — edge to edge. Many times we had to actually walk off the trail to get any traction, so we made lots of little loops, etc. to make sure we had good footing.
One thing that constantly amazes us is how different the environment looks from park to park, from part of a park to another part of the same park, and obviously during different times of year. On this trail there were lots of very tall and skinny trees. Since it was December, none had leaves but some had very large vines hanging down from them — Tarzan would have been right at home. It was kind of eerie.
The trail itself was really nice — it led us up the side of the hill immediately below the limestone cliffs that the park get its name from. We climbed the hill and made our way to the end and walked down to the shoreline.
The rest of the way back to the car was alternating completely clear trail and completely ice covered trail — there was no in between. It appears if the majority of the ice was caused by springs at the bottom of the hill before the shore of the lake. We made it back to the car for our first 2 miles of the day with no major mishaps or spills. Now Mike had to navigate the van out of the ice filled parking lot…again, slow and steady got us out.
The next “trail” was actually going to be a combination of three trails (Redbird, Woodland and Overlook). Mike thought it was going to be around 5 – 6 miles or so (but it is always difficult when combining trails like this — not easy to know the exact distance). Leaving the parking lot by the observation tower we passed by the Redbird statue (even though Mike completely missed it). We immediately encountered some rather unique environs — the top of the limestone bluffs are scattered with abandoned quarries. There are lots of wide open flat limestone areas and some straight up/down walls. One quarry has a huge fire ring in the middle of it — it was a community fire pit. It appeared that you could easily fit 20 or 30 people around a big roaring fire there. The rest of the Redbird trail was right along the top of the bluff overlooking Lake Winnebago. Since it was a cold and dreary day — the lake was just a “big gray blah” visible through the trees. On a clear day it would most likely be beautiful, today it was … just … OK. Walking the same trail in the summer when the trees are in full leaf we don’t think you would even know there was a lake out there.
We then made it down to the Woodland trail — this trail was basically a big loop around a big open field. There was a really cool rock wall down the side of the field with some crazy trees. All of those rocks were picked out of the field — must have been years and years of rock picking. It would be neat to know how long ago that was. Passing on the south side of the field up against the woods we had to walk through a lot of snow that had not melted because it was in the shade. We then passed onto the Overlook trail. Tammy started admitting on this trail that she was having serious pain from her new boots. Mike’s feet were fine in his new boots. The over look trail was very similar to the Woodland trail — lots of open space. The true “overlook” portion of the trail was not much of an overlook. Lots of trees blocking the view (again, in the summer there would be no chance of a view), but there were some pretty cool rock formations at the top.
Tammy being the trooper that she is, kept the hike up despite the painful boots. (although there was not much conversation for the last 2 miles). We completed the Redbird loop back to the car. Wow — 6.82 miles on that one hike. Not our longest single hike, but it was still very long.
We still were a little early to leave for #SupperClubSaturday, so we found one more trail around the Butterfly pond that was a little over a mile long. That would get us into double digits — over ten miles for the day. The wind started to really pick up on this hike. Tammy saw a deer that was standing still along the edge of the pond. Mike attempted to get his camera out, but the deer started bounding away…followed by two other deer that we didn’t see until they started moving. We then encountered another first for us — hiking through a cemetery. Around the backside of the pond is a small cemetery that has been there for a very long time (and we weren’t really hiking through it, but along a small road within it).
We made it back to the car — drove to Kwik Trip and make a “kwik” change into our dinner clothes. We were still way early for dinner. We were going to the Black Otter Supper Club in Hortonville, WI. We were warned that you needed to arrive early if we didn’t want to wait a long time. The restaurant opened at 4PM so we planned on arriving right at 4 — we’ve had good luck so far when arriving right at opening time. We were a little early, it was only 3:45, so we decided to drive past to see where we were going. Much to our surprise there was a line of people outside the restaurant!!! We quick pulled into the parking lot and got in line. The rain was coming down pretty steady by now, but luckily we were able to duck under the eave of the building. Colleen and Greg Rogalski were still on their way, but luckily we were already in line! Once again this was our favorite type of supper club — you order in the bar and do not go to your table until your food is ready. However, the massive crush of people at the restaurant, and the fact that it went from completely empty to completely full in 5 minutes, made the line at the salad bar epically long! Tammy got a bowl of soup brought it back to the table and ended up about 30 people behind the rest of us…wow!!! Mike had a huge two bone Prime Rib — which he said was OK . Tammy’s tenderloin was just OK too. But the salad bar really was phenomenal, especially if you could eat everything that was included. Tammy wanted to take a picture, but didn’t want to wait in the line again! Thankfully we had GREAT company and were able to catch up with some dear friends.
After dinner we still had a three hour drive home — under normal driving conditions. Unfortunately the precipitation that was supposed to be just rain ended up being freezing rain — so the first 100 miles of our drive back home was slow going — it was impossible to tell where the roads were icy and where they were just wet. We did finally make it home safe and sound — but, boy, that was a long and tiring day (and we can’t wait for the next one 😉 ).
Splorin' Saturday 