Not wanting to let any snow melt under our feet — we headed off bright and early, amazingly enough, right on time at 6:58AM on Saturday morning. Why 6:58AM? So we can get on the road before the Saturday Morning Polka Party on Y106.5 gets started of course!! Let’s get this party started!!
Breakfast was in a little Wisconsin town that we are very familiar with — Abbotsford, WI. This cute little town is right on Highway 29 about halfway between Eau Claire and Wausau. In the long-passed days you HAD to go right through town, but since they have built the new multi-lane highway you can easily miss the town if you’re not paying close attention. Not only did we go here every time we headed toward eastern Wisconsin, but we also had many years of show choir competitions in Colby which is very near. Our usual stop has been the Abby Cafe, but the luster has kind of worn off that restaurant so we were looking for something different. We stopped in Medo’s Family Style Restaurant, just up Highway 13 a little ways. We knew we were in the right place when we had to pass four groups of gentleman’s coffee klatches to get to our table. The other tip-off was when our waitress asked if we happened to see the daily specials on the sign when we walked in. We had to say we didn’t, but here response was classic: “Neither have I, let me go read them and let you know what they are”. Usual breakfasts were had and the food was good!
The last reason this was our kind of place was when an elderly couple walked in and sat down and the waitress immediately came over with two cups of coffee and then began to write their order down and say it to them before they ever had a chance to even say anything. She got it all exactly right! Definitely our kind of place.
We sat directly below a big TV which had Fox news on (muted). The four coffee klatchers at the closest table were watching and providing a running commentary on every story that came up: the election, COVID, the latest stimulus payments stuff, the weather, etc. Mike had an awesome idea (well, as with most of Mike’s ideas, he thinks it’s awesome anyway) that instead of Fox/CNN/MSNBC paying all these analysts that sit behind their desks and tell you what to think about the news — they should have a “Saturday Morning Coffee Klatch” show where they just setup a camera and microphone at a table to these gentleman and you get to listen in on their conversations about the world. It may not qualify as “news” — but it most certainly would be entertaining (is that what the news has become anyway?).
Our destination for Splorin’ today was Rib Mountain State Park in Wausau, WI. Those observant readers will know that we have been here before — but, that is going to happen. There are precious few places where we can spend an entire day hiking that area also driving distance. Winter also brings the additional difficulty that many of the hiking trails are groomed for cross country skiing and thus off-limits to hikers. We know there is a lot of elevation change here too (it is a mountain after all 😉 ) and that is always a plus for us too! As usual Mike has the plan — we are going to do two separate hikes each about 4 miles long. We were anxious to try out one of our Christmas presents: crampons! We had problems a couple of times last year with attempting to hike on trails with just our boots on. Boots work OK as long as the snow is not packed down and compressed into ice like hardness. There was probably 3 – 4 inches of snow and most of the trails were already well traveled, but the crampons made a HUGE difference. Without them we would have had difficulty climbing some of the hills or navigating the rock steps. We are definitely fans!!
One thing we have to point out before we even start in on how we spent our day was the weather. It was “freezing fog”. The temperature was in the low 20s and the fog was thick….very thick. Foreshadowing, but you will see quite a few gorgeous pictures (in our humble opinion) where the hoar frost is prominently displayed. We started off the day heading towards the south side of the park and the yellow trails. We had to walk through part of the parking lot and road to get to the trail. As we were passing by a gazebo that is just off the road, Mike noticed something strange inside it. So, we made a detour over to it and were not disappointed (are we ever?). The inside of the gazebo was covered with spiderwebs. “Big deal” you say? Well – these were no ordinary spiderwebs — they were completely covered with the hoar frost just like all the trees and bushes. It was amazing to see that the webs just didn’t fall down under the weight or melt from the moisture. We’re pretty sure the spiders had long abandoned these, but they were definitely a thing of beauty. The other strange thing about these is that so often you think of spiderwebs just in two dimensions, but these were all three dimensional in shape.
Leaving the spiderwebs behind we started down the yellow trail. This was a trail that we had down part of last time we were here. The only thing Tammy remembered about it was “is this the trail where we have to go straight up hill?”. Yup, she remembered correctly. Since we were starting at the top of the mountain, we headed down, down, down. We just were awestuck by the beauty of the frost on all the trees.
As we continued on, we passed quite a few people (once we go past 10 we stop counting). We weren’t really far past, but we were past so Mike stopped counting. As we traveled along the bottom of the mountain there were a couple places where we had to turn and go uphill. This reminded us just how far we had descended (and thus how far we would have to ascend) over the course of the last hour. We finally reached the far corner of the trail and began the low ascent back to the parking lot. One thing that kept us going was that, once again like Governor Knowles, we had brought bloody marys and cheese along with us. (Tammy is pretty sure this will be a new requirement of ‘splorin’.) That was a pretty good incentive to just…keep…going – to make it back to the parking lot, the van, cheese curds and the bloodys. Our total for that hike was 4.7 miles with 846 feet of elevation gain, whew!! The parking lot was directly in front of one of the Ski runs so it was neat to watch all the skiers a bit too, through to fog of course.
The second half of the day was planned to basically do the same loop on the western side of the park that we had done last time. Mike knew parts of this trail were going to be a little more tricky than the first half of the day because we were going up and down rock stairs and out near the edge of some of the bluffs (the former would be more of an issue for Tammy and the latter for Mike). As we started down the red trail we came to an “overlook”. Those of you that have followed some of our Splorin’ in the past know that we can be quite skeptical of overlooks. Sometimes they become overgrown through the years and you end up looking at trees and wondering what the view behind them is. Today was a little different. We had seen these views before and they were gorgeous. But with the fog today this is what the overlooks offered us (with the one from the last time we were here):
Amazing the difference a little bit of fog can make! Oh well, today would be focused on the hike and not the views. We headed down the other side of the mountain to the quarry trail. Mike took us long the portion of the trail that we skipped last time because we got a little lost (did we say how much we LOVE the All Trails app?). This led us up to the edge of the quarry. It was kind of surreal standing on the edge and just barely being able to make out the other side of the quarry.
We continued on down, down, down the mountain. We both knew that we had a long haul to get back up, but we don’t back away from it — although we may curse it under our breaths we rarely speak those curses out loud like we used to. Upon reaching the bottom, we started back up the Turkey Vulture Trail. Tammy remembered this trail well — it is not steep at all, but it is very looooong. It is a steady climb — about 300 feet elevation gain over 0.8 miles (try it some time 😉 ).
We made the long hike back up to the quarry and decided to take a little detour into the quarry to rest our weary legs a little. Once again, the view is breathtaking. Standing in the middle of the quarry looking around, quite a different look between winter and summer here as well. Funny how the winter picture on top looks like a negative of the summer picture on the bottom.
We still had to make it back up the quarry trail (about a mile) and along the remainder of the red trail (about 1.5 miles) before we were going to be done. Both of our sets of legs and feet were done hiking. Mike said he would try to find us a shorter way back to the car (for both our benefit…not just Tammy’s). But upon arrival at the red trail Mike thought the only options were to continue on the red trail or backtrack what we had already done. They looked to be about the same distance, so we forged on. About a quarter mile down the trail we came upon an intersection with the blue trail. All Trails failed us here — the blue trail was not on it. Mike downloaded the Rib Mountain State Park map and found that we were almost right below the observation tower which is right by the parking lot for our van! Up the blue trail we went. After climbing up a couple sets of stone stairs we could see the tower. We made a b-line for it and our van beyond. That hike was 4.3 miles and 699 feet elevation gain. Uff-dah. That was a day of hiking!
Given that we found that short-cut back to the van we now had enough time before #SupperClubSaturday for a little pitstop in Stevens Point. We stopped at Sunset Point Winery. A nice little winery right in town. Unfortunately as often happens at Wisconsin wineries, we were at a loss for the big bold dry red wines that we like so much, but they do have quite a selection. It was nice to sit and take a load off and enjoy a glass of wine. We spent half our time there trying to figure out when we actually stopped there the last time. It was well before Mike’s surgery and the beginning of our Splorin’ adventures. We finally figured it out it was Caleb Rogalski’s high school graduation party in June of 2018. We didn’t buy any wine this time, but Tammy got a nice hoody sweatshirt that shows all (or at least a lot of) the wineries in Wisconsin (another goal for us to achieve — visiting them all).
#SupperClubSaturday was one to remember. Mike found Savory Steakhouse in Wisconsin Rapids, WI, just the day before (on New Year’s Day). There was an option on Google Maps to send a message, but the restaurant wasn’t open so we thought we might hear back from them sometime Saturday once someone arrived at the restaurant. Nope — Mike heard back immediately from the owner, John Ross, who said he would put our names down for a reservation when he got to the restaurant. They then had a nice little conversation about restaurants and reservations, etc. during the pandemic. We couldn’t wait! Of course when we arrived and Mike said we had a reservation the guy just kind of looked at us like we were crazy because our name wasn’t in the book. Then he remembered having the conversation with Mike and all was good. We sat at the bar for a pre-dinner cocktail. Chris was the bartender and we had a very nice conversation about all of our hiking, etc. We also had a nice conversation with the owner about our #SupperClubSaturday travels. We ended up ordering our food from the bar and waited for it to be ready before we sat down.
The food was really good — but one thing really stood out — the soup! It was a Philly Cheese Steak soup and it was SOOOOO good (even Mike loved it, and that is saying a lot). We kept saying that we wished this restaurant was closer to home, it would definitely be a place that we would visit over and over. Unfortunately the night came to an end and we had to make the long 2 hour drive home.
Can’t wait to go Splorin’ next weekend! We have no idea where it will be, but we know it will be an awesome time!!!
Splorin' Saturday 