We apologize for the delays in getting blog posts out….Mike writes them and hasn’t been “in the mood” for writing lately – but we’re going to catch up again!!! It is a good thing his memory is much better than Tammy’s.
Splorin’ had to take a two week hiatus as Tammy ended up on quarantine due to a possible COVID exposure through her job as the school-age teacher at a childcare facility. Luckily her test was negative and all was well, but it meant we had to stick around home and couldn’t get out and do #SupperClubSaturday anyway. Also, the past two weeks happened to be a bit of a cold spell here in northern Wisconsin where the low temps hit -24 degrees F and the wind chills were in the -30 degree range. So all-in-all if we had to take two weeks off — those were good weeks to take a break. 😉
Finally the weather was going to “warm up” a little. This particular Saturday, the high was supposed to be around the mid-20s; perfect weather for Splorin’ to return. However, as often is the case, we get a little too focused on the mid-afternoon temperature and forget it has to start somewhere a little lower than that. Today, it was a LOT lower than that. When we left the house at 7AM it was -12F — WHAT?!? We were ready for it to be a little cold, but surely the temperature would go up quickly, right? On our way to breakfast it kept going the other way. It was a nice little game we like to call “call out the temps in the car” (kind of like “My cows” for those of you playing along at home) — where every time you glance and see the temp has changed you call it out. We were headed for Blair, Wisconsin this morning so we had lots of hills to go up and down. As is often the case in the middle of winter in Wisconsin, the temperature goes up on the tops of the hills and down at the bottoms where the cold air pools if there is no wind. Most of the drive it would go between 0 and -16, although we hit -17 and even -18 for the briefest of seconds (Tammy saw it, Mike never did).
We arrived at Rainbow Restaurant in Blair, WI just before 8 and there were several cars there, but it was not overrun with people. Unfortunately there were no Saturday morning older gentleman’s coffee klatches going on, but there was a “family reunion breakfast” going on at a table across the restaurant. It was couple, plus another woman. The man and the extra woman were reminiscing the way old family does — about George and his family, the family down the road, being left alone at home when they were 8 years old and being scared out of their minds, etc. The conversation got quite lively with raised voices and laughter — seemed like they hadn’t seen one another in quite some time. It was nice to see and hear! The man’s wife just sat there and nodded.
As is often the case in these COVID times the restaurant did take measures to ensure a little bit of social distancing. Every other booth was blocked off — to be honest, the blocked off booths were just covered with stuff like extra chairs, decorations, etc., but they were unavailable for seating. Around 8:15ish or so the masses started to arrive. When we got to these small town places we kind of always feel like the outsiders (probably because we are) and feel bad because we are probably taking someone’s regular table. Soon a family of four with two small children showed up with the dad already telling the kids that yes indeed, they could have pancakes. Another couple arrive and took a booth by the window. Two older gentlemen came in and took the last booth — the restaurant was now full. It should be noted that there was ONE waitress. She seemed oblivious to the amount of people that kept coming in. She just kept doing her job. She didn’t get flustered, she didn’t complain, she didn’t speed up, just kept taking orders, getting coffee and bringing food out. Shortly a group of four came in. That group became five, six, seven and eight pretty quickly. They were all standing by the counter waiting. When one table to opened up they took it upon themselves to start arranging the tables so they could all sit down and once seated they helped themselves to the coffee and menus. Apparently they had done this kind of thing here before. While all this hullabaloo was going on and older gentleman came in alone and looked at all the people waiting and no tables available and wasn’t too pleased. By this time we were feeling kind of out of place thinking we ruined someone’s Saturday morning routine. But in true Wisconsinality fashion the couple in the booth by the window called him over and invited him to sit at their table — kind of a throwback to what happened in Holcombe WI to us a couple years ago where there were a couple of communal tables. Just goes to show you that even a simple breakfast at a simple restaurant can provide a great Splorin’ adventure!!
We left the restaurant and the van was saying the temp had risen to -10F — woo hoo!! We had a half hour drive to get to the Trempealeau Wildlife Refuge hoping the sun would do it’s job and keep that temp going up. We had been to the refuge in the early fall of 2020 and were excited to see it in snow. The plan for the day was to hike the loop drive (about 5-6 miles) in the morning and then possibly do some snowshoeing in the afternoon. If time was available we were going to head to nearby Perrot State Park and do some freestyle Splorin’ (same thing as regular Splorin’ but Mike doesn’t make a plan for it). Arriving at the refuge with the temp right at 0F — we decided the only way to stay warm, as often is the case in winter in Wisconsin, was to get moving! We struck out on the loop road and quickly noted all the places on our bodies we were not quite ready for this temp (primarily our noses, fingers and toes). But the sheer beauty of nature in Wisconsin distracted us from our cold bones quite quickly.
We started walking down to the Mississippi and gazing out over its frozen expanse. The slight haze to the sky can be awe inspiring when you realize you can almost see forever. But standing still gets cold very quickly.
We headed off down one of the dikes that we didn’t go down last time — Pine Creek Dike. This is a nice little dike that extends out in the back waters of the Mississippi. In summer it must be full of wildlife: waterfowl, birds, bugs, etc. Today it was barren and beautiful. The snow wasn’t too bad for hiking and had been trampled down by people who hiked before us. We then made our way through the woods on the nature trail we took last time. Along the way the we saw a huge owl take flight from a tree and swoop in front of us before flying out of sight.
Sometimes you come across the strangest of things in the Wisconsin woods. This time we noticed what looked like a little box a little off the trail ahead. As we got closer we couldn’t really figure out what it was. Finally as we got right along side we could see it was a headstone about 5 yards off the trail. Mike ventured off the trail to snap a picture. Kind of strange to see this here, but I’m sure good old Jim Yellow Bank (1871 – 1895) enjoys so many people visiting him.
The rest of the loop was fairly unremarkable except for two things. First, the sun was out in a practically clear blue sky. It didn’t warm up as quickly as we hoped, but boy was it BRIGHT! We both wished we had brought sun glasses. The snow reflects the sunlight and by the end of the day we were both a little sunburned (yes, in February in Wisconsin). (Tammy would like to insert ominous foreshadowing music to accompany this factoid)
The second thing was Mike spotted a red color around the base of a tree off the side of the trail. At first Mike thought it must be some kind of algae or something growing on the surface of the snow. But pretty soon we started seeing more and more of it and it became apparent it was something was sprayed at the base of trees and bushes along the trail. We then noticed a “oily scent” in the air. Mike tried to smell the “red snow”. Much to Tam’s chagrin he did so while removing his gloves — thankfully his fingers didn’t melt from whatever the chemicals were. A quick inquiry after we got home to the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge gave us the answer. It turns out it is a herbicide to try to kill the invasive Black Locust trees that have shown up in the refuge. They add the red coloring so they can ensure direct application to the base of the tree/bushes.
Enough hiking…time to get in some snowshoeing! We began to see more and more people in the refuge. While not overwhelming by any stretch, we still don’t like crowds or being in groups of people when Splorin’. So Mike decided that rather than taking the marked trails for snowshoeing we would cut our own trail. That is the really nice thing about snowshoes — you really can go just about anywhere (as long as the brush is not too thick). So, we got our trusty snowshoes on and headed along the woods towards one of the marked trails.
While walking in snowshoes is not difficult, it does get tiring after a while. It become especially tiring after you’ve already hiked over 6 miles. Mike decided we would do two loops starting from the car — that way if we got too tired we would not have far to get back to the van if we gave up. The first loop out and back was partially on a shared trail, but we saw no one else. We saw lots of deer trails and tracks but no deer. It is a little more difficult not having a map to follow, so Tammy took advantage of one of Mike’s “route checks” to leave her “mark.”
We made it back to the van just in time for someone else to pull up behind us and get their snowshoes out too — what can we say, we’re trendsetters. The next loop was going to be complete bushwhacking (snow-whacking?) where Mike wanted to head down to the river and back. Mike attempted to assure Tam that we would NOT be going through super thick brush like our last snowshoe adventure to the Chippewa River. As we got closer to the river thought the brush got thicker and thicker.
Mike decided we would abandon hope of getting to the river and just go sideways alongside the thick brush rather than through it. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good at planning and we quickly found the that the river cut up through the brush and we go make it there without too much difficulty. We can now add “snowshoed across the frozen Mississippi River” to our list of Splorin’ feats.
We then began to make our way back to the van. Mike kind of forgot he had thicker pants on than Tammy and headed through some pricker bushes that didn’t affect him at all, but easily penetrated Tam’s leggings. We made our way up and down and across sidehills. Tam thought we would never make it back to the van. Mike stopped at one point to look at the map only to say “the van should be right there”. Now, you can hear that statement and interpret it several ways. It could be “oh crap, the van should be right there but isn’t, we’re completely lost!!” which is the way Tammy interpreted the statement. Or it could be “I can’t quite see the van, but it is right there about 100 yards away, its just that the brush is a little too thick to see it yet” which is the way Mike intended it to be taken. Sure enough after 20 more steps you could see the van and the blessed relief to our legs it would bring! As is always the case with our Splorin’ hiking when we are done, we are done. We are always glad we pushed it and didn’t take the easy (or short) way, but it is nice when you finally get to rest after a long day of walking/hiking/snowshoeing.
We still had some extra time to kill before dinner, so we were going to head for Perrot State Park. On our way there we passed by the Elmaro Winery and they had a huge “Wine Tastings” sign up. Well, we couldn’t pass that up. We knew they were not allowing people to stay inside for the tastings and that they had “igloos” set up so we decided to take a shot and stop by. Turns out they didn’t really have “igloos”, they were just enclosed pop-up shelters, but you have to reserve them in advance. And they did have outdoor heaters and these cool little “fireplace tables” that were first come, first served. So we had a tasting and a glass of wine at an outdoor fireplace table….in February….in Wisconsin. It was about 24F but with the wine and the fire it was bearable (for the first 30 minutes, then it started to get cold). As we were leaving we saw others arriving who knew what was up as they came prepared with big blankets to keep warm by the fire. What a cool little place!!!
We still had just a little bit of time, so we decided to hike about a quarter mile into the campground at Perrot State Park to see a campsite that Mike booked us for this summer. It is right on the water, but you can just never tell what the site will be like from the pictures online. Sometimes you get winners and sometimes you get losers…..this time….it is a WINNER. We cannot wait to come back and camp.
#SupperClubSaturday was at Sullivan’s Supper Club. We have been there before and really enjoyed it so we thought we would give it a try again. It is also RIGHT at the entrance to Perrot. As is the case sometimes the second time is not as nice as the first. Sometimes restaurants accept and embrace the post-COVID world and sometimes they try their hardest to just get back to “normal”. This was one of the latter. It turns out there dining room had just as many tables, just as close together as they did last time we were here. They also still have their salad bar, but you have to wear your mask and a glove while serving yourself from it. All in all, still a great place to eat, but it will probably be quite a while before we stop again. It is kind of hard to blame a restaurant though — so many didn’t survive and so many had to cut so far back that trying to get back to making money again has got to be a difficult line to try to balance along. One thing we can say is that they made every effort to get us out of there quickly. At 50 minutes that is, without a doubt, the fastest #SupperClubSaturday we have ever had!!!
The drive home was, thankfully, uneventful (and warm) — we never once saw the temperature even approach 0F.
Splorin' Saturday 