Splorin' Saturday is about slowin' down while speedin' up, takin' it easy while gettin' out an exercisin', eatin' well while still enjoyin' eatin', usin' more apostrophes and fewer g's, and most importantly spendin' time with each other in the great state of Wisconsin!!
By this time we are getting a little more comfortable with our “Splorin’tine” and felt we could travel a little bit further from home. Black River State Forest is only about an hour away and we felt this was still “within our home community” as we could easily make it there and back without the need for any stops.
Once again, we were in for a treat!!!! During his planning, Mike found that they have 24 miles of hiking available — we could spend more than one day hiking here! The plan for today was to take on some of the “difficult” trails. This is another place that we have been passed tons of times as I-94 runs right by the park. “Difficult” trails really couldn’t be that difficult, could they? (ominous foreshadowing music plays softly in the background).
We arrived nice and early — around 8AM — we were the first car in the parking lot! YAY!!! The plan was to head out on the Norway Pine Trail, go around the Wildcat trail, and make our way back to the car via the Red Oak Trail. This should be about 7 miles — not a big deal. We were ready….
We started on the Norway Pine Trail and **immediately** began a steep climb. As we’ve said before, we are not afraid of hills — well, we are no longer afraid of hills. Way back in our early days of Splorin,’ Tammy used to have some choice words as she made her way to the top — now we both just buckle down and climb and “enjoy” our increased heart rates and shortness of breath. We recover very quickly now — all we need is a short stretch of level ground after a climb to get right again (more quiet ominous foreshadowing music).
The immediate climb gave us some very beautiful views of the surrounding area. Driving past here (which Mike does every week on his way to Illinois – when we are not in the middle of a pandemic) you have NO IDEA that you would have these types of views from less than 2 miles off the freeway.
We kept going along the trail. Thankfully we stopped to catch our breaths and take those pictures because it would be about the only time we would not be gong up or down hills throughout the day. It was like hiking along a roller coaster track, there were previous few level portions. But it was amazing scenery.
We found a very nice back country campsite at the very top of one of the hills — it would be incredible to camp there with nothing around you for miles and views that were killer!!
The trails were in great shape. They were all very wide and easily followed — there was no worry about getting lost out here. They were wide since they were cross-country ski trails. I would love to talk to someone who has skied these trails as we think it would be almost impossible with all the hills.
The Wildcat trail lived up to its name — it was wild!! We cannot wait to get back here again to enjoy it at a different time of year — maybe both Summer and Fall. Mike would love to try snowshoeing the Wildcat trail, but Tammy thinks maybe not… 😉
As we got back closer to the car we knew were were almost done when we finally saw it…
…the one place where the trail was flat!!!
We made our way back home trying to find a way that we would be able to hike the Millston Sand Barrens State Natural Area. Unfortunately we could not find a easy way to access the land — Mike will keep working on that one….
Tammy was really missing #supperclubsaturday this week so she requested we get dressed up (in real clothes and even a little makeup) and go get our dinner from Connell’s 12 Club to bring home. We had a nice conversation with the server and explained splorin’ and Supper Club Saturday. Yes, we are a little geeky but it was a nice conversation nonetheless. It wasn’t exactly the same as sitting at a table and having a “date” , but it was better than nothing.
It’s April and it still snows….Friday evening we had 2 to 3 inches of snow, but that would not stop us from “Splorin’tine”. We were heading back to Brunet Island State Park — we were ready for some snow on the trails and were hoping it would not be an icy mess like Hoffman Hills. Little did we know we were in for a HUGE treat — it was an awesome morning of hiking! We like to get to the parks early in the day – we beat the crowds and many times have the place almost to ourselves.
We hiked the trails from one location this time — we parked by the Ranger Station and headed off down the Nordic Trail that starts right off the parking lot. It was gorgeous. With the freshly fallen snow we were the first ones down the trail….well, not really….there were animal tracks EVERYWHERE! It was amazing to see evidence of how active the woods must be when so many times you don’t see a single animal. Along the trail we saw deer tracks, coyote and/or fox tracks, turkey tracks and BEAR!!!! tracks!! Mike was geeked about the bear tracks — the bear crossed the trail that we were hiking five or six times — but alas, we never saw it. If it were up to him, we would have followed the tracks off the trail, but Tammy made her own tracks and said NO!! Maybe somewhere in the future we will see one (foreshadowing!?!).
On this same trail, we saw lots of little water holes that were frozen just on the top and some were breathtaking in their beauty.
We also encountered little streams, frozen drops of water on branches and just amazing scenery in general.
The Nordic Trail did NOT disappoint. We were captivated. A day that we thought might end up being a little bit of a bust from the snow and quarantine stuff turned into a wonderful day of hiking!!!
We then made our way out the the actual “island” part of the park. Going across the bridge to the island we saw some wonderful water shots.
Once on the island we made our way around the Jean Brunet Nature Trail. It didn’t disappoint. This trail leads you along the water and several spots where you have amazing views.
Making our way through the middle of the island the trail was easier to follow this time than last time we were here — Mike didn’t almost get lost this time. 😉 Some more beauty of the trees in the park.
This is a “smaller” park so we were done way too quickly. This was definitely a day of splorin’ for the views and the company and not necessarily the miles, elevation gain, challenge. On the way back to the car we stopped at the boat landing and watched a loon continuously diving for it’s lunch. Wish we could have heard his song, but instead settled for the quacking of a few Mallard ducks.
We were back to the car and on our way home to …. no #SupperClubSaturday again. ;-(. We will persevere!!!!
Week 2 of “Splorin’tine”. This is being written after almost 2 months of not writing our blog entries as we (OK, well Mike) has been depressed about this whole situation with COVID-19. Not depressed enough not to do “Splorin’tine”, but it’s just not too much fun writing about it. We will power through with abbreviated blog entries until we can regain some semblance of a “new normal” for our Splorin’.
Now that restaurants are closed — two of our favorite things about Splorin’ are missing: breakfast at a small little “Mom and Pop” type place and our beloved #SupperClubSaturday. This morning we tried to make up for the breakfast aspect by doing take out from Randy’s Family Restaurant — one of our old standbys, we love this place!!! So a Veggie omelet for Tam and Ham and Cheese for Mike eaten at our kitchen table.
This week’s abbreviated adventures were going to keep us relatively close to home as we didn’t want to travel too far afield in the midst of this pandemic. We have driven near Hoffman Hills Recreation Area about a million times in our drives to/from Hudson and have always thought we should give it a try — this week we hit it!!!
Even though it had been warmerin recent days, there was still some ice and snow around on the trails. But we dressed warmly with our Winter hiking boots on and hit the road. We hoped there would not be many people there, and we were prepared to turn around and go home if there were, to keep with social distancing guidelines, but there was only two other cars in the lot when we got there. We were good to go. We headed down the Catherine Hoffman-Hartl Memorial Wetland Trail that would take us through, surprisingly enough, some wetlands that are on the boundary of the park. It was still pretty cold so most of it was still frozen but there was some open water that was a little “marshy”.
We came to a creek and a couple of small ponds that had a LOT of beaver activity present. We saw lots of signs of beavers, but never saw one. 😦
The plan then had us hiking on the West Savannah Loop which appeared on the map to be primarily a snowshow trail, we would find out shortly why…. (ominous foreshadowing). We made our way along the trail to where that loop was supposed to go around a big opening that was surrounded by woods. The only problem was that it was ALL marsh grass. The trail led us up to the edge and then, just….disappeared. It was pretty obvious that since this was supposed to be a snowshoeing trail it was expected that you could follow the trail in the snow, but with just marsh grass, there wasn’t really even anything packed down to follow. Mike did his best to find us a path through, but even though it wasn’t wet, walking through the grasses that were about a foot deep wasn’t much fun. We made our way around most of it and decided to head off to the edge where hopefully we would be back to hiking on solid ground.
Once we were back on solid ground the trail was easy to follow. We began to make our way to the tower in the park. We knew were in for some hills, but that’s OK, we LOVE hills now (not during the climbing, but after we reach the top and have recovered — we love them). However, once we were on the North side of the hills we started seeing lots and snow and ice on the trails. The worst part about these trails is that they were groomed for cross-country skiing, so they were very packed down and had lots of ice. Our last push to the top by the tower was almost like hiking up the ice of a glacier.
We did finally make it to the top of the hill and the tower.
Mike put on a brave face and said he would make it to the top……but only made it two-thirds of the way up. Here was the best view he could muster from the tower. Yes, those are from woodpeckers. Hmmm, exactly how stable can the tower be if the support are being consumed by woodpeckers? Yet another good reason for Mike to stay here. 😉
Tammy, of course, has no fear of heights and made it to the top of the tower with no problems and got better pictures.
We made our way back down and started down the trails again. However, we quickly became unhappy with the icy conditions. It became a struggle just to keep walking forward as the ice and snow compacted on the trails made it very difficult. We decided to just make our way back to the car and head home and return another time (when there was no ice or snow) to enjoy the remainder of the park.
Unfortunately, no #SupperClubSaturday…..stay tuned….
This blog was started as a way for us to show a lot of positive things — our health, our happiness, our joys, getting out in the world enjoying nature and sitting down to a good meal. This is the first in a (hopefully very short line) of posts that we will name “Splorin’tine” (thanks to our daughter Carrie for coming up with that name). This week’s entry was supposed to be us traveling to Southern Wisconsin to finish up a couple of parks. Unfortunately this week we also found out our daughter was not going be returning to Marquette University after Spring Break. Instead, we used this weekend’s SplorinSaturday to make our way to Milwaukee so that she could pick up books she would need to use at home for at least several weeks while this whole corona virus thing keeps us away from our “normal” life.
Seeing as how we were on our way to Milwaukee, our daughter and her fiance, Michael, were guest Splorers’ with us today. The plan for today (formulated at the last minute) was to take us to three parks: Roche-a-Cri State Park, Natural Bridge State Park, and Tower Hill State Park. Even though three state parks seems like a lot, these three were chosen because they were relatively small (in terms of length of hiking trails) and were in a line on our way to Milwaukee. Since they are shorter, we were spending the night after the last park in Milwaukee, and to accomodate our guests who were not excited about leaving at our “usual” 6 am or earlier time, we left a little later (7:19AM to be exact). This meant that the Y106.5 Saturday Morning Polka Party was already well underway by the time we got it tuned in on Tammy’s phone.
Our first stop of the day would be at Bucks and Berries Family Restaurant in Babcock, WI. This was a very nice little restaurant. It was still very early in the “corona virus times” and restaurants were still allowed to be open, toilet paper was in short supply and hand sanitizer ruled the day. We didn’t arrive until 9AM, so either we were too late for the old gentleman’s coffee klatsch or this was the first restaurant that did not have one.
The four of us piled into a booth and quickly found our favorites on the menu. Mike and Tammy were old and boring with their omelettes and they pined over the french toast, eggs, toast and other things that Michael and Carrie were able to order. Breakfast was finished in short order and we were off to our first park of the day.
Typically when we go Splorin’ we are in one of Mike’s rental cars for work and we are used to paying the non-resident price for a daily pass. This time we were in our own van, and with all the corona virus stuff it may be a while before Mike has a rental again, so we splurged for the annual sticker for our van. (insert forshadowing music…) But since Roche-a-Cri’s main park offices are closed during the winter, we had to do self-registration to get our sticker. We completed the paperwork and stuffed it in the slot and were off down the trail for about 6 miles or so of hiking, including climbing the steps to the top of the rock formations (or so we thought — dramatic foreshadowing music playing). The plan was to do a big loop on the acorn trail and work our way back to climb the stairs to the observation decks. However as we made our way into the woods we very quickly noticed that there was a LOT of water all around the trail. We encountered a place where water was running across the trail, but just a couple of inches deep. So some quick footwork and movement on the side of the trail, while trying not to slip on the icy surface, and we were around it and barely wet. No big deal!! Unfortunately 20 yards later around a corner in the trail the water was almost a foot deep and running across the trail for as far as we could see.
We had no choice but to turn around and go back. Even if we made it through this section water there was no guarantee that there would not be many other similar places on the trails. So, we regretfully made our way back toward the car. There was a small trail, the Turkey Vulture Trail, off the side of the main trail. The original plan had us hiking that if we were not too tired after the other trails, but now it became a necessity or we going to have to abandon this park. It was a nice little loop on top of a hill from the overflowing stream, so at least it was not wet. We made our way back to the van and took a few pictures just so the time wasn’t a complete waste.
Right before we got in Mike heard the unmistakable call of Sandhill Cranes. Looking around we could not spot them though (on the ground) and the cloud cover was low enough that they were most likely flying overhead and just above the cloud level. Oh well, maybe later…we will come back to this park. While we will count this off as having officially “been here” we do not consider that we saw enough to be satisfied there isn’t a TON more that we can see. We have heard there is a neat tower to climb – when it is open.
Off down the road we went to our next destination — Natural Bridge State Park. This is a relatively small park with only a couple of trails, but promises the “natural bridge” sandstone formation as it’s centerpiece. We pulled into the parking lot and Mike was immediately not happy — there were about 20 other cars in the lot. Mike likes to be alone in the parks and not see many other people on the trails — something that we have found to be getting more and more difficult.
We decided to take the trail that would lead us to the natural bridge first and leave the decision to go on the longer trail until later in the hike. Leaving the parking lot we immediately started up hill. We found ourselves going up some typical “CCC state park steps”:
These were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. We could see this was leading us up through the rocks to a nice little opening. What we didn’t know was that this was, in the first 10 minutes of the hike was:
The “natural bridge”. It was quite the spectacular view and an amazing grand piece of nature. It is strange to think of what had to have happened for this formation to be made. Mother nature can be quite destructive when she wants to be. Luckily there are times that she leaves behind beautiful places like this in her wake.
Carrie and Michael did some climbing on the lower rocks and were pretending to be explorers make some exciting discovery (we know they were just pointing up in the sky…):
After this we were off down the trail. The map was a little “generic” so Mike was having a little bit of a hard time reading it. He knew he wanted to take us to the far back corner of the park where the “Indian Moccasin Nature Trail” trail was, but after climbing up some more fairly steep trails we came to a sign that said “Trail Ends Here”. Huh, that does not show on the map. There was quite the expansive view of the valley from behind the railing.
Mike determined that this must be a trail that used to go all the way through and they only recently cut part of it off. The “Trail Ends Here” sign was by the fence — Mike found where the trail used to go off the end of the fence and figured it would still be OK for us to take — many others has because it was still pretty worn through the grass. We quickly found out why it was no longer in mainstream use — you can crawl down (or up in the other direction) some fairly steep sandstone washouts. Previously there were steps and railings, but they had been removed. We took our time and thankfully going down was much easier than it would have been going up.
We eventually made it down to the road where the Whitetail Trail crosses a big cornfield and into the woods on the South side of the road. While on the edge of the corn field, we had quite an amazing view down the road into town where an iconic little white church stood.
We made our way across the corn field — the second have of the field being significantly up hill. As we made our way into the woods it was clear that the hill continued well further than just the edge. We kept climbing and climbing and eventually made it to the top (and the back side of the park) where we could see some hunting blinds that had been built just over the boundary from the park. We began to make our way back down the hill and came across someone who was obviously on a very leisurely hike to take pictures. We overtook him and never saw him again. Back out of the woods and across the corn field and across the road. A quick little trail and we were back the the parking lot. Ready to head on to our third, and last, park of the day!!!
Tower Hill State Park is another park that is closed in the winter, but you can park and walk in and explore. That is what we did. While Mike and Tam were trying to work the kinks out of their backs, legs and feet, it didn’t take long for Carrie and Michael to begin their shenanigans of climbing over everything.
Once again, we were off down the trail. Tower Hill is a historic site that contains a former shot tower where molten lead was turned into shot for rifles. The first trail we took took us up hill to the bottom of the tower. We couldn’t get to the top from there so we ended up following the steps down to the backwaters of the Wisconsin River. The steps down the hill were quite steep.
Once at the bottom you could see the cliff face that made up the tower. There was a huge tunnel dug into the limestone cliff that was used to collect the shot that fell from the tower and it was hauled out in rail cars. The face of the cliff is pockmarked with holes that birds use to build their nests in.
Quite the sight!! We continued to hike along the shore of the water to connect to the trail that would lead us up to the very top where the tower was. There was an interpretive center at the top that claimed it would explain the entire history of the site….but still being “winter” it was closed. We still ambled around it and took some pictures.
From here, we made our way back to the van and we were done with hiking for the day. It was time to take off for #SupperClubSaturday. We decided on a place in Madison that Mike and Tammy had planned on taking their bonus daughter Angela last time we were in the area (but we couldn’t because it was raining/snowing that day 😦 ). We found our way to Kavanaugh’s Esquire Club. It was supposed to open at 4PM and we arrived about 4:20. The lot was completely empty — it sure looked like they were closed. But, we saw the sign saying they were open we were just really early for dinner (like usual on our Splorin’ Saturdays).
A delicious meal was had by all except Carrie. She had fried chicken and one of the pieces was way under-cooked (the others were done just fine). She sent it back but by the time it came back we were all finished with the rest of our food, so she just got it to go. We were then off to Milwaukee to get her stuff our of her apartment and to the hotel where we were spending the night.
Wow — what a day. We were all exhausted by the time we made it to the hotel.
Wheel of Fortune “Before and After” title, but oh well — just showing our age….
We faced a dilemma this weekend. Given what we experienced last week at Straight Lake State Park with the warm weather and the snowballing affect on our snowshoes we could not decide whether we should head south and “regular” hike, or over to Hartman Creek State Park and do some snowshoeing. The high temperature was supposed to be 34 degrees in Waupaca, WI — so we decided we might not get much more snowshoeing in this winter and decided to go for it!!
The plan Mike came up with had us stopping in Wisconsin Rapids, WI at Grandma’s USA Cafe. This place is the quintessential small-town Wisconsin cafe! Locals walk in and get served without even having to order, people stop by on a daily basis and out of towners (like us) are treated like family of the everyday locals. When we got there there were two older gentlemen sitting at a table for eight. We were excited because we though for sure this was the beginning of the typical coffee klatsch — but no, it might have been the end, but no one else joined the two. Funny thing though, as one of those older gentlemen got up to leave he walked over to a table with two people sitting at it. He asked them if they came in every Saturday because he had seen them there a couple of Saturdays in row. The couple said no — they came in EVERY day! Another customer sitting at the counter jokingly complained to the waitress that he was going to order something different, but the kitchen had already started making his “usual” order when he walked in the door. When looking up the restaurant on the way, Tammy kept reading that it was a quonset hut. Very interesting history. We just loved this place — we would go back in a heart beat!! Tammy had her typical veggie omelet and Mike has his (new usual?) steak and eggs. Mike forgot to say to skip the toast so they brought him two HUGE pieces of texas toast. When the waitress came back to pick up our plates she asked if there was anything wrong with the toast — Tammy told her that we just forgot to say that Mike didn’t want it. She said — no worries they feed the leftover bread to the birds — YAY!!! That is so much better than just tossing it into the garbage. As is typical with these small cafes — lots and lots of signs up all over the walls.
We were then off to the state park and a hopefully long day of snowshoeing!! We arrived at the park and made our way to the first parking lot where we would begin our first two hikes of the day.
The first one was along the Hartman Lake and Creek and some trails a little north of there. First we had to visit the pit toilets — Tammy took careful notice to see if there was frost on the toilet seat this week, no — there wasn’t. As we made our way to the pit toilets we noticed all the ice on the trail. Basically all the snow was packed down so much it was actually ice instead of snow. Mike walked down to the lake and saw that the trail to that point was still more ice than snow. We still decided to wear the snowshoes as we could surely use the traction that we would get from the crampons if nothing else.
After strapping up we headed down the (glare ice) trail. We were VERY glad we put the snowshoes on. We could actually walk much faster on the ice with the snowshoes on, because of the crampons, than we could have bareboot hiking. We were not sliding around at all — just steady forward progress. We made it to Hartman Lake and it has a beautiful view.
The trail then made it’s way along the dike between Hartman Lake and Creek. This trail was much more ice than it was snow. Once again though we were happy to have the snowshoes on because we did not slide around or slip at all — it was very nice. We made it around to the backside of Hartman Lake where there was an overflow dam that had a lot of running water — and boy was it clear water, you could see right to the bottom.
From the end of the lake we headed back to connect into the trail system. There were multiple loops and Mike had a plan that would allow us to cover all the segments of the loops with only going over two of the sections more than once. As we made our way up the first segment, we encountered more snow than ice so we didn’t feel as silly wearing our snowshoes. We were supposed to take a side trail off the main trail, but, as seems usual lately, Mike missed a turn along the trail and we ended up in the middle of the set of trails instead of traversing the outside of all the loops. Sadness…oh well, this just meant we would have to traverse more than two segments more than once. That’s OK, we determined a long time ago our hiking/snowshoeing is all about the miles!!! The more, the better!! There was a small bridge that we crossed along the dike, but it wasn’t until we viewed it from the trail above that it became picturesque.
We then came to a section where we most definitely needed the snowshoes. The wind had blown the snow over all the tracks along the trail so it was really like snowshoeing through virgin snow. Tammy had decided not to put her gaiters (leg coverings that keep the snow from getting in to her boots) on — and was now regretting it as we moved across this trail. Mike mentioned that we should see the section of the trail that connected back to where we had just been. Every deer trail Mike had to stop and look to see if that was the trail that we missed. He found two good candidates…until we found the actual trail which was MORE than obvious (at least on this end). The trail that we were one continued along Allen Creek. It was beautiful lowland creek with trees on either side of the creek and a large open prairie beyond that. As we made our way along the creek Mike spotted a Pileated Woodpecker that kept moving up the creek — almost like it was leading us along. As we stopped to watch it, it took off across the prairie and made it’s way along the woods to the other side.
We continued along the trail to some amazingly tall pines (Red Pines?). But the strange thing was not necessarily the super tall pines but the hundreds (thousands?) of tiny pines alongside the trail. We discussed if one out of a hundred of these small trees survives to grow into the tall mature pines, or if something else dictates which ones survive. Regardless how they survive — the view is amazing!
We made it back to the car after 3.15 miles of snowshoeing. Whew — that was fun and tiring. We took a break in the car eating almonds, pork rinds and Tammy texting to check on our son who dropped a butcher knife into this leg the night before (ugh). (He is fine by the way.) After a good break, it was time to head out again. We were to snowshoe from the same parking lot down towards the campground and onto Deer Path Trail around Allen Lake. As we made it down to the campground we encountered signs saying that the trail was closed due logging. DRATS!!! (Well, Mike said a lot more than that, but that will do for here. He really does not like it when we have to change the Plan). We made our way back to the car, took our snowshoes off and headed down the road to the next section of the park where we were going to snowshoe.
This state park has very narrow roads — just barely enough room for two cars to pass one another and both keep all four tires on the pavement. The woods come right up to the side of the road too. Mike was going along at the 15 mph speed limit when some jackleg in a pickup truck flew up behind us and started tailgating us. Mike was undeterred and just kept at the speed limit (and given his great mood already had quite a few choice words for the guy). Almost to the next parking a lot Tammy saw a deer just off the side of the road and it jumped right out in front of us. Mike was going slow enough that he had no trouble stopping in time, but the pickup truck, tailgating guy behind us came within a foot or two of rear ending us. Ugh…thus why you don’t tailgate on roads like that. You just never know. This next section was where all the bike trails were — surely there would not be that many bikers out of the trails with all the ice we encountered earlier. Boy, were we wrong.
There were probably 10 – 15 vehicles in the parking lot with bike carriers on the back. Mr. Tailgating Pickup Truck Guy got out and took his big fat tire bike off his truck and headed down the trail. We ended up having to wait for another truck to leave so we could take his parking space. We found the trail we were going to head down. As we walked to the end of it we noticed the snow was starting to get soft and the ice was melting. We decided then that we were done snowshoeing for the day and would just do bareboot hiking. Given that it would possibly be still a little icy, we were not going to take any chances and still brought our trekking poles.
Holy trails batman!!! This portion of Hartman Creek State Park has trails on top of trails, intersecting trails, parallel trails, trail sharing, just about anything you can think of!! There are hiking/snowshoeing trails, biking trails, snowmobile trails and the Ice Age Trail. Mike had decided that we were going to follow the 2.2 mile hiking/snowshoeing trail then stop at the car and see how much time we had left. As we headed down the trail we went about 1/10th of a mile before we ran into the Ice Age Trail — the two trails overlapped for about another 1/10th of a mile before the Ice Age Trail veered off to the right. We stayed on the hiking trail. These sections of the trails had “map boxes” that were numbered and actually listed on the map. When Mike was looking at the maps prior to coming to the park he could not figure out why these were listed in this part of the park — it quickly became apparent that they were on the maps because with so many trails and intersections, you needed to know which map box you were by to figure out where you needed to go.
We just kept going. We ran into and crossed a snowmobile trail, the Ice Age Trail several times, and the busy fat tire bike trail several times. We were almost all the way back around when we came to map box 7. According to the map the hiking trail and biking trail ran really close to one another. What the map did not make clear was that the two trails ran right on top of one another. So — we had to hike the last 1/2 mile of the trail sharing it with the bikers. Thankfully we only had two bikers come up behind us and one came from the front of us. Had it been “really” busy, it could have been difficult. We made it back to the car and had about an hour before we were to head out for #SupperClubSaturday. We had already decided that we were going to walk down the Ice Age Trail for half the time left and turn around and head back to the car. So — down the Ice Age Trail we went. We passed several places that we had already been on during our first hike. The Ice Age Trail was a little bit less traveled than the hiking trail, but it was still easy to navigate. In the end we ended up deciding we would go 1.5 miles down the trail instead of just the 30 minutes – we only ended up spending an extra 10 minutes because of that decision, no big deal.
Ice Age Trail “Tunnel”
It was now time to begin making our way to #SupperClubSaturday. But first, we stopped at the sign at the entrance to get our obligatory selfie.
We had passed the restaurant we were going to earlier in the day so we knew exactly where we were going (we were actually backtracking our exact same route). Along the way we stopped a a Kwik Trip truck stop (they have HUGE bathrooms) for us to change in. It is so much nicer changing in a temperature controlled bathroom instead of in a cold pit toilet in the middle of a state park in winter.
Our destination for dinner was Pinecrest Supper Club just outside of Pittsville, WI. Given our timing last week, we were a little worried that we would get there and be the first people there or we would get there and be told we should have had reservations. We were happy to see several other cars there, but not too many.
We walked in and were told we could pick whatever table we wanted. We were quite happy to sit somewhat near a table of 5 more elderly people. They were absolutely hilarious. It was quite apparent they were all a little hard of hearing because they were talking as loud (or louder) than Mike usually does, so it was impossible not to eavesdrop on their conversation. It ranged from how to use a blood sugar monitor, to continuous glucose monitors (something we know a LOT about now), to how could “these liberal democrats just hand your money to someone else”, to who lived and worked where for how many decades. It was absolutely hilarious. Tammy could not stop laughing. We are glad to be enjoying our favorite #supperclubsaturday pasttime again.
We decided to order “homemade deep fried mushrooms” for our appetizer. Mike had, of course prime rib, and Tammy went off script and ordered a tomato and basil pork ribeye. It wasn’t long before our mushrooms came. OMG — there had to be about 2 pounds of mushrooms on the plate! I don’t think we took a picture, but we should have. It was a full size dinner plate stacked about 4 inches deep with mushrooms. The two other tables of people all stopped their conversations and stared as the waitress dropped these off at our table. Tammy offered everyone to come over and have some, but no one took her up on it. Not only were there a ton of these mushrooms — they were arguably the best tasting deep fried mushrooms we have ever had. We ate, and ate, and ate on them but I don’t think you could ever tell that we were eating them. We ended up having to get a to-go box to bring them home for dinner on Sunday — and we could barely getthe box closed! Mike’s prime rib was pretty good, but well under seasoned. Tammy was excited for her pork ribeye because one of the elderly ladies had it and she was going on and on about how moist and tender it was. Unfortunately Tammy’s was way over done and super dry and the tomato and basil on the outside was burned (it was actually black). Good thing the mushrooms were so good!!
We had a rather uneventful drive home — we saw lots of deer and turkeys — thankfully none of them on the road in front of us. Unfortunately we have to take the next week, or possibly two, off from Splorin’.
The weather was supposed to be FANTASTIC for Wisconsin in February — highs in the upper 30s/low 40s — we decided to head back to a state park we had visited back in June — Straight Lake State Park. Our loyal readers will remember that we cut our visit to this park very short as the mosquitos were unbearable at the time. We were pretty sure even with the warmer temperatures, we wouldn’t have to worry about mosquitos and it should be awesome for snowshoeing — right? Right?!?
The day started pretty gosh darn spectacular. First, we left the house at 7AM (well, 7:02AM, but Tammy will say that is because Mike was slow loading the car), and walking out of the house we heard every bird within 10 miles singing — it sounded like a bright clear Spring morning (even though it was only 10 degrees with about two feet of snow on the ground). Since we added the bird feeders outside our living room — we love birds!!!!
Our first stop of the day would be AJ’s Northside Cafe in Baldwin, WI. The drive from Eau Claire to Baldwin — about 45 miles — was stunningly gorgeous with freezing fog on all the trees and layers of fog floating at different levels along the way. It was really strange in that we would go through locations where there was frozen fog over everything and a mile later there wasn’t any. Overall very stunning.
We attempted to stop at AJ’s on one of our previous Splorin’ Saturdays but were denied because there were issues that weekend with not having enough staff to serve. No such “unluck” today. We arrived and the street and the lot were full. We were worried about finding any place to sit, but as we walked in, we saw one table available — YAY!! This was our kind of place. Of course there was a coffee klatsch of older gentleman (and one gentlewoman) and it was busy, busy, busy. Lots of little kitschy decorations adorned the walls and something we have been noticing a lot more — some great signs.
The food was very good — Tammy having her typical veggie omelet and Mike going off the board and having steak and eggs with a side of bacon.
From Baldwin we were heading north on our way to our destination. We encountered more freezing fog along Highway 63, thankfully the roads were not slippery at all. Before we got to the state park, we had to go right through Amery, WI. We decided to make a stop at Ellie’s Ice Cream, Coffee, and Conversation because a friends of ours, Amy T, is the manager there (Mike went to school with her since First Grade). You might remember that the FIRST time we went to Straight Lake, we also made a stop to see Amy at her birthday party. Mike was convinced there was no way that she would be there early on a Saturday morning (the manager usually doesn’t have to work the crud hours) — but as Mike’s luck would have it, Tammy proved him wrong once again. We had a very nice visit with Amy T!!!
We then were off to Straight Lake State Park. As previously mentioned we spent a VERY LONG 20 minutes here back in June. We made a very quick “jog” around Rainbow Lake shooing, smacking, waving, basically anything we could think of, to kill or chase away mosquitoes. Today there was not a single mosquito in sight!!! WOO HOO!! We arrived to find only two other cars in the parking lot. We could see two people out on Rainbow Lake ice fishing — so they were at least one maybe both of the cars. Mike was worried that we would see tons of people since the weather was going to be so nice. So far, so good on that front.
As usual Mike worked diligently on a plan. Unfortunately at this park there was no easy way to get back to the car after a short-ish snowshoe hike. So — Mike planned on doing 5 – 6 miles of snowshoeing before we made it back to the car. We were psyched!! Before we head out we made a quick trip to the pit toilets. Tammy found out that freezing fog on the toilet seats of pit toilets is not a really a comfortable way to start the day of hiking. The weather was already getting warm — it was almost 30 degrees. We dressed lightly to avoid overheating, then we strapped on our snowshoes, took our trekking poles, Mike donned the backpack, and off down the trail we went.
We began on the same trail that we started on in June — around Rainbow Lake. We passed the two people out ice fishing. We couldn’t tell if they were catching anything or not, but both were standing looking at their phones while their tip-ups were resting in the holes in the ice. We passed the spot where we ran into the extremely large snapping turtle last summer (he wasn’t home this time — what do turtles do in the Winter? Hmm….). Climbing a small hill we had a very pretty view back across the lake.
Rainbow Lake from Loop Trail
We had kind of forgotten how hilly this trail was (after all we were just focused on mosquito control and getting back to the car last June) and doing hills with snowshoes is a little bit more difficult and tiresome than doing it just in hiking boots. The other thing that we noticed — snowshoeing is LOUD!!! We knew it would be difficult for us to see any wildlife along the trail because of the noise we were making. We also found out that it is difficult to carry on a conversation while snowshoeing because of that noise. So, fearless leader Mike would have to stop and turn around any time he wanted to say anything to Tammy (which, he wasn’t too upset about because it would allow for a micro-break).
We made it the one mile back around Rainbow Lake to where we could go to the car if we wanted, or we could turn and head south on High Point Trail. We had made that first mile in about 30 minutes — we were feeling good. This was going to be an awesome day!!! Of course we chose to head down the High Point Trail. As it’s name implies, there was a lot of up and down on this trail. But the scenery was just breathtaking. Along the trail we saw a Bald Eagle soaring overhead.
Tammy is still dealing with her new boots and still trying to break them in — but it seems like they are breaking her instead. By the time we are getting toward the end of the High Point Trail, she knows she has some pretty big blisters on the back of her heels.
At this point, Mike commented that we were supposed to be looking for a trail off to the right — the Glacial Trail, which would take us to where the Ice Age Trail enters Straight Lake State Park. Up ahead Mike spotted the back of a sign on the trail. Mike said “I sure hope that says “High Point Trail” — well, it didn’t. It said “Glacial Trail”. Somehow we transitioned from the High Point Trail to the Glacial Trail without even knowing it. Ugh. Mike pulls out his trusty map to try to figure out where we went wrong. The best he could tell the Glacial Trail must have been less traveled and we just didn’t see it branch off. Well, about 0.1 miles back on the trail we found where the trail branched off at a relatively sharp angle; coming from the other direction it was almost invisible.
The Glacial Trail was a LOT less traveled than the High Point Trail. No one had hiked down it since the last snowfall, and whomever had hiked down it previously was bareboot hiking (no snowshoes) so it was just footprints and not very well packed down. This can sometimes be very nice snowshoe conditions but here it was a little difficult as the snow was not really “fluffy” — with the warming temperature the snow was becoming heavier and heavier (great snowball fight or snowman making snow, but not so great for snowshoeing). We had about a mile to go on this trail and as we neared the end where we would meet up with the Ice Age Trail, Tammy kept complaining about the snow balling up under her snowshoes. Mike just thought she was complaining because of her blisters as he was not having any problems at all. At this point she had to stop every couple hundred yards to whack the snow off the bottom of her snowshoe crampons and between that and the blisters, she was not a happy ‘splorer.
We were then on the Ice Age Trail and heading back towards Rainbow Lake. This portion of the Ice Age Trail was on top of a bluff overlooking the Straight River. It was very beautiful. We encountered many bridges along this portion of the trail — during warmer months there must be a lot of running water down the side of the hills as at this point in time the bridges just went over snow.
Finally at this time Mike’s snowshoes started balling up with snow too. This becomes very difficult to walk on. It is like putting a tennis ball on the bottom of your shoe and expecting to walk on it. We were stopping every 20 feet to clear our snowshoes with our poles. Mike finally figured out you could get most of the snowball off by scuffing your snowshoe forward into the snow. This was very difficult and strenuous to do though. The problem was the darn temperature — it was getting too warm and the snow was packing into the crampons on our snowshoes. We decided that when we got to the intersection of the Ice Age Trail and the Rainbow Lake trail we would head back to the car. Unfortunately that was still about a mile ahead. So we still had about 1.5 miles left to hike on this snow that was rapidly getting very warm.
We finally made it back to the car (after 4.34 miles of snowshoeing in just under 3 hours. Obviously after that first mile in 30 minutes we slowed down considerably!!! 😉 We took a much needed break and decided that we were done snowshoeing for the day. We had a new snack to try this week in addition to our almonds — BBQ pork rinds. Quite addictive really. The temps were just too high and the snow too sticky to allow snowshoeing to continue. BUT — that does not mean we were down!!! We could still do some bareboot hiking.
After a nice long break and some first-aid treatment on the blisters on Tammy’s heels we were ready to do a little walking. We walked up the driveway to get our selfie by the State Park sign and then headed down the Straight Lake Trail which takes you down to the hike-in campsites.
Unfortunately the trail was not as heavily trafficked as some of the other trails we had been on. So it was some pretty difficult hoofing as the snow was pretty deep in some places (and our snowshoes were resting back in the car). We finally made it to the campground parking lot and we decided to bug out — we would take the driveway out to the road and walk that road back to the main parking lot and be done. One the way out to the road we passed an area that was actively being logged. It sure looked like it was hit by some straight line winds, but thinking back it might have been done just by the loggers. Found some interesting sumac along the way too.
When we got back to the car — we still had some time to kill before we had to head off to dinner, so we took advantage of the warm weather and sat at a picnic table in a shelter to play a game of cribbage. Mike was killing Tammy until her last three hands when she pegged about 97 points and won going away. Oh well, it was fun anyway.
We were now off to #SupperClubSaturday. A high school friend sent us a suggestion for a place to go: Bistro 63 in Baronette, WI. Mike looks it up and sees that they open at 4PM so as long as we get there after 4PM we’re good, right? Right? Well, Tammy has noticed that while they open at 4PM they do not start serving dinner until 5PM. Ugh. So Mike is a STRONG believer in Google Maps. So he programs the restaurant in and it says we will arrive t 3:51PM. Oh oh, not open yet. So as we go along the way Google keeps saying “Hey — here’s an alternate route that takes 5 minutes longer”. So…..we take it! And another and another and another. We love traveling the back roads of Wisconsin, so take us on alternate routes!!! We finally passed by about 4:05 or so — it appeared no one was there. Just a pickup truck out front. We decided to head up the highway 5 miles or so and let Google route us back. Well, we made it back at about 4:14PM and still just that one pickup. So we kept going the other way. We turned on 27 1/2 St. Turns out this is a non-paved road (do not tell Avis please) and with the super warm temperatures and melting snow and ice — it was pretty gosh darn muddy. There were several spots where we were going sideways like we were sliding on ice — but it was on mud. Mud was flying up from the wheels. Seriously thought we might get stuck for a little while — but we made it through and decided to finally stop and go inside.
As we walk inside, we encounter a little old lady who asks us if we have reservations. When we tell her we don’t, she gets a very concerned look on her face and says she will see what she can do. She was able to find a table for us and told us we could have a seat in the bar until it was time for them to serve dinner. So, we ambled over to the bar and had a drink….or two. We were a little confused looking in to the dining room as we saw several tables with people eating. We thought the dining room didn’t open til 5? The nice hostess came over and told us our table was ready. As we sat down, we noticed there was a family style table set up and the food looked really good. A little eavesdropping and we are pretty sure this was a catering tasting for 2 weddings and not people being served ahead of time. Whew!
Dani, our waitress, was right over. We had the Antipasto (without bread and crackers) for an appetizer. Mike of course had the Prime Rib and Tammy had the Seafood Mixed Grill (tuna, scallops and shrimp.) Dani was right on top of all our low carb requests — no croutons on Mike’s salad, asked before she brought bread, etc. -she was a very good waitress. Mike’s Prime Rib was pretty good and Tammy’s was pretty good too, with one notable exception. She saved half her tuna for Mike (since he LOVES tuna) — but it was the most “fishy” tasting tuna that either of us had ever had. Oh well — what can you expect in Baronette, WI. 😉 We should have just stuck to beef — Wisconsin does beef very well!!! It has been awhile since we have done much “eavesdropping” at dinner but tonight the couple seated next to us was very obviously on their first or second date. It was fun to kind of listen in on them a bit getting to know each other and see those new “sparks” fly.
We then had a 1.5 hour drive home — which was pretty short for a Splorin’ Saturday!!! We love Splorin’!!!!!
More and more people have been asking us this question. So we decided we really should definitively answer what is meant by Splorin’. Splorin’ started out as a follow-on to #SupperClubSaturday after Mike’s quadruple bypass surgery. We wanted to become more healthy, we needed more exercise and to be more active, and we needed to have something to drive us. Instead of just going out to eat on Saturdays (what #SupperClubSaturday was), we decided to spend an entire day together getting out and getting active while still enjoying our quest for the quintessential Wisconsin Supper Club experience. This was the genesis of Splorin’. The original intent was to begin by visiting all 48 State Parks in Wisconsin — and we are on track for that — but it is not just about hiking the State Parks.
April 13th, 2019 at Buck-a-Neer supper club in Stratford, WI, Splorin’ Saturday was born. Since then we have expanded the definition of Splorin’ to days other than Saturday and in states other than Wisconsin. But this has lead people (and maybe even you , dear reader) to think that any time we are out-and-about we are Splorin’. No, not true. Thus, we needed to write the “Rules of Splorin'” and define what ‘splorin’ is and is not.
RULES OF SPLORIN’:
Must be planned in advance, it cannot be spontaneous.
Splorin’:
You will hear comments like: “The plan has us….” or “We will change the plan to…” (you can change the plan, but you MUST start with a plan).
Not Splorin’:
You will hear things like “Let’s go Splorin’ over there…” or “Well, as long as we are here…”
2. Must wear specific clothing, not just everyday clothing.
Splorin’:
You must have something that you plan to wear, or purchased specifically, for splorin’: hiking boots, shirts, jackets, shoes, underwear, socks, hat, leggings, shorts, etc.
Not Splorin’:
You are wearing whatever you put on when you got up in the morning (because you did not plan on going Splorin’ — see the rule above – Splorin’ must be planned).
3. Must be able to stand on its own, Splorin’ is done for the sake of Splorin’, not just a walk or on your way to dinner, music in the park, a museum, etc.
Splorin’:
Maps are needed, you need to know where to park and what you are doing once you get there (hiking/walking/snowshoeing) or at least have options identified (again, see the rule about Splorin’ being planned).
Splorin’ is a single activity (or multiple consecutive activities at one or more locations interrupted by travel between locations).
Not Splorin’:
You cannot be Splorin’ on your way to somewhere or some other activity.
You cannot go Splorin’ when you get home from some activity.
4. Must have a meal associated with it (and typically two: breakfast and dinner).
Splorin’:
Stopping at a breakfast place just because it has a cool name.
There are many old men sitting around in a coffee klatsch.
There is Prime Rib on the menu.
Not Splorin’:
No meal, no Splorin’.
You have not left at least 30 minutes between eating and a Splorin’ activity.
The restaurant you are at is part of a chain (unless it is a local chain all run by the same family).
5. Must travel to the Splorin’ location, you cannot go Splorin’ directly from home or hotel; there has to be initial travel that takes place.
Splorin’:
You leave at Zero Dark Thirty to travel to your destination.
Saturday morning Polka Party is on the radio while you travel to your destination.
You can travel by foot to the Splorin’ destination (hiking from a campsite to the first trail, walking from a hotel across town to a State Park).
Not Splorin’:
You say, “We can sleep in, it doesn’t matter when we get there.”.
6. Most importantly if you have to ask if you are Splorin’, the answer is always “NO!”, because you KNOW when you are Splorin’.
We hope this clears some things up and can finally answer that age old question: What is Splorin’?
After the fun we had showshoeing last weekend on the Putnam Park trail, we thought that snowshoeing this week was going to be awesome!! We would still stay local (withing 30 minutes of home) but would try to make it a full day of Splorin’. Mike had found a place last week where we might try snowshoeing, and we had some friends who FB showed us went snowshoeing near Eau Claire and we thought we would try that area too!
We decided to get back to two-thirds normal “Splorin’ Protocol” — meaning breakfast, Splorin’ then home instead of out for #SupperClubSaturday. We started off at with breakfast in Durand, WI at Perkz Cafe. The drive there was mostly OK, but there were some slick roads — but, hey, this is Wisconsin and it is January. We were hoping to view our usual older gentlemen’s coffee klatsch — as we pulled into our parking spot we saw an “older gentleman” walking across the street — we both smiled thinking we would witness this once again. But as he got to right in front of the cafe he got into his truck — we looked back where he came from and saw another person walking out of …. a bar. I guess he was attending a “beer klatsch” instead of a coffee one. ;-). Turned out there was just a two person coffee klatsch going on. Since it didn’t look like they were related, we decided that it counted!! We had our “usual breakfast” and as usual it did not disappoint. We may be boring, but we love it and that is all that matters.
We were then off to our first stop of the day — Guettinger Woods Nature Trail — just south of Eau Claire. This is a location that Mike found and thought would be a good place to go snowshoeing. We have passed this numerous times (in fact Mike used to drive past it every day on the way to work at Marten Transport in Mondovi, WI back in 1991 and 1992), but we never did anything more than ignore it. Of course, Mike had a plan — he researched this and found some maps of the trails online for this. So, he knew where the trail was and what was going on. The only possible glitch was that the parking lot for this was off a very small side road way out in the country. Mike was worried that it would not be plowed, but luckily his fears were exaggerated and it was plenty clear enough to park. So we got out and strapped our snowshoes on and were off in not time.
It was pretty obvious where the trail was, but it was also obvious since it had snowed the last 3 – 6 inches of snow no one had been down these trails. It was awesome to snowshoe on these “virgin” trails. We loved it!!! There were little sign posts with information about the trail every so often. We made sure to stop and wipe the snow off the sign as we got to it. We made it most of the way around one of the loops and Mike decided to check the distance that we had gone. Both of us were sure we had gone at least two miles — 0.62 miles is what Mike’s watch was telling us. Ugh — that can’t be right. Mike was also recording this hike for https://hikingproject.com and it said 0.61 miles. Wow. Ok so maybe snowshoeing wasn’t quite as “easy” as we thought!!! But we continued on — we were loving it!!!
We made our way up a very steep hill — whew, hills are much more difficult in snowshoes than just regular hiking. We finally made it to the top of the hill and then had a view of the downhill that we would have to go. We noticed a bench at the bottom of the hill that we figured was our target.
We made it to the bottom of the hill. Tammy may have fallen, but given Mike’s experience later in the day, he has decided that a picture of neither of us on our backside should appear on the blog. At the bottom of the hill was the spring — open running water in the middle of January. Given what we saw last week, we kind of expected to see Robins here, but alas there were none.
We kind of lost our way here a little. We thought we were on the trail (which we noticed was marked with orange plastic wraps on trees), but we obviously were forging our own trail for a little while. it didn’t really matter as Mike knew where we were and getting lost was almost impossible. Whether we were on the trail or not, we were having a blast!! We made it back to the car to see that someone else had some and started snowshoeing too. We were glad we were first!
We had planned on heading across highway 37 and doing some “freestyle” snowshoeing where there were no trails but still in Guettinger Woods, but it took us a LOT longer along the trail than what we thought it would and we were kind of tired, so we decided to forego that experience and move on to our next destination: the Lower Chippewa River State Natural Area. This would be purely “off trail” bushwhacking type snowshoeing. Mike had figured out a rough plan, but it was completely up in the air as to what we would do based on the conditions. We left the parking lot and immediately were in to some pretty thick brush. Tammy found her way to the ground again (still no pictures). But we were soon to Coon Creek that Mike wanted to snowshoe along. It was absolutely breathtaking! This small creek flowing through the snow covered woods was amazingly beautiful.
We made our way to what appeared to be an open field, but was most likely more of a wetlands that was a boundary for the creek. But with it completely covered in snow with the creek winding through the middle it was one of nature’s beauties that you only occasionally get to witness.
From this point Mike’s plan had our next destination being the Chippewa River. When looking at it on a map (and not on showshoes) it doesn’t look that far…but in reality it was quite a ways. We had about 3/4 of a mile to go to get to the river. Most of that was through wide open hardwood forest. Easy peasy snowshoeing. However, as we got closer to the river the underbrush became thicker and thicker. Picking our way through that brush with snowshoes and poles was difficult at best and very, very slow. However, we eventually made it to the Chippewas River. Mike kept asking Tammy if she was at the point that she just “wanted to be done”. She kept saying that she was still having fun and we could continue on.
After making our way to the river, the “plan” was to move along the river and loop back to the car. However, Mike knew that would mean about another 3 – 4 miles of snowshoeing. WAY too much. So, looking at Google Maps (how would you ever survive without this tool!!!) he thought he saw a way where we could go about a third of a mile and make it to an open field and have a much easier time snowshoeing. But, before we got to that open field we struggled through such thick underbrush that it was almost impossible to get through with snowshoes on. Tammy lost one of the snow baskets from her trekking poles. We made a valiant effort to find it but we never did. Shortly after this Tammy exclaimed after nearly losing an eye to the underbrush several times: “OK Mike, I am no longer having fun, let’s head straight back to the car”. Mike said “OK” (but was silently saying “THANK GOD!!!”). It turns out that the “open field” that Mike thought he saw on Google Maps was actually just an area with very thick brush but no bigger trees.
Right at the edge of the super thick brush Mike finally went down. Instead of going forward or sideways, he went backwards. He never felt more like a turtle in his life. Tammy, while trying to hold her chuckling in while Mike was swearing a blue streak, helped get him back on his feet (well, snowshoes anyway). We then made our way back through open forest to find the field where we came along the creek. We found this amazing tree that the woodpeckers were destined to take apart — it was pretty cool.
We made it back through that open field, some more woods and back to the car. Whew — we were sure ready to be done!!! We “only” made it 1.98 miles, but wow — what an almost 2 miles that was. We thought we were going to be snowshoeing fiends — what we now realize is that we will stick to marked and well traveled trails from now on!!! Yet another successful Splorin’ Saturday!!!!! LOVE THIS!!!!
Once again, we could not bear to take weekend off from Splorin’. We thought we would just spend the day at home getting caught up on housework, sleep, and just spending time together (not outdoors). But the call of the Splor’ was too strong. It had snowed 4 or 5 inches overnight so we decided this would be the perfect opportunity for the inaugural hike on our snowshoes. Mike got them and our trekking poles ready and we decided to stay extremely close to home — Putnam Park State Natural Area is a nice 3 mile hike (out and back) the goes through some lowlands by the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. It is only a 2.5 mile drive from our house. We have crossed this trail MANY times on our way walking to downtown Eau Claire from home, but it wasn’t until a month or so ago that we actually walked the trail — and it was amazing. Yet another one of those things that we never knew existed until we started slowing down and spending more time on our feet in our tennis shoes instead of on our butts in a car.
Both of us were a little apprehensive about our first foray into snowshoeing. Both of us had done it in the past, but that was a LONG time ago. On our way to the trail we actually drive right over it (there is a tunnel for the trail — foreshadowing) and saw a couple of people walking down the trail. Tammy suggested that maybe we should try hiking the trail without the snowshoes first. Mike didn’t want to, and although Tammy did her best to try to convince Mike to still snowshoe if he wanted, he too decided to walk too. So down the trail we started. The snow wasn’t too deep to walk, but it was a little slippery. And it was absolutely gorgeous in the fresh snowfall. The tunnel made an especially beautiful picture.
We have lived in Eau Claire for 22 years and NEVER knew this existed. We have driven over it hundreds of times and you do not know that the tunnel is even there. Just through the tunnel we came across an upturned tree’s root system that presented a very pretty sight covered in the fresh snow.
However, it was what we saw just beyond that tree that really stunned us. We are ALWAYS on the lookout for “wildlife”. Usually it is just squirrels, some birds, occasionally deer. This time we saw up ahead a bunch of birds flitting around. Not thinking much of it we kept walking and the birds kept flying away further down the path. Mike finally noticed that these were actually Robins!! What the heck? It is the middle of January — Robins are supposed to fly south for the winter not stay around Wisconsin. We noticed a while later that they were actually digging for worms in the mud along the stream that hadn’t frozen (or been covered by snow). Later on Mike discovered that Robins will indeed stay in Wisconsin over the winter if they have food and water available. Apparently this is a safe haven for Robins for the winter.
If you zoom in on the second picture you will see that those “dots” are robins.
We passed two cross country skiers and one person on snowshoes. We decided that once we finished the 3 miles and made it back to the car that we would put our snowshoes on and give them a try. That way we would really be able to compare what it was like to walk along the trail and to snowshoe along the trail. Getting the snowshoes on was a little bit of an adventure seeing as how we had never worked the bindings before, but we eventually got them on and started down the trail. After about 30 feet down the trail Mike remarked “I can tell already that walking in the snowshoes is 10 times easier than just walking”. Walking just in our hiking boots was slippery — you were constantly “spinning out” in your tracks. But with the snowsoes and their crampons you just didn’t slide — you got traction and pushed yourself forward. The trekking poles with their snow baskets were a godsend since you are a little bit more top heavy with snowshoes on and every little bit of better balance was very helpful for us old folks.
We made our way down to the Robins again — stopping and realizing that there were more than the 20 or 30 that we saw earlier and that there were probably 100 or maybe even more!!! We decided to take a little trail off to the side of the main trail and get closer to the stream and to a bridge that we saw going over the stream. We made our way down the narrow trail and found our way to the bridge. You could see lots of ducks from here. Mike even found a bobber from someone’s ill fated attempt at fishing from near the bridge. It, juxtaposed against the snow, made an interesting sight.
We made our way back to the car and after 3 miles of hiking and about 1.5 miles of snowshoeing. One of the best things about Splorin’ so close to home, was that we were so close to home. We were back home and in “soft pants” before all the snow melted from our hiking boots!! Yet another successful Splorin’ Saturday!
“Sometimes you just have to do a little Splorin’ ” — Mike Schmitz
A quick bit of history here — all four of our kids were in show choir at Eau Claire Memorial High School (Old Abe Show Choir — OASC Forever!!!). Our youngest son graduate last year so this is officially our first year of not having kids in show choir since 2007. Whew — 12 years. We love show choir — it was a great place for our kids. Our oldest daughter met her husband there, our youngest daughter is still going out with her boyfriend that she met there and all the kids (and us) made life long friends. So — here we are our first year of not being involved with show choir, you would think we would enjoy our time away. But no. This Saturday two competitions were taking place in the La Crosse, WI area: Onalaska and Viterbo. We were going to take the day off from Splorin’ and just go to both competitions, but that is when Mike made his famous quote above. We had the morning to do some Splorin’ before attending the competitions, so we were headed to Hixon Forest Park in La Crosse, WI.
A couple words on the back story here. Those who have actually read the entirety of our blog know that this all started from Mike’s quadruple bypass surgery and our desire to get out and be more active. The worst of that all started on Mike’s 50th birthday when he got the called that he fabulously failed his stress test and would need to see a cardiologist. This news was all received when Mike and Tam were on their way to have lunch with Tammy’s Aunt Jane and Uncle Gary in La Crescent, MN (right across the Mississippi from La Crosse). So — on Mike’s 51st birthday he wanted to return to the scene of the crime and have lunch with them again — they introduced us to Hixon Forest and we did some hiking on his birthday. Mike has complicated rules for what counts as Splorin’ and what does not. That hike did not rise to the level of Splorin’. When asked to explain why not, the only thing he could say was “It doesn’t meet the bar of Splorin’ ” — no one (including Mike) knows what that means. He’s a complicated guy….and sometimes not very articulate, but when he’s made up his mind, no one (including the truth) can make him change it.
It was decided that we would have about 3 hours to hike so we would do the same trails that we did with Tammy’s Aunt and Uncle before we started watching show choir competitions for the rest of the day (literally!!). Even though we had a ton of snow in Eau Claire, we knew that La Crosse had no snow on the ground — we thought hiking in Hixon Forest would be a piece of cake. Mike made sure to get current maps (last time we were there, we were close to lost because some of the maps that were posted were out-of-date).
Our breakfast was in Arcadia, WI — yet another small Wisconsin town that we had been to a million times before (usually stopping at the bakery or Pat’s meats) — but to a restaurant we had never been too: Kozy Kitchen Cafe. Tammy was concerned it would be right next to the bakery that we used to always get coffee cake from — it was, but, the bakery closed quite a while ago and was for sale. Whew — that just means that Tammy was not tempted by the call of the poppy seed coffee cake. We walked into the restaurant to yet another first for us: the old gentleman’s coffee klatsch was in full swing with 5 or 6 guys — BUT this time they each sat at their own table. They were spread all over the restaurant. When we walked in Mike picked the booth that we were to sit at. A couple minutes after we sat down another older gentleman came in and stared at us. Tammy thought for sure that we sat at “his” table and he was ticked — Mike thinks he just stared at us trying to figure out who the heck we were (we don’t think they see many non-locals there). Whichever the case, all was good. He walked right back into the kitchen to get his own coffee then joined the rest of the klatsch. We had our “usual” breakfast — bonus points for anyone who comments on this blog post and states what that “usual” is!!!
We also have to take a moment to talk about what it takes to make a quintessential Wisconsin diner/cafe that we like. Has to have the following: an older gentleman’s coffee klatsch, miss-matched coffee cups, an open beverage station, kitschy stuff on the walls, a lunch counter with stools, tiny tiny bathroom, a high school aged waitress… Kozy Kitchen Cafe had another first for us — you go to the restroom and the only thing in the restroom is….a toilet. The sink to watch your hands is out in the hallway between the Men’s and Women’s bathrooms. Wow — we’ve never seen that before!!!
Oh well — time to start some Splorin’!!! As we mentioned above, we’ve been on this trail before — it has a lot of elevation gain, beautiful views and lots of places for Mike to hug trees instead of getting close to death-defying drops. We started up the trail — we knew it was a big climb before we got to the first observation area. Mike commented several times that he was amazed there was no ice on the trail <ominous foreshadowing music…>. We did see some ice right by the first little bridge that we had to crosss, but not much beyond that. We were passed by a gentleman on a fat tire bike on a fairly steep section of the trail. We couldn’t understand how he could be going that slow and still keep his balance on the bike. The trail was mercifully clear of snow and ice — YAY!!!!
This is about the point where the cyclist passed us. We thought this picture was so beautiful. You can see the Minnesota bluffs way in the distance. The trail was in great shape. You can see the trail bending to the right in the distance in this picture. We made our way around that bend to see….
Ice. Ugh. At this point we were able to just walk on the side of the trail to avoid most of it. We kept wondering how in the world the cyclist made it through this — it was slippery enough for us going slow how in the world would you bike through it? Our question was answered about 5 minutes later when we saw him on a switchback above us pushing his bike. So — we guess the answer is you do NOT ride your bike over this, instead you push it. But we finally made it to the first scenic overlook. As we were walking the short trail out we ran into another hiker. We stopped an chatted for a little bit — his opening line of the conversation was: “So, you survived going down over all the ice, huh?”. We talked for a little while about the trail conditions and he admitted that there were a couple of sections that he just sat on his butt and slid down instead of trying to walk. It wasn’t until we left the observation area that Mike realized he was going the opposite way we were going so his “downhills” were our “uphills”. All-in-all we were happy to climb up icy hills rather than have to try to hike down them. We love the view from the top yet again.
Even with the beautiful view Tammy had to take a minute to respond to several text messages (including her Aunt who lives WAY on the other side of these pictures). We moved on the trail and actually saw some wildlife!!
We knew there was another uphill section that was on the North side of the bluff so it was going to likely be covered in ice. We were not disappointed (or maybe we were…). Regardless it was a long hike up the switchbacks that were completely covered in ice. A couple of times we cut straight up hill rather than trying to walk up the trail because it was so covered in ice.
But as usual the view at the top is worth the hike up. Mike was actually almost adventurous on top of this observation area. The really cool thing about this was that you could see the trail and the long switchbacks on the bluff that we had just climbed up earlier in the morning. If you look close (or zoom in?) on this picture you can see the trail as it goes back and forth on the bluff.
We were going to go further — at least that was “The Plan”. But given the ice on the hills it took us a LOT longer than we anticipated and we had to get going so that we could go watch show choir!!!
While we did not get a #SupperClubSaturday this weekend we were able to have enough time to make it to the Blue Moon restaurant in Onalaska for lunch that we had been to a couple times before. We had wings and cheese curds. It was good food!!!
We spent the afternoon at the Onalaska Show Choir Classic where we saw a couple pretty bad show choirs and some absolutely amazing show choirs, including Tammy’s favorite, Bemidji Vocalmotive. We then spent the evening at Viterbo College at Viterbo 101 — we had awesome seats, about 10 rows back right in the center. It was awesome!! We didn’t get a chance to have dinner, so we ended up meating our kids at Applebee’s in Eau Claire at 11:15PM to grab a bite to eat with them! Whew….what a Splorin’ Saturday!!!
Splorin' Saturday 