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!!
Our most loyal blog reader, Carrie, decided to make a guest appearance at Buckhorn State Park with us to go Splorin’ — YAY!!!! She is such a trooper! I’m sure there are a million other ways she could have spent a Saturday, especially a Saturday where she wasn’t working, but we were honored that she wanted to spend it with us!!!
We started with breakfast in Neilsville, WI at Schmitty’s on Main. Another cute and kitschy restaurant that was very busy on a Saturday. It reminded Tammy of her grandma’s living room and she could even imagine Grandma Loretta calling out to her dad, “Schmitty, get grandpa a beer and a short one.” Tammy enjoyed observing a young mother playing with her daughter and keeping her busy NOT using electronics!
One thing that Tammy has been missing since the emergence of Splorin’ Saturday — Farmer’s Market Saturday. Before Mike got his new plumbing and new lease on life, Saturday summer mornings used to be reserved for going to the Farmer’s Market at Phoenix Park in downtown Eau Claire (usually followed by Tammy working and Mike going to visit his dad). Well — imagine our surprise when right across from Schmitty’s was an Amish Farmer’s market!!! Breakfast was awesome, as usual, but the farmer’s market was beckoning. Tammy and Carrie took off for fruits and veggies while Mike waited to pay the check. Blueberries, raspberries, green beans and other veggies were purchased from the Amish farmers. Their buggies were turned into booths while their horses were tied up in the back of the parking lot. We then took off for Buckhorn.
As usual Mike has “The Plan” down. A quick several mile walk to get things started and break Carrie in easy. After getting our daily pass, we parked across the street and doped up with bug spray and hit the trail. This was another trail where we had to head across more of a field than forest to get going. So — it was a grass trail — with long grass — and according to Carrie strewn with wood ticks. Carrie was not a fan of the grass; Mike was hopeful this was the only trail like this today. He was also hopeful that there was not a lot of elevation changes — it was time for an easy park. Unfortunately only the former was true.
We enjoyed the trails and ran into a couple of people along the way. We still don’t know what was wrong — but there was a trail on the map, that we could just not find. We came across a sign for the trail with an arrow, but it pointed down an overgrown section between a couple rows of pine trees. There certainly was no one that had walked down through the overgrown grass, so we unfortunately had to skip that half mile of trail. Oh well, we don’t let little Splorin’ mishaps like that get us down — ever onward!!!
The next hike of the day was a conglomeration of three trails in one. I don’t really know why parks insist on doing loop trails that don’t begin and end at the same place — but I am more than happy to attempt to hike them!!! So, three loop trails were on the docket — Central Sand, Partridge and Turkey Hollow trails were tackled. While they were all done at once, they all were actually quite unique. The first, Central Sands, was through some dense woods. Interestingly (?) enough this trail was packed with mosquitoes!!! Even though we doped up again before beginning — we were attacked!!! Not quite Richard Simmons swatting, but pretty darn close. As we emerged onto the Partridge Trail the mosquitoes just disappeared!! This trail was very interesting because it was through the middle of an area that had been clear-cut. So, it was a mature hardwood forest with 95% of the trees removed. It had been clear-cut a year or two before, so it was coming back to life from the ground up. All the bushes and small trees that typically are choked out of light by the big trees were growing with wild abandon. Then we were onto the Turkey Hollow Trail — this was through quite a different type of forest. The first part was wide open — lots of tall hardwood trees with almost no under-growth at all. Kind of a big switch from the lots of under-growth and no tall trees on the last trail. The Turkey Hollow Trail led us along the lake (river) with some very pretty views. There were some very interesting camp sites here — they were pack in camps — you had to carry everything in by hand (or cart), no cars allowed! Very rustic!!
A lot of times our hiking is a pretty quiet affair. Sometimes because we are just taking in the scenery and enjoying each other’s company and sometimes because we are ascending hills and Tammy is concentrating on breathing. But with Carrie along, there wasn’t a lot of quiet. Her stories, observations and commentary make us smile at least and LOL at best. We will miss “the world according to Carrie” when she heads back to MU in a few weeks.
We had one more hike left that comprised two trails. The first trail was going to be past a “deer exclosure”. We saw this and kept asking ourselves what an “exlosure” was. Turns out it is fenced off area to keep deer out, not in. That way they can study the affect that no deer on an environment would have. We had seen similar areas at both Copper Falls and Rib Mountain State Parks (fenced in areas in the middle of the woods), but couldn’t for the life of us figure out what they were for. It is kind of interesting — the point is that at one point in time white tail deer were endangered in Wisconsin (I know, hard to believe right?) — and it is important to know the impact that they have on the growth of trees, bushes, grasses, etc. We popped out of these woods onto a trail around a tower. We’re not really sure the purpose of this tower. It was only 20 feet high and you certainly could not see anywhere beyond the immediate vicinity of the tower itself. There were some teenage girls up in the tower, no doubt trying to get away from their dastardly parents while camping ;-). The loop here was also uneventful, and unfortunately for Carrie, choked with tall grass in the middle of the trail. We still had a little time so we ended the day by going out on the short Sandblow Vista walk. The Sandblow Walk leads you out onto a typical central Wisconsin sandblow. This desert-like area recalls the park’s ice age history when the region was covered by glacial Lake Wisconsin.
Overall — we were pretty underwhelmed by this state park. We think it would be an awesome state park for going to the beach, or camping, but hiking? It was pretty boring. We have to apologize to Carrie who used her “one outdoor day” with us at a boring state park. We wished she would have joined us at a more exciting park. Which one? Well, you have to read the rest of the blog posts and decide for yourself. Tammy and Carrie were able to take showers at the one camping area before we headed off to dinner. Mike, for some reason, foolishly waited in the car while Tammy and Carrie were showering. By the time he got to the shower there were, literally, 15 people waiting to get in the showers. Luckily there was another showerhouse that Mike was able to go and use — he had to take an ice cold shower 😦 but at least he was clean!!!
While it was unfortunate that Carrie had to endure perhaps the worst hiking experience we have had, she was about to experience one of the more delightful #SupperClubSaturday experiences. We traveled to Wisconsin Rapids to go to the Branding Iron Supper Club. Since Carrie has made fun of her parents for having dinner at 5 PM on Saturdays (only old people eat THAT early), we made reservations for 5:15 PM (yep, we were really pushing it!!!). We got to the restaurant at 5 — thinking that we would just have a drink at the bar while we waited for our table. We didn’t think they opened for dinner until 5pm, but saw people eating when we got there. We thought we would be seated and be able to have dinner. The hostess checked us in and told us to have a seat at the bar until our table was ready. It was so confusing — we had reservations at 5 for a restaurant that opened at 5 — how could our table not be ready? Well — it turns out that you order at the bar and they begin preparing your food. You are then seated at your table when your food is almost ready. So, while sitting at the bar enjoying a cocktail, we ordered dinner from our waitress. About 10 minutes later the bartender told us “Your table is ready, it’s table #8 and it is straight back on the left”. We went and sat down and the waitress, while dropping off our order of cheese curds and calamari, told us we could help ourselves to the salad bar. Our food came and it was absolutely delicious!! We were definitely fans!!! The place was packed but didn’t feel overcrowded at all. This is why we love supper clubs.
We then had the long drive home through little Podunk towns while looking for deer, turkeys and cranes!! Wonder who our next guest ‘splorer may be??
We weren’t able to ‘splore the week of July 13th. Unfortunately Mike’s dad ended up in the hospital on Thursday, July 11th. He was experiencing some difficulty moving his right arm, slurring speech a little, and had a hard time walking -they thought he was having a stroke. Good news — he did not have a stroke; it seems like it was a combination of severe UTI and gout in his shoulder — THANK GOD!!! Long story, and a couple long days at Regions Hospital, (not Splorin’ Saturday-type stuff’ but long enough) and he finally made it back home on Sunday, July 14th. So ‘splorin had to wait.
The next week, (7/20) we were going to be at a BBQ with Mike’s aunt from LaCrosse visiting his dad on Saturday. Family before ‘splorin’. We didn’t want to miss another week so we needed to adjust the Plan and pushed back ‘splorin’ to Sunday and tried to keep it more “local.” Well, the weather was pretty stormy on Saturday, so Aunt MaryAnn decided not to visit (we found out she would have been traveling straight through the path of a tornado so we are glad she stayed put) but we still went over for a visit with Mike’s dad and sisters. Mike got the “privilege” of grilling hamburgers in the pouring rain. We would definitely NOT have been able to ‘splore in that weather anyway so the Plan was working. It was a nice visit at HomeTown Senior Living and Mike’s dad was so much better than the week before!
Sunday usually begins with Mass, breakfast with whatever children we get to come with us, then who knows – getting ready for the week ahead. So if we were going to do any Splorin’ on Sunday, it would have to be somewhere quick to get to. We switched up the normal Sunday routine and went to breakfast before Mass, so after Mass we were ready to head out for Splorin’. We decided on Kinnikinnic State Park just outside River Falls, WI and only about an hour away for this day of Splorin’.
We just have one question — How, having grown up in Hudson, had we never — EVER — heard of this state park?!?!?!? We spent countless days at Willow River State Park (no hyperlink yet, because that will be our last park we ‘Splore), but we never even knew that Kinnikinnic State Park existed. I guess that is what we get for growing up in the days before Google — a little gem could be right under your nose and you had no idea!! Mike, as you faithful reader(s) know by now, came up with “The Plan”. Since the time we had was shorter than normal (we couldn’t leave home until between 10 and 11am and needed to be back home to pick Jason up from work at the mall by 6PM,) we had limited time to splore. :-(. So, the plan was to do basically two hikes. One was to go to the lower part of the park and do two loops and then finish with a loop on the upper part of the park. However, since Tammy is such an amazing hiker, we were able to do MUCH more!!!
We started in the usual fashion — spraying ourselves down liberally with Picaridin — we just can’t stand to be bugged by bugs. We then headed off. The first part of the hike was to head down the blue trail to get to the bottom of the park. At the bottom of the park, there was a central loop, with little loops coming off of it. Mike’s plan was to do all the little loops, then circle back on the inner loop. It meant we would cover some parts of the trail twice — but heck, we love this “job” so no big deal!!! MAP
When we got to the bottom of the park we saw something that we had not seen since Lake Wisssota — big, wide open prairie. When we started around the yellow loop, Mike asked aloud if we were going to ring the entire prairie. It was supposed to be 1.3 miles, but it looked like SO much more. In the end, that is what we did — just made a big loop around the prairie with a couple of small forays into wooded areas. It was actually pretty neat! Thankfully it was nowhere near as hot as Copper Falls had been — it would have been agonzing because we were in the direct sun almost the whole time. Apparently as good as Picaradin is for bugs, it is not a good sunscreen as Tammy found out on Monday.
We made it around the prairie and back to the picnic area and had to find a restroom. Mike’s plan led us right past the restroom (ok, a pit toilet), but unfortunately Mike’s plan and the trail seemingly had different ideas. We thought we ended up missing the restrooms somehow, but, thankfully, in the end we just took a really roundabout way to get to them. After pottying, we made it to an overlook to see where the Kinnikinnic River empties into the St. Croix river. It was a beautiful view (made even more so by the fact that we knew we didn’t have to go all the way down to the river!!!).
After enjoying the view, we had to make it back onto the trail. This was not an easy feat. The maps shows the trail looping the picnic area — but is that within the picnic area, or below the picnic area on the hill? We remembered Wyalusing and thought we were going to end up down by the river (although not in a van) again — thankfully we didn’t. We eventually found the trail and continued. We made it back around to where we could then do the central yellow loop. The only really interesting thing that we found here was that where the other trails went around the edge of the prairie, the yellow loop cut straight across the center. It felt like walking across the Serengeti (if the Serengeti was in Wisconsin and they mowed a path across the middle of it, and had trail markers every 100 yards or so…). The grass that was about 6 feet tall on both sides of us — it was hard to see for any distance at all. Thankfully, unlike the Serengeti, there were no hungry lions waiting to ambush us. Whew — it was a pretty long walk – 5.32 miles!!!
We made it back to the car and took a little, well deserved, rest. We had another 3.5 mile loop to do and then we were going to call it a day. However, Mike screwed up again — somehow for being a math major he has an awful lot of problems adding numbers together. This time it really was not his fault — the map and trail descriptions were messed up. He used the distance from the trail description for his calculations and not the map — so the 3.5 mile hike, actually came in at 2.35 miles. This was a good thing (we’ll get back to that in a minute). The red trail through the upper part of the park was, unfortunately, pretty boring. Don’t get us wrong it was a beautiful day to walk in the sunshine — but it was basically just like walking down a mowed path through a field (perhaps because it WAS just walking down a mowed path through a field). We made it back to the car with plenty of time to spare! In fact, enough time to spare to head to another trail — one that Mike had not included in “The Plan” because we didn’t think we would have enough time to hike it. Turns out — that was very serendipitous as that was the best trail of the day.
We had to venture out of the park to get to the last trail (either the red or pink trail depending on whether you believe the map or the trail descriptions) but it was just a short drive to a little nondescript parking lot on the side of the road. Mike thought this trail was just going to be another “through and around the field” hike (why we still listen to him at all — we will never know). He was so wrong. After striking out across the field, we came to a pine plantation. We were weaving in and out of pines and along the edge of a mature hardwood forest — it was quite nice!! We then head out into the deep forest along very narrow trails. There were some ups and downs but for the most part it was very level. We met another person on the trail would was “prancercising” down the trail. OK then….. We kept on going. Eventually we got to the point where we were at a top of a bluff with the Kinnikinnic River below us. Mike double checked the map and somehow tried to assure Tammy that we were not going all the way down to the river. But the trail kept descending and descending. Thankfully we didn’t make it all the way down to the river — just kept following the edge of the bluff above it. It was pretty cool experience. We did have to climb back uphill to get back to the field, but not too much. We were on a mission now to finish this trail in an hour — it was a 3.5 mile trail and we were so close the the parking lot it was crazy. We emerged from the pine plantation thinking we had it made only to discover an elderly couple in front of us walking very slowly. Tammy decided we were just going to pass them instead of slowing our pace to match theirs. We did. However, we still did not make our goal of under an hour — we missed it by 48 seconds. :-(.
We were then headed back to Eau Claire to pick Carrie up at home and Jason up at work. We’ve been wanting to include our kids in Splorin’ Saturday for a while, but they have not had much desire to accompany us. We figured and easy way to get them in would be to take them along to the #SupperClubSaturday portion of the day (even if it was on Sunday). This time we chose to go to Two Acres Supper Club in Bloomer, WI. Your mom may have told you if you cannot say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all. So, with that, here is our review: ” “. Nope, not much nice to say at all. We take that back — we were able to spend time with Carrie and Jason — that was the best part! Jason had a steak that was somehow fried on a flattop with no seasoning, Tammy had “steamed scallops” (which were really just boiled — we saw the “cook” dump them out of the pan of water) Mike cannot even remember what he had — but Carrie had the winner dinner of the day: Fried Chicken Strips and French Fries. The only problem was that she found a little piece of of Brillo pad in her french fries — we mentioned it to the cook when she came out and she just looked at it and said “Yup, that is from our of our cleaning pads” and then walked back into the kitchen. Easy to say we will not be going back nor recommending anyone else to go there.
Mike had to leave early (3 am)the next morning, :-(, so it was back home and early to bed after a very lack-luster dinner. But at least we made it out splorin’.
Shhhh…..if you keep talking we can’t over hear the conversation going on at the table next to us….. Yes, we admit it — Splorin’ has made us experts at eavesdroppin’. Perhaps we’re boring and have to live vicariously through others, or perhaps it’s because we’ve been together for so long we’ve had almost every conversation we might possibly have. Whichever the case, our loyal blog followers have noticed that we like to listen in on what is going on around us at restaurants (whether it’s family gatherings for dinner or coffee klatches for breakfast. But — what happens when we’re the only ones in a restaurant? We found ourselves in this situation at the Kountry Kettle in Gilman, WI this Splorin’ Saturday. The day was kind of dreary to start — we were off to Rib Mountain State Park outside Wausau, WI, so we had lots of choices for breakfast, but not a lot of choices for routes. We ended up driving through occasional rain on the way — Tammy kept checking the radar and we could see it was still raining at Rib Mountain, so we were not in any hurry.
We got to the restaurant and immediately noticed the lack of cars. “Are they open?” Well, the sign in the window said they were so, in we went. We were the only ones in the restaurant…not our usual Splorin’ experience. We sat, and ordered our “Standard Splorin’ Breakfast” (Tammy: veggie omelet, Mike: meat omelet, with salads for both of us). We were a little bummed there was no one else in the restaurant to eavesdrop on. There was a cook and a waitress (perhaps her daughter?) so we hoped they would have some interesting conversations at least. Well, the waitress stayed over in her area and the cook in hers – they did not talk at all. We came up with our own story — they were mother/daughter and the daughter was out beyond curfew and was ticked that she had to come in to work and the mom was ticked that her daughter missed curfew. We will never know if the story was true, but it passed the time. After 15 minutes a gentlemen came in and the first thing we heard him say was “Where are Paul and Tim?” Neither Paul nor Tim had gotten there yet and the cook didn’t know where they were. Paul (or maybe it was Tim) walked in 5 minutes later — apparently he was trying to determine if he was going to cut hay or not before he came in. So — the “male coffee klatch” is still in place.
The food at the Kountry Kettle was very good, although not Tammy’s favorite rendition of a veggie omelet. Tammy likes an omelet that has ingredients cooked right into the eggs. Unfortunately for her this was an omelet where the egg was wrapped around the ingredients. Mike enjoyed his because there was about a pound and a half of sausage, bacon, ham and cheese in his omelet (he had tough time finishing the whole thing). Tammy only ate about half of her ten pound omelet.
When asked if she wanted a box, we had to decline because, well, Splorin’ comes before refrigeration. Oh well, there will be another veggie omelet next week. Off to Rib Mountain!!
Thankfully the rain let up and we did not see any more for the day!!! YAY!!! We have driven past Rib Mountain as least 348 times, but never have driven up to the top. We found out that it is called a “mountain” for a reason — it rises quite high above the surrounding landscape. The park itself is mostly at the top, but there are several trails that descend its slopes — YES!!! Tammy’s favorite part of splorin’! We drove up the mountain and got to the ranger’s station and bought our day pass. The ranger said “Enjoy, you have the park to yourselves!” (you know what to do with ominous music). Mike took this to mean that they would not allow anyone into the park, nor had anyone arrived at the park prior to our arrival. ( there is no camping at this park) Mike, as usual, was mistaken. Our first hike was going to be on the “Yellow Middle Loop Trail”. This had an elevation drop of 420 feet to the bottom and then back up to the top. We pulled into the parking lot and indeed — we were the only car there. Awesome! The views from the parking lot were breathtaking!! It was pretty cool how high you are above the city of Wausau.
We started down the trail and to our surprise — it was, once again, completely different than any other trail that we’ve been on. We are constantly amazed at the differences in environments between state parks (and even within the same state park) — Wisconsin truly is a beautiful place! We kept heading downhill,… and downhill, …and downhill. Until finally we reach the bottom. Mike then had to inform Tammy that we had to basically climb back up what we just walked down. Tammy was a trooper!!! We only stopped two or three times on the way back up (Mike will never admit it, but he was glad we got to stop a couple times). We arrived back at the top of the trail out of breath and ready for a little break. We didn’t see another person on the whole hike — woo hoo, we DO have the park to ourselves! Some water and a five minute drive the rest of the way to the top of the mountain was all it took to be ready for the next hike.
Mike is usually astute at map reading, but since his issues at Wyalusing, he has been a little gun shy and not quite so sure of the accuracy of maps. The next hike was to take the Red Trail, then onto a couple of other trails that connected into the Red trail (Homestead, Dynamite and Turkey vulture loop). Looking at the map, the trails near the top of the “mountain” had elevations listed on them — so, since these did not have elevations, Mike determined that they must not have that much elevation change <omimous music, yeah, yeah….>. The Red Trail was amazing but we ended up right behind a young lady on the trail. We thought for sure she was going to hold us “experts” up…yeah, right (we didn’t see her the rest of the day). This trail was very narrow and composed of many stone steps that were each individually placed. It took years to lay this trail out by the Wisconsin CCC in the 1930’s. There were some huge steps and amazing views along the way. Even though we never saw them, we always knew the other trails were close because we could hear the kids and their parents very nearby. We were no longer alone. We then took off through the trails on the backside of the park.
By this time, Mike was very leery of the trails. From the overlooks Mike had an idea that the trails had very large descents (and reciprocal ascents). Even though he warned Tammy, she was more game for these than he was! We began heading down the mountain. Mike had to stop to look at the maps several times to assess where we were on the trail. At one of these stops we heard a noise like something running through the woods — we started looking for a deer. No deer appeared, but up the trail came a guy running at a very good pace. Here we were barely able to hike up these trails and this guy was RUNNING!!! He even asked us if we needed help finding our way. Mike found out where we were and we kept descending…..until we started ascending. Part way up the ascent was a huge rock quarry. This was an old abandoned 3M mine. It was pretty wild to walk into the bottom of the quarry and see the high sloping walls. As we walked back out of the quarry we noticed that what we though were crickets, or other bugs, on the ground were actually little tiny frogs — they were everywhere!
The remainder of the hike back up the mountain was uneventful (except for a wrong turn, but Mike and his astute map skills figured it out). Upon arriving back at the Red trail, Mike was ready to be done and head back to the car for another break — but Tammy wanted to finish the trail. We did finish it and it was quite the hike, up and down rocks, up and down hills. We even had the opportunity to have a nice talk with some fellow hikers who were more than impressed that we had already hiked about 6 miles. We made it back to the car in, relatively, one piece. We had one more hike to make. Back down and back up the mountain again. This time we were essentially hiking down to where we parked the car for the first hike and then back up. We haven’t mentioned that Rib Mountain State Park is also a ski park in the winter called Granite Peak. The interesting thing about this trail was that the last (uphill of course) part of it crossed the tops of all the ski trails. The views were absolutely gorgeous!!
Going up and down and up and down a “mountain” involves lots of elevation changes. This day represented our single-day peak elevation change. Mike’s sports activity watch tracks the number of flights of steps he has climbed. (A flight of steps is roughly 10 feet.) Today, we climbed 121 flights of steps (our previously high was 112 in Wyalusing). We are always looking for more elevation changes — so, stay tuned and see if we can break this record!! Before we took off we had the time to sit and play a game of cribbage with a fantastic view off the mountain. We had a little chipmunk who would not leave us alone. We think he was used to people feeding him in the shelter we were in because he was not shy. He even ran right across Mike’s feet a couple of times.
Unfortunately since there is no campground at Rib Mountain, there were no showers. We did find a brand new building that had running water and nice bathrooms and we did our best to clean up there before heading out to dinner. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot better than just using wipes to try to clean up. Off to dinner!!
Dinner was P&E Steakhouse in Medford, WI (no website, 😦 ). Once again, we had reservations at “senior citizen” time of 5:00 PM. We actually got there a little early. No worries, the restaurant opens at 4:30 PM. We couldn’t help but smile (and take a picture) of the shag carpet covering the entire entryway — walls, doors and everything. This was sure to be a fun night.
Well, in reality the bar opens at 4:30 and the restaurant begins serving somewhere around 5 PM. So, we sat and had a cocktail at the bar and had a nice conversation with the bartender about Splorin’ Saturday and all the places we’ve been. We were then seated for dinner and had a fabulous meal!! The food was excellent. This was a true Supper Club, complete with relish tray. Even if we couldn’t eat the grapes and carrots, Mike was happy with the olives and Tammy did splurge on a couple crackers with cheese and pate.
The company? Well, we had NO company. We made it all the way to getting our check before another couple came in for dinner!! When we were in the bar, Mike overhead the bartender taking a reservation call — he said they had 3 reservations for the evening, but last night they had 25 with people waiting for tables at the bar. Amazing the difference a day can make. It was hard to say no to dessert this night — the sign on the wall showed ALL of Tammy and Mike’s favorites. We finished up our no-sugar cocktails with a toast to healthy habits and a little sigh for what “used to be.”
We then did our standard — took the “long way” home. Mike pride’s himself on trying to find the most non-standard way to get back to Eau Claire after a day of splorin’. Taking freeways and major highways is boring. Mike downloads offline Google maps to his phone and then routes us through tiny little towns. This time is was Spencer and Loyal. A fun drive with many deer and turkeys to add to our count for the day. ( Totals: 34 deer, 23 turkeys and 10 sandhill cranes.)
The dawn broke hot and humid. Once again, we had the entire day to ‘splore, and because of the expected heat, we decided to head North — surely it had to be cooler, right? We left home a little late — 6:01 AM instead of the planned 6:00 AM. The temperature was about 137 degrees and the humidity was an astounding 117%,or at least that is what it felt like. Hard to believe, we know, but we’re ‘Splorers, we let nothing hold us back. Our destination today was Copper Falls State Park. We had done a lot of reading about this park so we were excited to tackle it!
Our breakfast stop was at the Lake Holcombe Cafe in, surprisingly enough, Lake Holcombe, WI. We found ourselves once again on Highway 27 and we passed right by the restaurant we stopped at on our ‘Splorin trip to Lake Brunet State Park (although it was now closed for remodeling — whew, we lucked out on that one). We have had very good luck at breakfast spots doing our low carb diet “thing” ordering eggs and a salad. But this day when Tammy asked if she could get a side salad instead of hashbrowns — the waitress looked at her kind of strange and said she would have to check first. Obviously we were “trail” breakers here — she had never had that request before. She came back to the table and said it would be no problem and asked if we were on a keto diet. We did our best to explain we weren’t really following a plan, just eating low carb because of Mike’s Type 2 diabetes, but she didn’t really get it (that’s OK, a year ago, Mike would not have understood or even considered ordering a salad with breakfast either). The restaurant was packed. After we sat down, there was only a 6 person table left. A group of 3 came in and took that table. When another group of 2 came in, the group of 3 invited them to sit with them. It was obvious they had no idea who the 2 people were, but were just being nice so these people would have a place to sit and enjoy their breakfast. It was nice listening to them learn about each other and Tammy wished we would have gotten there just a few minutes later and been able to join them as well. This was a cute little restaurant with pretty decent food — HUGE omelets, Mike had a hard time finishing his which doesn’t happen often.
We were back on the road by 7:45 with about 2 hours to get to the park. We headed up to Highway 70 — always a fun drive on Hwy 70. A left hand turn on Hwy G bought us to true northwoods Wisconsin. It was an effort in loneliness. We think we saw one or two cars that whole section of road. The forest came right up to the roadside and Mike kept worrying about deer, although for once we didn’t see any. Right before Clam Lake, Mike got excited as we saw the “Elk Crossing” signs. Deer be damned — Mike wanted to see an elk, but alas it was not to be. No four legged hooved animals of any kind were seen. As we traveled north, the loneliness of the road turned into an adventure. The twisting roads in the middle of nowhere were pretty wild and if you were looking to get lost, this would be an awesome place to do it!! There were some pretty amazing views along this stretch of road – this is was makes back roads Wisconsin one of the best places to be.
We finally arrived at the park. We knew it was going to be busy — lots of campers, etc. The Plan always calls for doing the most difficult portion first — but we deviated on this day. It was decided that we would do the portion of the park that would get the most traffic first instead. The Dough Boys Trail leaves from right behind the main parking lot and loops around the falls. You start by going over a little bridge over the Bad River. The river looks tiny as it meanders under the bridge; how can this river have falls worthy of a state park? Well, it didn’t take long to find out!!! About a quarter mile down the trail we came to our first overlook of the Copper Falls. Holy cow!!! The falls drop about 100 feet and are absolutely gorgeous.
Continuing on this trail we quickly came to Brownstone Falls — another amazing water fall. The really neat thing about these falls was that it was a completely different river (Tyler Forks River) that flows into the Bad River. The really cool part of this is that the two rivers come together and look like they go right under your feet. In reality they just flow very close to the cliff and you cannot see them (from this point) and they just kind of disappear into the bluff. This portion of the trail follows the very top of the bluff with a fence along the edge of the trail. Signs every 10 feet say to stay on the trail — it is very obvious that many ignore these signs. Mike comments the signs should just say “Every year 3 people on average plummet to their deaths over the edge of the bluff”…crotchety old man!!!
A quick descent along some stone steps on this trail gets you right down to river level very quickly. We know what that means!!! Woo Hoo — a hill to climb!!! Crossing the bridge over the Bad River we immediately begin the climb again. Not too bad (although Tammy did curse under her breath a couple of times). We made it to the top pretty quickly. Once at the top we were along the edge of the bluff again overlooking the rivers. There were a couple of areas that held some pretty amazing views! A little way up the trail from there was a bridge that spanned about 100 feet. It was probably 100 feet above the confluence of the two rivers. As we approached the river, we saw three guys with fishing poles. Mike joked “yeah, right, they’re fishing from there!!”. Well, as we got closer we saw that one of them was reeling his line in and the pole had a nice bend going. He was actually hauling in a fish. We sat and watch him reel this trout up from the river. It got caught in branches and trees a couple of times, but he finally was able to get it to the bridge!!! We didn’t take pictures of this, but here is an artist’s rendering of the scene:
Whew — after completing the trail, we noticed that the temperature has risen to approximately 142 degrees. Thankfully we will be able to shower before going to dinner later!!! The next trail was the Vahtera Trail. Comparatively speaking, this was a pretty boring trail!!! Luckily we are not just in it for the views, excitement of water falls, etc. We do just enjoy a nice walk in the woods. That’s what this trail was — a nice walk in the woods. The only small excitement was about 3/4 of the way through the trail Mike just stopped in the middle of the trail and pointed back behind us. There was a whitetail doe standing there staring at us about 15 yards away. We always wonder exactly how many deer we walk right past without seeing because they are smart enough just to stand still. They are always cool to see! The only other minor excitement on this trail was that before taking off we decided that we did not need additional bug spray (note: if you find yourself asking “Should I put on more bug spray?”, the answer is always: “YES!!!”). We did our Richard Simmons dance for the last part of the hike.
Upon arriving back at the car and dousing ourselves, once again, with bug spray, we head off for the next trail. Mike’s plan was to take the Takesson Trail next. Luckily Tammy saw a sign for that trail right behind where we parked. Even finding that sign, it was not easy to make it to that trail. We had to walk through the campground to get there. Mike actually pulled out his phone to make sure we were headed in the right direction (we were). This trail was kind of neat. It started off along the top of a bluff over the Bad River. Once again it was a trail where to the left was your typical “walk through the woods” and on your right was a almost straight dead drop to the river. Lots of places along this walk to see views of the river and beyond, but no dramatic views like at Wyalusing. Did we mention the heat? In the middle of this trail is a wide break in the trees where either pipeline or powerline runs through. Crossing this opening in the glaring sun was an adventure — it felt like crossing the Sahara (Mike’s impression anyway) — and we had to do it twice!!
It was time for a nice break — we sat in the air conditioned car and drank water and ate almonds for a while to try to cool off and get some energy back. One trail left….we could not pass it up (although we thought about it!!). The next trail was another waterfall trail — Red Granite Falls. This was a very good trail to end the day on. It was pretty level, the surface was crushed gravel (for the most part) and the walking was easy. Along the back side of the trail you were over the river again by the falls. The intrepid hiker could make it right down to the river itself. Many people were down there with dogs and such, so we decided to give it a pass. We passed right below huge rock overhangs and huge boulders littered the forest. It was obvious they had fallen from above, but how long ago is anyone’s guess (1,000 years, 1,000,000 years?). We ended this trail — soaking wet and ready to keel over. Did we mention how hot it was today? So many beautiful pictures from this park.
Showers at state parks are wonderful things!! However, there is one thing you do not necessarily think about when showering after a long, hot, sweaty day of Splorin’. Not only does showering wash the sweat and dirt off you — it also washes the bug spray off!! Mike got out of the shower and had to dry his legs and get his sandals and stuff on. He attempted to do this on the bench in front of the shower building. While he was only there about 1 minute and 21 seconds, he received no less than 47 mosquit0 bites. Thankfully the car was right there and he could just jump in before he donated even more blood to the mosquitoes. And we were finally able to get a picture at the sign again – we have missed a few.
Dinner is using pretty anti-climatic as far as the stories go for Splorin’ Saturday — not today! We left the park a little early to head to dinner directly. We were headed for the Northwoods Supper Club in Fifield, WI. But along the way we stopped at a wayside to play cribbage at a picnic table. Mike somehow forgot he had no bug spray on — so we think we lasted one hand of cribbage at the table. We decided to head to Fifield and see if there was anyhwere there to blow some time. Small town, touristy Wisconsin must surely off a shop or two to meander through. Wrong. The town was all but closed up. Luckily we found a little park right behind the supper club to sit by the way and watch the river flow by (and the mosquitoes were not that bad!). When it rolled around to 5PM, we headed for the restaurant. We noticed the big sign out front saying something about “Smokehouse Saturday”. After we were seated we looked at the menu and the typicaly supper club menu was replace with all smoked food (ribs, brisket, chicken, etc.). We LOVE smoked food, but all of this was drenched with sauce and certainly not low-carb friendly. We decided to get up and go find somewhere else. We apologized as we left, but hey, we were not going to waste a supper club Saturday.
Luckily Tammy had already scoped out another supper club — Sunset Bay Supper Club in Phillips, WI. Mike punched that baby into Google Maps and we were on our way…..until we got to the location and Google announces “You have arrived”. The only problem is that we were in the middle of nowhere and there were only houses around us. We decided to just keep heading up the road — Tammy had seen a sign (Mike didn’t). About 1.5 miles up the road we found the supper club — finally. Walking into the supper club we were immediately greeted by the owner from behind the bar. We felt like we were walking into Cheers and Sam was behind the bar welcoming us. We grabbed a table and ordered a couple of well deserved drinks. They have a salad bar here — small — but it is a salad bar. Tammy ordered her food and the waitress asked what kind of potato she wanted. Again, we’re used to ordering a vegetable instead of a potato. However, they do not have a vegetable here!!! We said, no worries we have the salad bar. The waitress made a point of saying “Well, it is a bar so you can go as many times as you’d like.” We still don’t understand that — but oh well. The food was pretty good and Tammy absolutely loved the little owner. It was obvious he loved his job and loved the customers. He treated everyone the same — like old friends (those who were and those, like us, who he didn’t know from Adam).
The drive home from Phillips was uneventful — just a nice long drive spotting dozens of deer along the way. We will explain our spotting methodology in a future post. For now, the Splorin’ was done and we enjoyed a relaxing drive home.
Finally … a WHOLE Saturday for Splorin’!!! To celebrate the first Saturday in a while where we have the WHOLE day, we decided to extend our reach a little. Wyalusing State Park in Bagley, WI was our destination — just a little over a 3 hour drive from Eau Claire. Mike did (as usual) a lot of research on the state park and had a plan for our hikes. <insert ominous foreshadowing music here> Time (or the darn foreshadowing music) will tell, or not tell, how that worked out.
The old saying is “It’s the journey, not the destination”. We say — HOGWASH. It is the journey AND the destination — if you don’t have fun with both, why do either!?! Given the distance we had to travel — much to the chagrin of our children — we left home at 6AM. We hit the road and found that (little known to us) Highway 27 is like a central corridor of Western Wisconsin. Our intrepid and map-knowledgeable readers will know that to get from Augusta to Lake Wissota State Park last week, we took Highway 27 (we also took it to Brunet Island State Park a month ago) — and <insert dramatic music> will take it to Copper Falls State Park in the future. One of the best aspects of Splorin’ Saturday is “speedin’ up, while slowin’ down” — to us that means taking the back roads. We always seem to discover interesting things, places and people. We stopped for breakfast in Sparta, WI at Dorine’s Family Inn. Three guesses as to what we ordered (but the first two don’t count) — yup, omelettes and salads. This is considered (by us anyway) THE breakfast of diabetic champions (and wives who are so awesome they eat like you so you don’t have to go it alone). Once again we were intrigued by the small town klatches that were also at the restaurant. Thankfully we got the last table available. From the looks of the dining room, there were regulars and interlopers (including us). But, typical of small town Wisconsin, we interlopers were treated like locals!! Have we said how much we love Wisconsin?!!!!
After leaving lovely downtown Sparta we cross over the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail. Little known fact is that this trail is the first in the nation to use an abandoned railroad line as a bike trail. This has earned Sparta, WI the title of “Bike Capital of America”. You see references to this all over town, right down to their street signs that have pictures of the “old fashioned” large wheel bicycles.
Just South of Sparta is the small town of Leon with a population of 858 people (and apparently one fictitious alligator). Everywhere in town (which if you blink, you’ll miss) you see references to “gators”. WTH? Gators in the middle of Wisconsin? Apparently USA Today published a story about rogue alligators in “the north”. Leon, WI was one of the communities mentioned as having a “rogue alligator problem”. The town contacted USA Today to get them to retract the story — they would not. Instead of suing (as is seemingly the typical custom when you don’t get your way) they decided to “go with it” and Gatorfest was born. The big claim to fame of Gatorfest isn’t the gators but rather the self proclaimed “Largest Stand Still Parade in America”. I wonder if you have to get there early to get a good seat to view that stand-still parade?
Farther South from Leon are the small towns of Cashton, Liberty Pole, and Rising Sun. Wisconsin rocks! (with the exception of the guy in the pickup truck pulling a trailer that turned in front of me and then proceed to go no more that 40mph). We loved seeing the Amish farmers out tending their fields. It is so neat to see these people who maintain their “simple” ways amidst the trappings of all the technology and automation that everyone else uses. It makes you wonder if we should all go back to this simpler way of life — would we be more happy? What are the Amish views of modern medicine? Would coronary artery bypass surgery be acceptable? If not, no, I don’t want to be that “simple”. Ah, the things you think about on a 3 hour drive in Wisconsin.
Wyalusing State Park: yes, Splorin’ fans, we will get there eventually!!! When we pull in, it is obvious it is going to be a gorgeous park. Sitting and patiently waiting for the car in front of us to ask all their questions, we notice the hummingbird feeders and a couple of hummingbirds. No wait, not a couple of hummingbirds, bunches and BUNCHES of hummingbirds — literally 15 or 20 of them flying around the feeders. It was so cool. Finally when we pull up to talk to the ranger and buy our $11 non-resident daily admission (why can’t AVIS rent me a car with Wisconsin plates on it?) she explains that there is a hummingbird branding program at the park so that people can learn more about the birds. It was really neat to see so many at one time. We tell her we are there for hiking and she says “Well, you are in for a treat! Just keep in mind that some of our trails have a elevation change of 450 feet”. <insert dramatic/ominous foreshadowing music here> Mike repies “Awesome, that’s what we are looking for!” <insert dumb-ass comment of the year music here>.
Before we get into hiking, we have to address “the Plan”. “The Plan” is all the extensive research that Mike typically does prior to arriving at the park to make sure our day goes as smoothly as possible. In reality, it is looking at the map and trying to figure out the day so 1) we hike the more difficult trails/sections first, 2) we cover as many of the trails as possible, 3) we get to see as much of the park as possible, and (most importantly?) 4) we don’t kill ourselves by ending up on some far-flung trail with 3 miles to get back to the car in 10 minutes or we miss out on the reservation that we’ve made at our “Supper Club Saturday” location. “The Plan” must be followed. “The Plan” is gospel. “The Plan” is the plan….until it isn’t and you have to adjust.
We still cannot get to hiking just yet!! In previous blogs entries, we spoke of being eaten alive by bugs and that we would NOT go Splorin’ again without bug spray. Mike, being the internet junkie geek that he is, started looking for the best bug spray. Everyone knows about Deet. You know Deet — your favorite toxic chemical that causes cancer, stains clothing, melts plastic — oh, and keeps bugs away. Mike found something that was supposed to be similar to Deet without all the ugly side-effects: Picaridin. Mike did lots of research and it sounded like it truly was comparable to Deet. At Wal-Mart we thought we would pick some up and give it a try. While on the internet you may see Picaridin everywhere, at your local Walmart, you really have to hunt for it. For every bottle/can of Picaridin there are (literally) 15-20 that have Deet. Hmmm, maybe this isn’t as good as the internet says it is? More on the efficacy (Mike’s 50 cent word of the day) later.
Finally, we’re hiking. Well, almost. We both lather up with bug spray, just daring mosquitoes, gnats and flies to try us… The Plan is to hike along basically an “outer loop” of the park which will take us from the top of the bluff, down to the Wisconsin River (on the Old Wagon Road Trail) then along to the Mississippi (along the Old Immigrant Trail), finally looping back to the car along the Turkey Hollow Trail. Then a couple of other trails that followed the ridges along the bluffs. The Plan was specifically designed to attack the most difficult things first. Sometimes The Plan fails, and sometimes we’re thankful for it!!!!!
The first thing we noticed about the Old Wagon Road trail was the plants along the way. They were about two feet tall and covered the entire floor of the valley we were hiking down — it was super green and kind of eery.
While hiking down the trail we also kept noticing the steep decline we were descending. We met a couple that was coming up the hill. We gave them a cheery “Good Morning!!!” and all we got in return was a mumbled “morning…”. Little did we know what was in store. About this time Mike started worrying about “The Plan”. He thought the Old Immigrant Trail should have cut off along the top of the bluff, but it seemed like we were a LONG way down the bluff and we still had not run into that trail. A little while later, we finally came to the Old Immigrant Trail — and a sign saying that due to high water the trail was closed. 😦 Here is where the Plan goes awry.
Mike thought the Old Wagon Road Trail stayed along the top of the bluff, but instead of cutting off onto the Old Immigrant Trail, we had to stay on the Old Wagon Road Trail. Mike was wrong…wrong….wrong. We were about halfway down the bluff when we had to divert to staying on the Old Wagon Road Trail. This meant that instead of continuing down to the Wisconsin River, we started climbing and climbing. Along the way we met a group of 4 “older” Splorers (OK, they had gray hair, “older” is up to the reader to determine). We told them about the closed trail and that they were in for a big hike uphill in just a couple minutes. They told us “well, you’re in for a climb yourselves”. Oh boy…
This trail doesn’t go all the way back to the top of the bluff, rather it goes most of the way to the top and then traverses it (and changes names to Bluff Trail along the way). Boy, was it GOREGEOUS!!! This trail was amazing.
To the right were extreme drop-offs all the way down to the Wisconsin River (don’t trip!!). To the left were rocky overhangs and outcroppings. In front and to the rear was a 12 inch wide trail (that thanks to the bushes it seemed like it was 4 inches wide). At many points along this trail you could stop and would have a view to die for — it was breathtaking. We met a couple of people along this trail and that was an adventure in, and of, itself. You had to find a spot where one of us could step off the trail while the other passed. We managed without either of us falling down the bluff, but it was close. Most of the way along the trail we could smell the glorious smell of campfires, so while we knew we were close to the campgrounds, we never knew just how close.
We knew we were nearing the end of the trail when we started hearing more and more voices. At the end of the Bluff Trail is a short spur that takes you to Treasure Cave. We thought the trail continued on past the cave so even though we saw about 6 people down there, we continued down to keep going and skip the line for the cave. You have to climb down two staircases (well, they really are ladders — you have to go down facing the steps). Once at the bottom the 6 people turned out to be 8 people and two little dogs. The dogs were cute and would have had to be carried down the “steps”. Once we found out that this only led to the cave, we had to climb back up the stairs. This led us to a set of rock stairs that takes you to the top of the bluff — very steep and difficult to climb (although turning around at the top and looking down we were glad we climbed up instead of having to climb down).
This takes us to the top of the bluff and a beautiful spot where you can see 18 U.S. states (OK, maybe only 3 (WI, MN and IA) but it seems like you can see forever). It also commemorates Father Jacques Marquette (YAY, Go Golden Eagles, Be The Difference!!!) where he and Louis Jolliet recorded seeing the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers on June 17, 1673. Although there is not a marker for the exact spot where they stood, we are pretty sure they were exactly where we took a selfie (if they would have had smartphones, they would have done the same).
Whew — that was a lot of down and a lot of up — thank goodness the next trail we are going to take, the Sentinel Ridge Trail, will stay along the top of the bluff with little climbing up and down <insert LOUD FORSHADOWING MUSIC HERE THAT LAST FOR MINUTES!!!!>. Looking at the map, we knew just a little way down the trail we would run into the Old Immigrant Trail (that was closed farther in to the park) that we were supposed to take. Whew, we were sure tuckered out just doing the climbing on the Old Wagon Road Trail; thankfully we didn’t take the Old Immigrant Trail all the way down to the river. After about half a mile, there was the sign for the Old Immigrant Trail — saying it was closed due to high water (yeah, thanks, we knew that 😉 ). Mike assured Tammy that we had done the majority of the climbing we had to do, yet, immediately after passing the intersection with the Old Immigrant Trail we began to climb. WTH? We are on a “ridge” trail — there really shouldn’t be any climbing or descending, should there?!? After a fairly decent climb we made it to the top (yes, the real top…). We then walked along and saw all of the Indian Burial Mounds (not that interesting since we grew up with Birkmose Park in Hudson), but still kind of cool. The trail leveled off into a nice 10 foot wide grass trail — THANK GOD, we were done going up on down at Wyalusin’ (just kidding, NO WE WERE NOT!!!).
After walking along this nice, gorgeous level grass path for about 1/4 mile, it started to narrow. NBD — just moving to a different part of the bluff right? Shortly it dropped down to about 18 inches wide and very rocky, but at least the rocks were steps, right? After about 10-15 minutes of this Mike turned to Tammy and said “Hmm, we seemed to be going down, further and further…”, and Tammy said “No shit Sherlock” (or something to that affect). While stopping for a rest, Mike took a closer look at the map….OH CRAP!!! Where Mike had (completely erroneously) assumed we were staying on the bluff top above the boat launch — we actually were DESCENDING TO THE BOAT LAUNCH!!!! By the time this was realized, there was no turning back. We kept going. It was at this point Mike pointed out that sometimes “ridgeline” could descend as well as stay high. Soon, we could see the Mississippi River about 150 feet below us…hmmmm. The ridge was getting narrower and narrower. We could see rocky outcroppings on either side of us along the ridge. Mike was getting worried that we would have to climb down rocks to actually get off the ridge. While this would be no problem for Tammy as she was use to Mike saying “hey, climb out on that rock and I’ll take your picture” — Mike was terrified of having to climb down (much like what happened on the pyramid in Uxmal, Mexico — but that is another blog entry on another blog all together). Eventually we made it to a “hidden” stair case (well, it was hidden in that you couldn’t see it easily from above, but was quite obvious once you got to it). No climbing over rocks, simple wooden steps was all it took. YAY!!! (says Mike). Another 50 feet or so down hill and we were at the bottom. While trying to decide if we were going to cross the railroad tracks and go to the bathroom a big freight train came through. Nope, we would continue without hitting the pit toilets.
Remember “The Plan”. BULL CRAP, THE PLAN IS BULL CRAP. Now that we are at the Mississippi River level, we needed to climb all the way back to the top. There is a trail, the Sugar Maple Nature Trail, that will take us back to the top of the bluff. Mike looks at the map and sees this is the ONLY trail in the park that says “No pets”. At this point he decides not to tell Tammy — he is worried that it is going to be such a bad climb that pets would easily tire and die along the way (or something like that?). The trail wasn’t that bad, although it was difficult. While other trails we have been on at Interstate State Park have been steeper — this trail was a steady up hill climb. We ascended about 450 feet within a mile. You may say, pish-posh, that isn’t much — Mike will challenge you to a “race walk” up the hill (and remember, he has new plumbing). Tammy (no new plumbing) had to stop several times on the ascension up the trail (for which Mike was eternally grateful 😉 ). Funny, our last stop was, unknowingly, about about 1/16 of a mile from the top. Right after starting that last little bit we ran into several people heading downhill. We were rested and had caught our breath — we just know later on when they had returned they thought “Oh my gosh, those two people were in such great shape not being out of breath at all after that climb!” BAHAHA Now, back at the top, we were in good shape — just a short 1 mile hike to the car and we could take a rest. THANK GOODNESS!!!
But as you, dear reader have now come to realize, nothing is as it seems. We had to hike the Turkey Hollow Trail back to the car. Mike looked at the map and said — whew, this will be an easy trail with no hills, up or down. As you should have gathered by now, Mike is an idiot!!! There were several hills. After going down about 100 feet Mike said “well, crap, I guess that means we need to climb that 100 feet back up”, to which I believe Tammy’s response was “shut up, don’t say anything else”. Thank God we made it back to the car — alive, in one piece, and and relatively free of bug bites!!
(Remember the Plan? Yeah, while Mike rocks the Plan at times, he also sucks at it sometimes. So, the original plan was to follow the Old Immigrant Trail to the Sentinel Ridge Trail and the back to the car. Had we actually followed that plan, we would have descended 450 feet to the river, the ascended 450 feet to the top of the bluff, then descended 450 feet to the river, then asceneded 450 feet back to the top of the bluff (then the couple hundred feet on the “level” Turkey Hollow Trail) to make it back to the car.
If you know who Billy Mays is — “don’t buy this yet!” (if not just watch him here: Billy Mays). We’re not done yet. That first hike — while supposed to be the hardest — was BEYOND what the plan was supposed to be. Mike was upset that we were not told that the Old Immigrant Trail was closed — but that was a Godsend!!!! Turns out that made the day survivable. After that first “hike” – which sounded like it took 11 hours, but actually only took about 4 hours — we found the concession stand and had a brat and a hot dog (and Mike might have had a diet Mountain Dew…although he doesn’t remember). We were both tired. Neither of us wanted to continute to hike, but neither of use wanted to be the one that said “No, we’re done”. So — back to the Plan. There was one more trail that we needed to take, the Sand Cave Trail. It was a “lollipop trail” (a loop trail with a single trail leading to the loop) that was 2.4 miles. We had plenty of time…… (yes, really, we did!!!).
This was a cool hike! Tammy was iffy — but Mike was dedicated! We began down the trail — literally. It seemed like we went down, and down and down……which meant we would have to got up, and up, and up… Mike complained about the map — it was very difficult to tell exactly where you were. We met a couple along the way, their comment to our “Good Afternoon!!” was “It’s a LONG way back there”. LOL — it’s 2.4 miles, how long can that be?!? We kept going and found where the trail split in two. Mike thought we were following the left fork when in reality we were following the right fork. We stopped at the Sand Cave. It was cool, but all the warning signs said “don’t leave the trail”. The young and nimble Mike and Tammy would have said “screw that”, but conservative, old Mike and Tammy said “OK, we will not leave the trail”. At that point in time, we began the trek back to the car. We knew we had a long hike uphill ahead of us — which made it a huge suprise when we made it back and done with the trail before we even knew it!!!
A very important story not included above. After eating the hot dog and brat, (no buns) we had to drive from the concession stand to the parking area by the Sand Cave Trail. There was an “elderly” couple riding their bikes in front of us (read: swerving all over the road). While we made our way out onto the Sand Cave Trail they were right behind us. However, we noticed after we were done with the trail — they were still out there. We can only hope they made it off the trail and are not, to this day, still out on that trail trying to find their way back…
This is the first park that has showers!!!! Tammy is the smart one who actually brings supplies and takes a shower; Mike still uses stupid wipes to cleanup. Tammy looks like a million dollars (but, honestly, when doesn’t she?!?) while Mike looks like a $5 cigar (mmmm, cigar…..). Showers become our next requirement of a park when we are spending the entire day ‘splorin’ . (but, we’re going to hit ALL the parks, so we will see how that works out….).
We then head through Prairie Du Chien (“SHANE” or “SHEEN”? Mike says the former, Tammy, the latter) on our way to Rocky’s Supper Club. We had hoped we could meet with friends, Dawn and Murphy Hayes, but they had plans, so we enjoyed their favorite Supper Club in Stoddard, WI alone. Hmmmmm….cheese curds with cocktail sauce? Heck Yeah!!!! The 2 hr trip after dinner was very quiet in the car after an eventful and long day of ‘splorin’. Pretty sure it was decided by the time we reached Eau Claire that we would be sleeping in and watching church on TV the next morning…
Too many things to do. This Saturday Tammy had to get materials ready for Vacation Bible School signup at St. Olaf’s and we were invited to a party at Dan and Jane Flynn’s to send Meghan and Carson off to North Carolina. So, yet again another “abbreviated” ‘Splorin’ Saturday.
We started off by hitting the Hot Spot Cafe in Augusta, WI. If you have not been here … GO!!! It is the quintessential smalltown diner. In addition to eavesdropping at Supper Club Saturday, another past time we have developed is enjoying the little “coffee klatches” we have seen at many of these small town diner-type restaurants that we have been stopping at for breakfast. The interesting thing is that early Saturday mornings the klatches consist mainly of men (nary a woman in sight at them). We don’t know if they are sobering up after a night of beer drinking at the local bar, or trying to wake up further after milking their cows in the morning – but they sure enjoy their breakfasts and we sure enjoy their company! We ate our typical Splorin’ Saturday breakfast omelets and salads (instead of hashbrowns — Mike says 😦 .
Since we had so much other stuff going on, we had to keep it local and relatively short, so we headed off to Lake Wissota State Park. One of Tammy’s requirements was that we need at least 30 minutes in between breakfast and hiking, so we were cutting it close here, but I think it was a 35 minute drive. So many trails and so little time. Lake Wissota State Park is an interesting park in that the trails allow hikers, mountain bikes and horses. Obviously not all of them allow bikes and horses, but it does add to the number of trails.
We headed off along the edge of the lake by the beach. As we walked along towards the campground we never even noticed that we were going slightly uphill. All of a sudden we were by the campground and a long way above the lake — kind of strange to not even notice the incline <insert dramatic ominous foreshadowing music for future Splorin’ Saturdays here>. When we got above the campground we turned towards the center of the park and the trail changed from a mostly dirt, narrow trail to wide, cut-grass trail. The grass harbored …MOSQUITOES… dammit — we forgot bug spray!!! So, for the next 4 to 5 miles we did the “Richard Simmons” thing again ( it was bad but not as bad as “Freakin’ mosquito infested Straight Lake”). The trails were fairly easy — what we would call a nice walk in the woods/prairie — no big hills or difficult sections at all (with the exception of the mosquitoes).
On our way home from the park we we passed The Edge Pub and Eatery. We have been there twice before — once with the Geberts and once …. hmmm… there was an awkard couple there for prom with their parents, but we cannot honestly remember why we were there that night. 😉 So, we did a “Supper Club Saturday: Lunch Edition” since we would be at Meghan and Carson’s party later.
Having to skip 6/1/19 to help Ben and Jon move into their new apartment, we were ready to do some Splorin’ on 6/8. It was a busy day and we had a couple of stops to make before we could ‘splore so it was going to be an abbreviated version of our Saturday.
The day started off with one of Tammy’s favorite places in Eau Claire — the Farmer’s Market at Phoenix Park. Unfortunately, so early in the season you really only get to see rhubarb, asparagus, and green onions. Then Mike had to take Coco back to the vet with Carrie for a follow up to check on an ear infection. The infection cleared up, but unfortunately it seems like he lost some of his hearing (or as Carrie likes to say he is just exhibiting his selective hearing — yes, Mike has taught him well).
Sam Trinatopoli graduated high school so we stopped by his graduation party in Osceola — to say congrats and so that Tammy could help a little with food and drinks. Mike did an excellent job of sitting on the front step and drinking Tammy’s wine.
After Sam’s party, we had one more stop to make before Splorin’. Amy Tolzman (“Amy T”) turned 50 and was having a multi-day 50th birthday party on their family farm. We had to stop by to celebrate one of our oldest friends (Mike went to St. Pat’s with her since 1st grade). We got to see and visit with her and her family as well as some Class of ’87 classmates. It was a very fun time!!
We didn’t leave Amy T’s until 5 pm. Both of us were … itching… <insert ominous foreshadowing music here> to go ‘splorin’. Luckily Mike found a little, almost unknown, state park: Straight Lake State Park. The park doesn’t have a lot of trails, but we thought we’d be able to get a quick 1 mile hike in just to say we ‘splored. We arrived and pulled into the parking lot and there were no other cars there <insert more ominous foreshadowing music>.
We only had about 30 minutes before our supper club reservations, so we found a 1 mile trail around Rainbow Lake. It seemed like it would be a great way to to “Splore and Go”. We started down the trail along the side of the lake and right as we were about to make the turn onto the trail around the lake we ran into (almost literally) a HUGE snapping turtle in the middle of the trail. He looked as surprised to see us as we were to see him. After the obligatory pictures of the turtle, we gave him a wide berth and continued on the path.
We then ran straight into MOSQUITO HELL!!!! We have never experienced mosquitoes quite like this. Literally hundreds of mosquitoes swarming around your head, neck arms, torso and legs (if we forgot any body parts there, just assume they were covered in mosquitoes). We quickly learned this was going to be a QUICK hike. This GIF of Richard Simmons will give you a good idea what we looked like as we made our way around the lake.
We made it around the lake in about 20 minutes. We did not stop for pictures, we did not stop to enjoy the view, WE DID NOT STOP! Doing the math, it came out to about 100 mosquito bites per minute. No, we did not have bug spray — we made the decision then and there that no future Splorin’ would be attempted without bug spray <insert ominous foreshadowing music here>. But, we survived and by the time we made it back onto Highway 8 we were able to laugh about it.
The Supper Club Saturday aspect of Splorin’ was going to be at the 5 O’Clock Club in Cumberland, WI. It looked like a quaint little supper club on a lake. Even though we had reservations and we arrived on time, we were told our table wasn’t quite ready yet. No worries they said to have a seat in the bar and have a drink. We were up for that!! The bar was full, so we sat at a table. The bartender came past and said he would be right back. Unfortunately, two other couples came in before he made it back and they wedged their way into the bar and got drinks. Mike finally got up to the bar to order a couple glasses of wine when the host came past and said our table was ready. Oh well…
Shortly after being seated a very large group of 8 people were sat not too far from us. We were desperate to get our order before they did and our waitress was a little slower than their’s, but we barely made it. One of our fun pastimes at Supper Club Saturday is the “eavesdropping” portion of the evening. We don’t really know how or when it started, but we’ve decided that many people live more interesting lives than us (or at least we can make up more interesting lives for them based on small snippets of conversation that we over hear). The table next to us was an elderly couple and daughter who were very good friends with our waitress — every chance she got our waitress would stop by and show them pictures of something that was going on with her family. Definitely small town Wisconsin. The father at the table kept commenting on Mike being “the boss” of the steak and lobster he was having — and he deserved dessert after a meal like that. (unfortunately they did not have any sugar free, grain free, low carb desserts…) The couple on the other side of us (who took our window table overlooking the lake 😉 ) were celebrating their 24th anniversary. Their toast was “To next year on the beach in Hawaii”. Personally, I liked our kids taking us to Vino in the Valley for our 25th much better than Hawaii!!!
Yet another successful (albeit itchy) Splorin’ Saturday!!!
Our ‘Splorin’ time had to wait a few weeks due to other commitments, and it took us out of Wisconsin again this week – we were attending Odyssey of the Mind World Finals in East Lansing, Michigan. We had a very busy week — Mike judging and Tammy helping the Wisconsin teams with whatever they needed to be sure they were ready for their performances. We decided to take the “long way” home and spend a couple days in the UP of Michigan and celebrate Tammy’s birthday. We stayed in the small town of Petoskey Michigan, famous for its Petoskey stones.
On our way to Petoskey from East Lansing, we stopped in the little town of Grayling, MI and had lunch at the, appropriately named, Grayling Restaurant. Mike had to go inside to put our name on the list and had a nice little chat with an old couple who said “there might be a wait, but some things are worth waiting for” (they were easily in their 80’s, so you don’t discount that kind of advice). We were told the wait would be no more than 20 minutes, but the hostess came out and said we could have two seats at the lunch counter if we wanted to get in — we took them!! We had a wonderful late breakfast/early lunch — honestly trying to remember back what we had it’s difficult (writing this a month and a half later), but pretty good guess that Tammy had something with veggies and Mike had something with meat. We needed gas in our car, so we were going to stop at a gas station before getting out of town. However, Google Maps had other plans — the way it took us back onto I-75 we didn’t pass a single gas station. No big deal — we’d stop along the way… <insert ominous foreshadowing music here>
Off to Petoskey!! Our splorin’ destination was Petoskey State Park. We got off of I-75 and started winding our way through beautiful country roads — we still had 15 or 20 miles to get to the state park. BING…BING…BING — what’s that sound? Oops, Mike forgot to stop and get gas when we got off the freeway. No big deal, the car said we had 50 miles to empty and we only had 20 miles to the state park (surely there would be a gas station along the way, right?) and then …who knows how many miles to the hotel because we didn’t have cell service!!! While Mike was calm, cool and collected not worrying about it, Tammy was not so calm, cool or collected. We HAD to pass a gas station somewhere. Nope…. We pulled into the park, stopped at the park office and one of the first questions Mike asked was “Where’s the nearest gas station?” The kindly ranger lady assured us it was about 5 miles down the road toward Petoskey. <no need to insert ominous foreshadowing music here>.
Mike had already look at all the trails and had a game plan in mind. Not arriving at the park until 2:30 meant we couldn’t do all the trails, but still meant we got to do some! There was a trail called “Old Baldy Trail” right from the ranger’s office. The ranger said it had beautiful views of Little Traverse Bay. So — off we went. About 100 yards into the trail, we hit the first staircase. OK, some stairs….and more stairs….and more stairs…. Mike wishes that we had known about all the stairs so he could have counted the steps just for fun. We had to take a couple of breaks along the way, but getting to the top we were rewarded with an absolutely amazing view of the bay. It was gorgeous!!! We then made our way up a little higher and then back down. The trail going down was all dirt, rocks and roots — so glad we went up the stairs instead of up this side of the trail.
Upon reaching the bottom Mike had an inkling that the other trails we were about to go on had LOTS of hills too. He failed to mention this to Tammy (on purpose). The next trail was the “Portage Trail”. There was an “easy” portion and a “hard” portion. Tammy now knew the “hard” portion most likely had hills, but she chose it like a champ. Mike made the incorrect comment of “a portage is where you carry your canoes from one body of water to another, how steep can the hills be?” (in case you, our dear reader, haven’t figured it out yet, Mike likes to jinx a LOT of things). So off we went on the hard Portage Trail. Almost immediately we were going straight up hill. Many breaks were had. We made it to the top and then it walked along ridges — it was awesome! Mike was actually winded after getting to the top. And we made our way, uneventfully, back down.
Tammy had to go to the bathroom really bad — they had pit toilets at the end of the trail, but we knew a short walk back to the car and we could drive down to the beach where they had real bathrooms. After spending a little time on the beach, we walked back to the car to make to the gas station and then the hotel. Getting back to the car, we had quite a few of these strange black flies flying around us and in the car (because Mike left the sunroof open)… <insert ominous foreshadowing music>
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: We are thinking not only should be have Splorin’ Saturday magnets, bumper stickers and travel gear, we think we should have a music track or two too. Tammy may have to reach out to all her musician friends to inquire about this….)
We got gas. WHEW!! OK, when Mike was actually pumping gas into the car he could admit he was a little worried too (but not REALLY worried). We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Petoskey. Nice hotel, but since we booked late we didn’t get a room with a balcony or facing the bay. They did have a gorgeous common area where we were able to sit and play cribbage while watching the sunset over the bay. (which you can “kind of” see if you look closely over the rooftops of a stripmall that was below the hotel 🙂
Before playing cribbage — it was “Supper Club Saturday — Sunday Edition”. On a recommendation from the hotel, we went to the City Park Grill right in downtown Petoskey. It was a wonderful little supper club and we even “cheated” just a bit for their REALLY GOOD biscuits – worth it! We had a great conversation with our waitress — she was called in to work and had to leave some family time but you’d never know it. We were her only table for awhile and it was wonderful time. She even talked Tammy in to taking home some carrot cake for her birthday.
When we left after dinner, we had some time to walk around downtown at a nice little park right on Lake Michigan. I imagine it gets quite busy in the summer, but since the day was winding down, it wasn’t very crowded at all.
What we weren’t expecting were the BUGS!! TONS AND TONS of little, black, flying bugs everywhere. They weren’t biting, but they were just everywhere. It is so hard to describe but hopefully these pictures give you an idea:
At first they were just a little annoying and almost made Tammy giggle a little, but it was clear our walk wasn’t going to be a long one.
The next morning we walked to breakfast (no not very far, about 1/4 of a mile) to J W Filmore’s Family Restaurant (sorry they don’t have a website). A nice little place for breakfast — we had omelets and salads again (Mike is getting bored with this for breakfast). We then set off splorin’. First stop was Cross in the Woods in Indian River, MI. Mike had already been here, but it was really cool and on our way to a winery. So — we needed a little prayer time before doing some day drinking.
And then another state park! This time it was Cheboygan State Park in (you guessed it), Cheybogan, MI — not Sheboygan, WI. This park had some really cool trails — one where we walked about 2 miles along the Lake Huron shoreline. Of course our little friends, the black flies, followed us on our journey. At times we were almost walking IN Lake Huron because the space between the woods and the water was so small, but we finally made it to the end. We then basically turned around and walked back about 50 feet inside the woods (although the first 1/2 mile was through thick sand which was very difficult to walk in). The bugs remained with us the whole walk.
After getting back to the car, Tammy was really in the mood for a winery. We found one that (shall remain nameless) that had a tasting room in Mackinaw City, or you could visit their vineyard and tasting room in Alverno, MI. The vineyard sounded much more fun — and of course they would be open on Memorial Day — right? Well, we made it the address of the vineyard … and …. it was a … house. Most likely just their business address and that’s what you get for Googling things ;-). So, off to Mackinaw City it was!!! Of course it had been threatening rain all day long and we could see on the radar that it was staying just to the north of us. Mackinaw City was just north enough to be in that rain. So — this cute, little, touristy town was EMPTY on Memorial Day. No one around at all!! We made it to a winery tasting room (and of course bought a bottle of wine) and to a spirit tasting room — Mike had some bourbons and Tammy had (and bought) some Cherry vodka and Chocolate vodka — to make (low carb)chocolate covered cherries. Oh boy…
Both of us starving, and a little tipsy, we needed food. We drove a block back down the main drag to The Hook Lakeside Grill. Being that the weather kind of sucked with the rain, we about had the entire place to ourselves. We had a great view of the lake. If you look at the website, we sat at those tables right up against the windows — when it is nice weather they are surely open, but fortunately for us they were closed or we may have gotten a little wet.
We had a very nice meal — we ate food, it was good. (that’s the problem with writing this 56 days, 4 hours, and 18 minutes after the fact — OK Carrie, it was two months). On leaving the restaurant we battled the black bugs to get into the car — the bugs won a portion of this battle as we got about 50 of the flies in the car with us. We also found out that when you squish these bugs on the headliner, the trim and the seats — THEY STAIN!!!
The rest of the day was spent in the rain — we drove almost straight home from Mackinaw City. Up across the Mackinaw Bridge — quite the drive.
We made a stop for dinner in Marinette, WI at Hometown Family Restaurant. We’d been looking for some place to have a nice dinner and we didn’t find it, so we stopped here instead. It was OK — of course within the next 10 miles we saw about 15 places that looked a lot better; they will wait for another splorin’ day we decided.
Did we mention it was raining the whole drive home? Well, the combination of the rain and Google’s “fancy” routing sent us across a backwater country road (County Highway E near Abrams, WI). The problem? It was a very old road, so it was heavily rutted — and those ruts had about 2 inches of water. It made for some fun hydroplaning. Thankfully for the entire 20 mile stretch that we were on that road, we only met 9 other vehicles, so we were able to ride in between the ruts most of the time. Around Stanley, WI we **FINALLY** broke free of the rain. So, in the 8 hour drive home from Mackinaw City, we spent about 25 minutes not in the rain — yuck!!!
All-in-all a GREAT trip and would love to do something very similar in two years when Odyssey of the Mind returns to Michigan State.
Our adventures took us to Forth Worth, Texas this week to celebrate Carson’s (our son-in-law) Masters’ Degree at TCU. State parks and supper clubs will have to wait a week. But not ‘splorin’. It was just a little different and a little “spread out” over two days.
Saturday morning we got up early (6:00 am) as we usually do for breakfast. We drove through the POURING rain to meet with one of Tammy’s former co-workers at The Egg and I in Denton, Tx. Now, it was not our usual “mom and pop” place, but the food was VERY GOOD and the omelettes and benedicts actually came with a salad! Trudy moved to Tx a few years ago with her kids and grandkids and we have tried to visit before but it hasn’t worked out — this was our last chance since our kids are moving to NC! It was so great to spend some time with this wonderful lady — lots of laughs and memories of our time spent in the lobby of Putnam Heights.
We left the restaurant and it was STILL rainy so we decided to skip the “splorin” for a little while and drove back to the house we were sharing with Carson’s family. The rain finally let up to a drizzle so we decided to see what we could see in the neighborhood — no way we are going to a park in the mud! It was a beautiful neighborhood and we were able to walk about 4.5 miles. We discovered some distinctly Texan neighborhood things along the way– cactus and even chickens, as well as a small park. While we were able to avoid mud, it was still pretty wet.
The park was situated along Fossil “creek” — although with all the rain it was more like a ragin’ river:
All in all a nice walk in the rain. Our “supper club” this night, was also a little unconventional. I guess the Texas equivalent to a Wi Supper Club would be, of course, Barbeque, so in honor of Carson’s masters’ degree, we all went to his favorite BBQ restaurant: Heim All I can say is: SO-MUCH-FOOD!
Before the rain changed our plans on Saturday, we were going to go hiking at the Fort Worth Nature Center. Since we had brunch reservations with the family on Sunday at 10:00 we decided we could still get our hike in there if we got up bright and early so we were there when they opened at 7 am.
There weren’t many people around so we were excited to get started. Knowing how hard it had rained the night day before, we were a bit skeptical about the trail conditions, but decided to head out anyway. The map we got included information for all the trails and I was excited to see that we would be walking through a bison range and prairie dog town — animals! Trail Map
We soon were in the midst of fields of beautiful wild flowers and so far the trail was looking pretty good.
But it didn’t take long for that to change and we were faced with making our own way through the sides of very wet trails. Now this was a lot different than when were were in Interstate Park — the earth had a lot of clay in it so you didn’t sink down in to a lot of water. BUT it was thick MUD and it extended to the edge of trees on both sides quite often. We both returned to our VRBO “home” with quite a few scrapes and scratches as we had to maneuver our way around mud. And despite the name, there were no buffalo on the range.
Before we left, we took a quick drive down the the marsh boardwalk. A very beautiful space where we did encounter our second large turtle of the day.
We politely made our way around him and got a pic of the beautiful view
We were back “home” by a little after 9:30am and ready to go out to brunch for Mother’s Day — after drying Mike’s shoes and a nice long shower. We are still on a quest for DRY hiking trails….
Splorin’: it’s what we do…the unknown always comes with adventure and excitement.
We are getting to the point where we are fine tuning our adventures (or at least working out the kinks). This week Mike decided what supper club we were hitting up for #supperclubsaturday before we decided anything else. So, he picked an awesome place — The Ranch in Hayward, WI (which was truely lovely — see below), but it had the distinct disadvantage of not being anywhere, even remotely close, to a Wisconsin State Park. (we have decided that, for the next year or so, our Splorin’ Saturday hikes will be at Wisconsin State Parks unless excluded by circumstance or location.)
Back to the “bad decision” which became quite serendipitous. Not being able to find a WI State Park anywhere near Hayward, we ended up going to Brunet Island State Park in Cornell, WI — this was a good hour and a half from Hayward. So, Mike had to find something to breakup that drive between hiking and supperclubbing. He suggested the Red Schoolhouse Winery in Stone Lake, WI with a short hike following at Stone Lake Community Wetland Park. However, Tammy quickly nixed this when she saw the winery was hosting a “Kentucky Derby Party” that afternoon. She wanted nothing to do with that. So she Googled and found Clover Meadow Winery outside of Shell Lake, WI which called itself a “Winery in the middle of nowhere” — cool, that sounds like something right up our alley. Since it wasn’t exactly close to Mike’s desired travel route, we decided to play it by ear — if we had time we would stop, if we didn’t no big deal. Thankfully we ended up with time (dramatic foreshadowing music playing the background).
We started the day having breakfast at KJ’s Cafe in Cornell, WI. If you’ve never been there, go!! If you have been there, you know what we mean when we say it is one of the cutest little places for breakfast around. Maybe 10 tables and quite quiet on a early May Saturday morning. Food and service were awesome. Like most places, they never batted an eyelash at our request for side salads instead of hash browns. Coffee was a little bit above what we would call “airport coffee” (we’ll explain that at some boring point in time in the future) and the omelet Tammy had was so big she couldn’t finish it! As usual, and expected by this the 4th installment of our ‘splorin’ , there was quite the gathering of locals in this place. We delighted in our second favorite thing to do on Splorin’ Saturdays while at a restaurant — eavesdropping (of course the first is eating and enjoying our own company). We listened to the locals talk about life around town — and two elderly people talking about the Splorin’ they do on their motorcycle (which actually turned out to be a Can-Am 3 wheeled motorcycle).
Next up was Brunet Island State Park a whole 5 minutes from KJ’s. We got our daily pass and were off on a trail within 5 minutes. When we asked about the trail conditions this week the ranger said “a bit soft in spots, but mostly in really good shape”. This time we were not lied to — they were exactly in that shape.
Another lesson learned for Splorin’ Saturday — we needed hiking boots. Tennis shoes and wet trails do not mix (well, maybe when the tennis shoe is at the bottom of a mud hole that your foot just came out of). The friday before we purchased new hiking shoes/boots.
Mike said “don’t get the half boot ones, they don’t offer any additional ankle support than just hiking shoes”. So of course Tammy got regular hiking shoes and Mike got the half boot kind. ;-). There was some mud here and there, but unlike Interstate State Park there was no water running down the trails in little rivers, or small ponds of water that needed to be traversed over or around.
The hike on the Nordic Trail was a nice and easy walk through the woods. A big wide trail with lots of arrows pointing the way – although there was a little confusion over what was walking trail and what was cross country skiing trail. We saw some squirrels, chipmunks, ducks and deer. The deer obviously saw us long before we saw them because they had their tails up and were moving quite fast when we saw them through the trees. Shortly after beginning the trail, Tammy realized another refinement we had to make — we need at least 30 minutes between breakfast and hiking (man, these rules are going to overwhelm Splorin’ Saturday’s spontaneity) But we survived the 3 mile hike.
We then proceeded the to island part of Brunet Island State Park. Since Tammy is a mother of four, we had to do what every mother of four has to do — search for a bathroom for her to pee. The regular “flush toilets” that were listed on the map were locked up tight so we had to go in search of the pit toilets. We then started on the Pine Trail which would take us about a mile up the island. It was a nice easy walk again, although this time it was a little bit more difficult to identify what was trail and what was just woods. But we found our way through. While on the trail we saw four deer hanging out trying to stand as still as possible so we would walk right past them. Unfortunately for them, one got caught in the middle of the field and was easy to spot (I’m sure the mom admonished him/her about that after we left). The trail then moved on to the Fisher River. It was a beautiful walk in the woods with water on the one side. We saw a couple of (very loud) people fishing from kayaks. We then finished up by hiking the trail that went past the boat ramp and eventually took us back to our car. All in all, a good 5 mile hike at the park. The trails were easy walking, beautiful scenery and of course, as always, good company.
We finished at the park a good hour ahead of Mike’s schedule — so that meant the “Winery in the middle of nowhere” was a go!! Google maps directions were loaded in Android Auto and we were off like a prom a dress to Clover Meadow Winery. The “middle of nowhere” describes this place pretty well. After driving backroads and going through Shell Lake, WI Mike expected to see a sign for this place – but we did not see anything until right at the end of their driveway (you guessed it — in the middle of nowhere). Driving up the gravel driveway you get the feeling you are leaving the present day and traveling back in to a simpler place in time. We came to a pasture along the way that was filled with horses — tons of them behind a small wire fence. We then came upon several horses on the other side of the road that had no silly fence restrictions and they were just munching on grass along the driveway. We then got to the end of the driveway and Mike was already thinking this might be a mistake — he decided (at least in his head) if we were the only ones there, we might just turn around and leave. But there was another car in the parking lot and we saw someone walking into the building as we were pulling up. OK, good-to-go. There were small tables spread out around the grassy area with plastic chairs by them. Looked like a very nice quiet place to sit and enjoy some wine. We also saw a disc golf basket out beyond the tables. We then proceeded to walk into the building.
We were greeted by a quiet, quaint seating area that had an indoor open firepit with a small fire going and a stage for live music. We saw no one, but did see a screen door — that was the only place we could go. We walk through the screen door into a small store-like atmosphere and discovered what you would expect to see at a winery gift shop – glasses, bottle holders, bottles of wine, cordials, brandy and moonshine. What? Moonshine? Yep. Forgot to mention this fun fact – in addition to the “Winery in the middle of nowhere”, this place is also “White Wolf Distillery” and they make moonshine. I guess they do not have to say “Distillery in the middle of nowhere” as that is already implied with it being part of the winery. We saw the person we noticed outside again — it was apparent then that he wasn’t a customer, but he didn’t really say anything to us. We looked around a little bit and were kind of surprised when we heard a very deep voice behind us say “Welcome, have you guys ever been here before?” We turned to find the owner with a cup of coffee in his hand. He had long gray hair with a mustache to match. When we responded with “No”, he lauched into a seemingly 15 minute description of the winery and distillery. A fully organic winery — they grow their own fruit and grapes on the premises. Very cool. BUT, they are a also horse rescue with some 70 horses, a dog rescue with 30 dogs, have a disc golf course, and are building a campground (along the long driveway in). And the walls were filled with paintings done by the owner. We were then given a listing of all their tasting offerings and told we could select up to 8 things. According to the owner they can induce the “first level of surgical anesthesia” if you have too much so we could “split” a tasting if we wanted to. Ummm, nope. We tried a variety of things. Mike even tried the Blackberry Brandy (another long story for when stories get short in the future) and he was not that impressed. The wines were interesting. Too often in Wisconsin all you get are sweet wines — neither of us like those at all – so we stick to drier wines. They had a category of wines that were “Not too sweet/Not too dry” — that was the best we could do. Tammy actually really enjoyed a drier rhubarb wine and a bottle made it’s way home to Eau Claire. We were in love with the place and the owner. He never stopped talking. He told stories – and had a million of them (and probably another couple million in reserve). We heard all about his upbringing and his mom who served as a nurse in Anzio in World War II and his Uncle who was a cop on the difficult streets of Chicago. We learned that his mom “made boot camp easy” compared to his home life and that he served three tours of duty in the marines before moving on to the Navy and retiring in the late 80’s. It was an awesome afternoon. We learned that he is a caregiver in almost every sense of the word. He cares for his son, the horses, the dogs, the neighbors kids/grandkids and the land that they farm. We didn’t get to meet his wife or daughter (“administration” as I believe he called them), but it sounds like they are all wonderful people. Maybe we can meet them next time? After having talked, eaten a very generous meat and cheese tray, had our 8 tastings plus an additional glass of wine each — it was time for us to be on our way. About that time a new group of 8 people showed up and it was time for us to relinquish our chairs and ears to the new group to be enthralled with stories by the owner. We left, both thinking it is just a matter of time when, not if, we go back.
Even after that all-afternoon palaver, we still had a little time before dinner. We headed toward Stone Lake and thought we could still hit up the Stone Lake Wetland Park. While on our way there, we passed the Red Schoolhouse Winery and saw all the women there with their big flowery hats on, most likely sipping mint juleps. Both of us thought — man, we had much, MUCH, more fun at the “Winery in the middle of nowhere”. The wetlands park was small, but neat. There was a couple of trails through the woods and above an impressive set of train tracks; the most compelling feature was the boardwalk through the actual wetland. Definitely a National Lampoon’s Vacation “Grand Canyon moment”, but still fun.
We then drove on to Hayward and still had about 30 minutes before dinner so we stopped at Shue Pond Park for a little walk and a chance to sit by the pond and reflect on the day so far (ok, mostly to talk about how much we loved the “Winery in the middle of nowhere”).
Supper Club Saturday was at The Ranch in Hayward, WI. In our “old age” we are finding we like to do Supper Club Saturday early — like at 5PM — so we can make the drive back home before it gets dark (and all the deer come out to play hopscotch on the highways). We pulled into the parking lot and there was only one car there — wow. Did we pick the wrong place to eat? Or were we just early? Turns out we were just early. We got a very nice table overlooking the backyard. The relish tray was served and it was top notch – we even tried the herring. Tam was a fan, Mike – not so much.
We typically have a bottle of wine with dinner. The waitress told us about a new wine they had, but had to get the owner to describe it to us because “she knew wine”. It was a red blend called Metal Bender, a Wisconsin winemaker who added a small winery out in Sonoma, CA to have more access to their grapes. She offered as a small taste and it was very good. She then filled our glasses and started walking away with the bottle. The look on Tammy’s face was like someone was stealing her dog — the waitress noticed and made sure the remainder of that bottle made it’s way back to our table! Tammy was excited to see that they had Brussel sprouts as an appetizer. They were good, but not New Jersey good (another story for another day). Mike had the Prime Rib (boring, we know, but very good). Tammy had whatever she had. All in all it was a very good Supper Club!! We walked out to the parking lot and it was overflowing with cars — so much so that people were now parked on the side of the driveway. OK — we were definitely just early. 😉
We then had our nice 2 hour drive back home and then Mike made a fire in the backyard while we enjoyed a little more wine. It was just a little too windy for the fire and Mike was worried about burning the neighborhood down, so we put the fire out and went to bed with dreams of the “Winery in the middle of nowhere” dancing in our heads…
Splorin' Saturday 