Hello Everyone! It’s been a little quieter out here on the road this week than the last few weeks. I’ve tried to slow down a little and get some fishing in while I’m here and the warm weather is too. Unfortunately, I’ve also managed to catch a cold this week which has only slowed me down further. I’ve caught this cold even with all the hand-washing and masking and being careful which just goes to show how easy it is to pass things along. I’ll be laying low for a couple of days, hydrating and getting some sleep and hopefully it’ll pass on through sooner rather than later. This week brought me from the middle of Wisconsin’s section of the Great River Road to the heart of the Northwoods, and it’s been a really wonderful week which I can’t wait to tell you about.
The La Crosse Queen
When I left you last week, I was in La Crosse which really is quite a nice little city. There are lots of old buildings and corner bars and with a reasonable sized student population it felt very vibrant and alive. Last Wednesday night I went for a cruise on the La Crosse Queen, a sternwheel paddleboat that does several different tours on the Mississippi River. I went on a short 90 minute beer and pizza cruise which was definitely a bargain at $21. It was nice to be out on the river, and that length of time was just about perfect for my attention span. The weather was perfect and I really enjoyed it. After the cruise I went and saw some live music at Big Al’s downtown which was great and sat with a wonderful older lady who was very into the live-music scene. It was very kind of her to ask me to join her. We had a nice chat and enjoyed some good music and she invited me out the following night to a different venue.
Thursday I spent a good chunk of time in the library, trying to get a jump on some work for this week. In the afternoon I drove up Grandad’s Bluff, La Crosse’s most well-known geologic feature. The road took me right to the top for wonderful views out over the city and the Mississippi River. It was cool and quiet up there and I stayed up on top for quite some time. Later that evening I went for a stroll along the Mississippi and then to a wonderful night of live music at the amphitheater right there on the river. It’s getting a little cooler out and it was nice to just sit outside and have a beer and enjoy the music. The band was good and I stayed right up until the end. Afterwards I joined my friend from the previous evening at the old train station for a really good grandfather-grandson duo and met her boyfriend and granddaughter. When the band finished up, I took one last stroll around town and then called it a night.
Friday morning I was up and off and headed north along the Great River Road. I stopped in the small and charming river towns of Trampealeau and Alma for a while and found a nice apple orchard along the way to pick up some fresh apples which are just coming into season up here. Then I headed on to Nelson for lunch under the Twin Bluffs and an ice cream at their wonderful creamery. From there, I moved on to Pepin which is best known as the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The museum in town didn’t have a whole lot of information on Ms. Wilder, but it was a nice place and I really enjoyed chatting with the people who were running it. I drove seven miles inland from the river to see the recreated cabin on the land where she was born and where her first book, Little House in the Big Woods was set. My mom read the Little House books to me when I was a kid and I really enjoyed them and I thought it was very cool to see where the first one took place. Wilder wrote an autobiographical account of her childhood and her family’s moves from Wisconsin to points west called Pioneer Girl, but couldn’t find anyone to publish it. She broke it down into smaller chunks and rewrote them for a younger audience and, at 65, published Little House in the Big Woods, her first published book. Her series became wildly successful and of course was adapted for the television show Little House on the Prairie (which I also watched as a child).
Leaving Pepin, I turned north again and stopped in the adorable little town of Stockholm where I took some photos and bought a pie at the Stockholm Pie and General Store. It had been recommended to me and it was one of the best pies I’ve ever had. If you’re ever in the area, it’s a must-try. Further north I pulled off to see Maiden Rock, a beautiful bluff which legend tells a young Native American woman threw herself off of to avoid an arranged marriage. The rock was more beautiful than the story. From there it was onward to Prescott where the Mississippi enters Wisconsin from Minnesota and intersects with the St. Croix River. The little park in town was a great place to see where the rivers meet and ended my time with the Mississippi River for now. I stayed for dinner in Prescott and got some really tasty barbecue at the Prescott Roadhouse before pushing on to Hudson for the night.
Saturday morning I headed downtown to have a look around and found Hudson to be quite a pleasant town. Taking its name and inspiration from the Hudson Valley in New York, many of the houses were different from what I’ve been used to seeing in Wisconsin. I really enjoyed the 1855 Octagon House and the old courthouse down the street. From downtown there was also a nice long walking trail out along the dike to a little island beach in the middle of Lake St. Croix which was really nice (and a favorite with the locals getting their steps in). From Hudson, I followed the St. Croix River as best I could north to Osceola, a nice little town right on the river. It was a busy day in Osceola with a Farmers’ Market, an air show, live music in the park and a book sale. I wonder if they planned all of that to happen on the same weekend or not, because it seemed a bit much for the small town and it was definitely overcrowded. If there hadn’t been so many people there I probably would have stayed around longer because it seemed like a nice town, but as it was I decided to move on pretty quickly.
I went about 20 minutes north to St. Croix Falls and headed straight to the National Park Service Visitor Center there which interprets the St. Croix National Scenic River, one of the first Scenic Rivers in the country. There was a nice film about the river there and the ranger was very helpful in recommending trails in the area. I did two hikes in the afternoon along the river and both were really nice. The second took me to the Potholes Trail in Interstate State Park which overlooked the beautiful Dalles Region of the river – a gorge the river cut through the rock there. It was really quite impressive and I also loved the potholes which were caused by sand and rocks caught in whirlpools at the end of the last Ice Age. The geology definitely showed that I was out of the Driftless Region and into the glacial area of the state. Straddling the border between the glaciated and non-glaciated regions is the Ice Age National Scenic Trail which runs across the state from Sturgeon Bay and ends in Interstate State Park. I enjoyed my hikes there and then headed out and east again across the state to Rice Lake. Rice Lake is a cute little town right on its namesake lake. When I arrived, I pulled into a little park full of Indian Burial Mounds, where I had my dinner and enjoyed a view out over the lake. There was a rodeo going on in town, but I was tired and decided to give it a miss, but it sounded like people were really enjoying it.
Sunday morning I was up nice and early and stopped into Maxine’s Restaurant for breakfast. Maxine’s was a great little small-town diner where the local men sit at the counter drinking coffee and catching up on the gossip. I sat with them and really enjoyed hearing the back-and-forth with everyone that walked in the door. One of the men, Del, owned a mechanic shop in town and will be celebrating his 90th birthday next month. He was pretty sharp for a guy his age and apparently was still in high demand. The teenaged dishwasher was dressed from head to toe in Minnesota Vikings apparel and was greeted with a barrage of good-natured ribbing every time he came out of the kitchen. I think he liked the attention. Before people left, they poked their heads into the kitchen to say goodbye to Maxine herself. It really was a great little slice of small-town America and I was glad I stopped in (and got there early as it filled up fast). I headed back to the lake where I finally got some fishing in, weeks after I bought my license. I caught two fish within the first five minutes and then my line coagulated somehow into a Gordian knot which took me forever to untangle (I ended up cutting it in the end). From then on I couldn’t catch a thing, but right before I left I caught one more which made me feel good. I spent some time cleaning out my van and then stopped at the grocery store before heading on to Chippewa Falls (the hometown of Leonardo DeCaprio’s character Jack from Titanic). I went down to the Leinenkugel Brewery for a couple of beers, some of which are only available at the brewery and were really good. After a couple of beers I headed just outside of town to Connel’s Supper Club for dinner. I’ve been wanting to go to a true Wisconsin Supper Club since I got here, but haven’t been able to make it happen. Connel’s was a great place to have that experience. Supper clubs in Wisconsin are not as fancy as they sound – they are essentially fine-dining food in a casual, lounge-like setting. A great place to get prime rib in shorts and a t-shirt. I enjoyed a nice steak with a salad and a baked potato and of course a brandy old-fashioned to go along with it and make it a true Wisconsin meal. The place was great, my food was excellent and I really enjoyed the company of the folks sitting at the bar. It was a wonderful experience and one I hope to have again before leaning Wisconsin.
Monday morning I went kayaking on the Chippewa River which was also really great. The river was pretty low, but it was a beautiful morning and I was the only one out there. I saw at least 50 turtles on my three mile paddle, and plenty of geese, ducks and shorebirds as well. At one point a massive fish jumped out of the water and made me almost jump out of my boat. It was at least 3 feet long and looked a lot like a sturgeon to me. In the last quarter-mile I also had two bald eagles fly right over me which really was the icing on the cake. It was a good run down the river and great to be out there on my own. I spent the afternoon at the library and then wandered round downtown taking some photos before calling it an early night. We were expecting storms that night and they certainly came through. There was thunder and lightning and I’m pretty sure it was hailing at one point, but I was cozy and warm in the back of my van.
On Tuesday I headed to downtown Eau Claire where I spent some time walking along the river and checking out the bridges. I saw what looked like a pretty church up on the hill and decided to wander that way and get a closer look. It turned out to be more complicated than it looked because I had to find a way around some railroad tracks, but it was worth it in the end. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church was massive and really quite impressive. It harked back to the an earlier time when German and Irish lumbermen made Eau Claire Wisconsin’s second city behind Milwaukee. I decided to take a different way back downtown which proved to be quite the adventure as I couldn’t find a place to cross the tracks. Finally I went rogue and wandered through the woods and came out where I needed to be. I stopped for some delicious curry at The Orchid Restaurant and then took one last look around before moving on. It seemed like Eau Claire was in the process of re-imagining itself but was somewhere in the middle of that process. Neither Chippewa Falls nor Eau Claire really did it for me, which is a shame because I had higher expectations for both. There was nothing wrong with either, but they just didn’t really hold my attention.
Heading east again, I stopped briefly in Wausau just to break up the long drive and have a look around. Downton was pleasant and clean and I really loved the whitewater kayaking course which ran through the middle of town along the Wisconsin River. There were some nice murals and a beautiful amphitheater in the central park in town as well. I probably wandered around for an hour or so and then gassed up and headed north. Leaving Wausau, the scenery definitely changed, and quickly, from farms to forest. There are more hills here. I drove through the pleasant old lumbering town of Tomahawk and finally dropped into Rhinelander last night about an hour before sunset. Rhinelander gave me all the feels that I hadn’t gotten further south over the last few days. It’s just a small town, but it has some beautiful old buildings and a pleasant, homey feel to it. It was a beautiful evening when I arrived and I grabbed my camera and took a long walk around downtown. The sky and clouds were great for photography and I had a really good time on my walk. The courthouse is magnificent and there’s an old feed store in town which was also very photogenic. I also got a huge kick out of the omnipresent Hodag around town. The Hodag is a mythical half-reptile-half-lion beast which was apparently chased down and killed by land surveyor Eugene Shephard in 1893. Three years later, he claimed to have caught one alive and put it on display at the Oneida County Fair (where he collected a small fee to see it, of course). When newspapers covered the story, the Smithsonian prepared a team to come and see the Hodag for themselves, which is when Shephard finally gave up the ghost and admitted it had been a hoax all along. Despite this admission, Rhinelander has adopted the Hodag as its own and statues are everywhere in town, including at the courthouse and chamber of commerce. The high school mascot here is the Hodag, there is Hodag Park on Boom Lake and you can get a Hodag beer from Rhinelander Brewing Company. It is fun and reminds me of the Mothman memorabilia and museum I found in Point Pleasant, West Virginia and the Rougarou of Louisiana. There’s nothing wrong with a good yarn now and again. With visions of the Hodag dancing in my head, I headed out of town and called it a night.
Although I was a bit sniffly yesterday, I knew when I woke up this morning that a fall cold had arrived. I have been drinking tea and plenty of fluids and trying to get out in the sun. I spent the morning fishing at Boom Lake (in Hodag Park, of course) and then slipped into the library to finish up this week’s post. I plan to take the rest of the day “off” and just rest up and try and let this pass through my body and be gone. It’s not much fun, but it is what it is. I will definitely be doing some more fishing this afternoon though and probably taking some more photos of this lovely town.
From here I’m off to explore more of the Lakes Region and will definitely be visiting Eagle Lake and Minocqua and hopefully several other towns as well. I’m really looking forward to some more fishing, a little bit of hiking and a few days of taking it easy here in the Northwoods. I spent a lot of time in the Minocqua area as a kid and I’m looking forward to getting back there for a few days. I may still be in the area this time next week, but the days are getting colder and if I want to get through Minnesota before winter, I can’t stay too long. From here it’s north again to Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands before crossing over at Duluth. Despite this cold, I’m feeling good and really looking forward to the week ahead. I hope you’ll stop back next week to hear all about it. Until then, stay safe and enjoy yourselves out there. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike