A rainy Tuesday kept me off the trail for one week, maybe two. But last week I tackled the next section of the Ice Age Trail, the Montrose segment in southern Dane County.
After parking in the lot off of Frenchtown Road I tackled the southern most section first, and was soon taking the trail up the side of a small hill.
When I used to work in an office, there was a tradition called Tie Tuesdays. It wasn’t widely followed all the time, but I enjoyed it. It provided variety to the week. Now that I’m not working in an office anymore, I’m starting a new tradition. Trail Tuesdays: getting out of the house, away from people, enjoying God’s creation.
I decided to start with the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, which after all comes within a couple of miles of our house. What a great opportunity. Last Tuesday I took in the trail as it wound through the Brooklyn State Wildlife Area in southern Dane County.
Disappointment at not being able to take the trip I had scheduled in March was tempered by the arrival of daughter Sara and granddaughters Lana and Audrey. Even more excited about their arrival was our dog Basher, who had been living at Sara’s house up until we brought him to our house about a year and a half ago.
A staff conference in Orlando is an opportunity for another great road trip, so off we go!
It started off a cold, cloudy morning through Illinois.
The other day I went for a walk on a prairie near Madison, to take some photos with my new camera. But first I wanted to catch the sun coming up. From this vantage point one can see, on the other side of Lake Mendota, the capitol and the tallest buildings on the UW campus.
Some great trip memories in 2019. As the summer season wrapped up, I was able to get away to St. Louis for a few days of vacation. This was a trip I had been anticipating for over a dozen years. Ever since InterVarsity moved our Urbana conference to St. Louis in 2006, I had been telling my radio friend Stel Pontikes that I would come back for a tourist visit during warmer weather. St. Louis is a Mississippi Rivertown, just like my hometown of Prairie du Chien, with a rich history. I finally made it to St. Louis in 2019. It started out as a beautiful day for a road trip.
From the beginning of the summer, and not by design, it turns out that every month has featured an adventurous trip with friends. This month was a Sunday afternoon ride on the brand new Great Sauk State Trail with my friend Zach. The Great Sauk State Trail is, I think, Wisconsin’s newest Rails-to-Trails installment. It starts in downtown Sauk City.
I graduated from high school in 1969, 50 years ago. That summer, because I had some classroom experience operating 16mm film projectors, I was invited to the Class of 39’s 30-year reunion at a local restaurant, to show home movies of my hometown filmed in 1939. I remember how ancient those scenes looked with the vintage pre-WWII automobiles, etc. Now here it is 50 years later and it seems, in some ways, like I just graduated a few years ago. But, in truth, a half century has passed since we walked the hallowed halls of our high school. It was time for a trip back in time, to our 50-year high school reunion.
The trip began on a beautiful summer day. I took a detour for a first-time visit to Husher Wayside Park, with its beautiful vistas along highway 131 between Wauzeka and Steuben.
Another adventure vacation began with the chance to see one of the biggest steam trains of twentieth century history. The Union Pacific recently restored this behemoth, known as Big Boy and built in 1941, and sent it on tour across the Midwest to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railway.
This adventure reminded me of my childhood home, a block from the tracks in Prairie du Chien. Every year or so we would be visited by a steam engine. You could hear its distinctive whistle miles away. (more…)
This year’s visit by granddaughter Eden wasn’t quite as ambitious as a year ago. We had two places we wanted to visit: a farm and a fair.
Just outside of Madison, the folks at Sassy Cow Creamery offer tours of a real, working, modern, dairy farm.
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