Author Archives: daphnedarlene

Tower Hill State Park sits above the Wisconsin River at Spring Green and offers campsites, nature and hiking trails, and picnicking facilities. The upland forests, a wide variety of plants, shrubs, birds, and animals, and a 175-foot Cambrian sandstone cliff make the park attractive for those who enjoy natural settings. The location is the siteContinue reading “Tower Hill State Park (Wisconsin) and Pike’s Peak State Park (Iowa)”

It is a loooonnng day trip to drive from south central Wisconsin to west of Des Moines and back, (650 miles and 14 hours) but the covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa are iconic and well worth a visit ( even though Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep were nowhere to be found.)

Oneida and Vilas Counties are located in north central Wisconsin and are well known vacation areas.

Devil’s Lake is located just south of Baraboo and at 9000 acres is the largest and most visited state park in Wisconsin. It is on the western edge of the last ice sheet deposited during the Wisconsin glaciation. It is known for its 500 feet high quartzite bluffs along the 360 acre lake.

The Mississippi river corridor is one of our favorite areas to explore. We started this jaunt with lunch at the Bodega restaurant in LaCrosse. After lunch we stopped at Lock and Dam 6 in Trempealeau. Unfortunately no barges were going through when we visited. Then we moved on to Perrot State Park.

Located on a peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan, Door County is one of Wisconsin’s most visited areas. We started our day trip with lunch at Stone Harbor in Sturgeon Bay. The clam chowder was excellent, as was the grilled reuben sandwich.

Gibraltar rock is a flat-topped butte, an outlier of the Magnesian escarpment. With a thin Platteville-Galena dolomite cap over St. Peter sandstone, the butte offers panoramic views of the Wisconsin River Valley and Lake Wisconsin.

We like water. Rivers, lakes, oceans. We enjoy driving along coastlines and waterways and also dining waterside. Port Washington, Wisconsin is a city on Lake Michigan, about 30 miles north of Milwaukee. We had a lovely lunch there at Schooner Pub. After that we took a walk near the lake.

Just 30 miles from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, Winona is a lovely small city on the banks of the Mississippi. We had lunch at the Boat House, on the river. Very good hamburgers. Enormous and tasty crispy chicken sandwich. Good fries, with a variety of dipping sauces available. Darlene’s IPA was very good, as was Daphne’s bloodyContinue reading “Winona, Minnesota”