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Kelsey and I went to do a little exploring of our summer quarters. Wisconsin in the summertime is a truly wonderful place, and in the words of Ferris Beuller "It is so choice." We talked about going to Kettle Moraine, an area where in the last Ice Age a huge glacier bullied its way across the state, leaving behind smaller rocks, boulders, sand, and pushed up into piles making nice ridgelines to hike.
There was a huge storm the night before and from Julie's, Kelsey's mom, porch there was one of the best lightning shows I have ever seen, the sky was illuminated by none stop lightning. Unfortunately for the People south of here there were a few tornadoes which left a few people homeless.
We headed south, after I received a bad haircut and had to go back to get it fixed. Our first stop was at a trail that was Scuppernog spring trail. There is just a parking lot and a sign with all the area has to offer a natural spring, an old Indian housing sight, and a mile and a half loop trail. There was a couple inches of rain the night before so there
was some standing water on the trail. No big deal we had our nice new Merrell hiking boots. With that we started on the trail. No more than 100 yards down the trail we come to a fork, we went right, that is where are trouble began. Horse Flies, one of the most useless and evil creatures known to man. I think atheist could use the argument that if there is a just and kind God, why did he create such a vile creature? We walked for about a quarter of a mile and we came into a clearing then the flies where gone. In the clearing there was a stream of clear water and is a very pretty site. Further done the trail we came to the spring, well kind of. When I hear the word spring, I think of Jackson Blue or Peacock Springs, this was a little sand boil. I was only disappointed as I could not dive it. We continued on the loop trail. We got to where there was some tree cover, apparently the horse flies knew this trail was a loop, and used the time that we where in the clearing to resupply and
gather fresh troops and waited to ambush us as we reentered their territory. Kelsey found some raspberry bushes and was picking a few, then the charge came. It was so bad that we started to run, I left Kelsey behind, and I would yell back every few minutes. I then got to where I had so many flying about my head that a few invaded my ear, which is EXTREMELY unpleasant. I covered my head with my shirt and waited for Kelsey. She caught up and we ran some more. We finally made it back to the car. She told me there must have been 100 flies around my head. It was a very pretty site, and if you intend to visit Deep Woods Off is a must.
We got in our car and headed further south. We happened upon Paradise Springs just outside of Eagle Wisconsin. There is a large parking area, where there was a class of kids on a field trip, and a nice paved trail to the pond which is stocked with trout, and the head spring is at the far end of the pond. There is a enclosure built around the spring and a
lot of water was flowing out, the dammed end at one time looks like it had a water wheel. There were many flowers in bloom, and made for a nice place to visit.
We opted for the less buggy option of taking a drive south on the Kettle Moraine Scenic Highway. We went through a town called La Grange, we found a cafe and bike shop, really high end bikes, I guess that cyclist enjoy the ride as well. The shop was full of quasi hippie girls, and they made really good smoothies. We recharged with a cool frozen smoothie and turned our trip back towards Oconomowoc.
There are a ton of trails to hike, mountain bike, or road bike in the area, and this area of the country is great in the summertime. I wish we had more time to spend in the area, but our travels are calling us to Colorado for a couple of weeks of hiking and camping.
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Gary Wood
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Ice Age trail
The ice age trail passes through Kettle Moraine and there are shelters along the way so you can make a multi-day trip out of it. We were up on Bald Bluff once after a snowstorm. Beautiful.