Vacationing: Up North At Last

Zipping north on Highway 53 was rather fun as the gentle hills made for some great scenery. (They don't call it the Coulee Region for nothin'.) We eventually came to Foster and whizzed past the tavern there. 20+ years ago it was well-known to be a hospitable place for underage folks to go. Foster also sports ingress and egress to the interstate and I would catch County HH here to take it to my father's place when he was still living in the area. Since he moved to Louisiana in 2003, it had been over 6 years since I'd been through Foster and it felt a bit weird. I wouldn't say Foster is an old haunt of mine but it was kind of on the perimeter. It wasn't too long before we were at Sawdust City, i.e. – Eau Claire. I was surprised to find a roundabout or two by Golf Road. We drove past the Northwoods Brewpub which, I have learned, has resurrected Walter's Beer. Walter's was a regional brewery in Eau Claire that opened in the 1890s. It ran into financial troubles in the 1980s and was transmogrified into Hibernia. And, curiously enough, my tour of Hibernia back in 1987 was my first. Now that brewing beers of yore has become hip, Northwoods entered the fray earlier this summer. My buddy who fed his liver Walter's throughout his college career at UW-Eau Claire in the first half of the 1980s, reports that it still tastes like shit. The crew at Northwoods have apparently done a fine job of recreating the recipe. Through Eau Claire we went and soon we had gone past Highway 29 which meant we were truly "up north". (To my mind anyway.) A bit farther up the road we exited at New Auburn and headed east for the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area. The visitors center was adorned with the mandatory northwoods collection of pelts and stuffed animals. There were also some really nice displays on area history and the creatures which have inhabited it. Extinct species were noted as well as the dominant one – humans. Native Indians, the fur trade, logging – it was also documented in brief, yet interesting ways with lots of photos. We got caught in a downpour as we were exiting 53 although the rain let up as we drove through New Auburn and out to the rec area. But Mother Nature was not done yet. Dark storm clouds were moving in and we had a wonderful view from atop the ice-walled-lake plain upon which the visitors center had been built. An ice-walled-lake plain is essentially a hill. Technically it's a mound of glacial till formed when water melts a hole in a glacier and fills up with more water that is carrying sand, rocks, etc. The ice melts, the water flows away and you get an ice-walled-lake plain. Anyway, the view was tremendous. I only wish I had a better camera outfitted with a wide-angle lense. Here's the same view shot with a different exposure to highlight the clouds. The visitors center had many hummingbird feeders and the one on the east side of the building was buzzing with activity. Oddly enough, The Dulcinea had never seen one of the adroit flyers before except in photographs. She was rather enthralled with just how nimble they are, darting around effortlessly and pushing others away from the feeder. We didn't have a lot of time to hang out, much less actually hike one of the trails, as we had a one o'clock appointment in Dallas for the second brewery tour of our trip. However, I am very keen on returning to Chippewa Moraine to hike & do some camping.