(First off, not sure what I did to the format of the blog, but maybe that's the universe telling me it was time for a new look.) We took our annual pilgrimage to Vernon County-ish, Wisconsin the last week of August. We rented an adorable little cabin (with an outdoor shower and an outhouse) for $350 for 8 days! The cabin was on a farm with another main house owned by Cory and Lynn Brye (Brye's Buck Camp Cabin, I think they call it).
We did the normal stuff: Crazy Frank's, finding little swimming holes in regional or county parks, Amish hunting, prime rib dinner, lots of hiking, trips to Viroqua. It was just so peaceful. Emma was well along with the baby, so the combination of lack of indoor plumbing and heat wasn't ideal, but she was awesome about it. We canoed one day on the Kickapoo and did really really well for a group that included a 3 year old, a pregnant woman and a guy that's not uber-comfortable on the water.
The day we left, Tilly was literally screaming and kicking that she didn't want to leave the cabin, so I took that as confirmation that we'd picked a good place. It was about 10 minutes NW of Viroqua, so it was easy to get to town. The solitude was spectacular.
The highlights for me were hiking down the hill to Duck Egg Creek, getting attacked by a goose at The Blue Goose, and hiking with Tilly in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, where she stormed up a steep steep hill, determined to get to the top of Black Hawk's Rock. She is turning out to be a natural leader, and that makes me so happy and relieved.
I should have written more down while we were there. The weather was dry but nice, and it seemed like Tilly could not have been happier. We bought a used copy of Sleeping Beauty at Crazy Franks, and I think we watched it on average 3.5 times a day. Last year it was Thumbelina.
The Driftless Area, aka Amishland, aka the Kickapoo River Valley is just a magical place. The glaciers haven't been to that particular area for approximately 700,000 years. The terrain is, consequently, dramatic and easy to get lost in, literally and figuratively. Culturally, it's like a demolition derby wearing a straw hat...Amish farmers, Chicago cabin owners, hunters, locals, hippies, toothless hillbilly ginseng farmers, an Orthodox Jewish summer camp, canoe outfitters...it's a bit like a warmer, deciduously wooden, hilly Ely (minus the lakes). We'll be back.
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