Day 3
Saturday, 8/14/2021
After far too many days of a banana and Clif Bar for breakfast, I found my way to a place recommended by the locals I was chatting with the previous night. The Kitchen Table is just off the main road through downtown. Seating is limited, and the omelet was superb.
It was time to leave Marshfield and move on. There was plenty of time and quite a few options for the day. Hwy 13 runs directly in front of the motel. I picked it up and drove north towards the city of Abbotsville.
That's where I passed Hawkeye Dairy and one giant ice cream cone...
It's anyone's guess what the flavor of the week means...
I considered driving west to the town of Thorp to check out their painted cows, but instead kept driving north. I was looking for Woods Lake County Park. They have a 3.6 mile loop trail around the lake that seemed like a good way to stretch my legs.
The trail seemed easy to follow, with plenty of colored blazes on the trees. From time to time there would even be a historical marker explaining the area's logging past. The Rib Lake Logging Company operated here until 1948. At one point on the trail, a sign points out a cut in the landscape where a train line had once operated. If you looked really hard, you could see where they had leveled everything out.
The trail itself starts close enough to see the lake through the trees before drifting further and further afield.
Around the halfway point, there's a trail juncture.
Thinking I was headed the right way, I continued on.
When I crossed a road, I knew something wasn't right. When I saw the sign for Tower Road, I knew I had gone way too far. This road was on the far right of my map, and nowhere close to where I wanted to be. So, I turned around, eventually returning to that trail juncture. That's when I saw the sign and made the correct turn, eventually finding my way back to the car. This was supposed to have been 3.6 miles. I'm guessing it was closer to six.
A half hour up the road is Timms Hill County Park. At 1.951 feet it's the highest point in the state of Wisconsin. From the parking lot, it's a quarter mile hike up a wide, well maintained path to an observation tower on the peak. For those of you keeping score at home, this is number twenty-eight.
The view from above...
With the high point behind me, it was time to go looking a late lunch. I picked up Hwy 8 East towards the town of Tomahawk. For no real reason, I cut north on County Road L. On the shore of Lake Nokomis, I came across a place with a curious name, the Thirsty Giraffe.
Inside were about thirty adults enjoying the lovely day with a little day drinking. For such a small amount of people, the place certainly was loud. The pulled pork sandwich was pretty good, and their house barbecue sauce quite tasty. That said, I was kinda glad to be out of there.
Just a few miles north, a dirt road peeled off to my left. Another roadtrip rule, if you catch something out of the corner of your eye that might be something, turn around.
Down that road is Bubbas Campground and another place called Bubbas Party. Adjacent to Bubbas is a veterans memorial. Each motorcycle represents a different war.
County Road L eventually merged into Hwy 51 north towards the town of Woodruff. After a quick pint at the Rocky Reef Brewing Company, I was off to find the World's Biggest Penny.
The penny commemorates the Million Penny Parade, a fundraiser organized in 1952 to build a new medical clinic. A local school teacher was trying to teach the concept of a million and organized the fundraiser.
At the time, the area had one doctor, Kate Newcomb. She wouldn't hesitate to walk miles in snowshoes to get to her more remote patients. The townspeople nicknames her the Angel in Snowshoes. These snowshoe prints start in the center of town and follow the road down to a museum in her honor.
It was time to move on. My home for the night was just a little further up Hwy 51 in Mercer. Just outside the tourism office sits the World's Biggest Talking Loon. There's a panel alongside. Hit different buttons and it makes the sound of various species of loon. Hit the bottom one and it tells you about Mercer, Loon Capital of the World.
My home for the night was a place called the Great Northern Motel. When I checked in, they asked if I had gotten their email. There was an issue with the plumbing in my room. They were all apologetic to have moved me from the back to the front. So, they gave me a partial refund. I wasn't complaining. You could have thrown a party in the room they gave me. Perhaps it was the small rooms the previous two nights, but it just seemed big.
Coming Up,
At what point do you stop trusting your GPS?
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