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| The entrance to the State Park |
Captain and I decided we would sneak away for a quick camping trip before fall harvest kicks into high gear. Plus, it's our anniversary on the 17th, so this was to celebrate that, too.
We had reservations for a camper cabin at Beaver Creek Valley State Park just outside of Caledonia. I have been to Caledonia one other time in my life for the wedding of one of Captain's classmates. Which reminds me, it's their anniversary coming up, too! Happy Anniversary, Twylla and Jeff!
Anyway, we left after chores were done Monday morning and headed for LaCrosse first. I wanted to show Captain the VRBO where me and Gammy and our friends stayed when we had a girls weekend in June. We cruised around old town for a bit and then ate lunch at a Taco John. It's been ages since I've had Taco John potato oles, and they were just as good as I'd remembered.
Next we needed to hit Fleet Farm. Oh, sorry; on that side of the Mississippi it's Farm & Fleet. Anyway, it was just down the road away from the Kwik Trip where we stopped for gas, only Captain got exit-happy and turned too soon. We ended up back on I-90 headed for Madison. No big deal, I said. Just do an up-and-down at the next exit.
Which we did.
Five miles down the road!
Oh well. We got back to where we needed to be, got our stuff at Farm & Fleet before heading to LaCrescent for some apples. We like Bauer's Apple store right as you come into La Crescent, but it was so early in the season that they only had a limited number of varieties out. I had wanted some Haralson's for baking, but we left with a bag of First Kiss instead. That's the new variety from the University of Minnesota, who also brought you the Honeycrisp apples.
From there it was on to Caledonia. As we had gone on our travels, Captain commented on how he was surprised there was no one in the fields at all. He thinks the real rush of fall harvest is still three or four weeks away. He's usually right about these things.
During all this driving, I was working on a crochet project that I had started when driving home from our camping trip with some friends. It was just a circle that I kept expanding each round to keep it flat. I wanted to square it up, and I knew it could be done because I've followed other patterns that start with a circle and end up square.
Google must have the answer. Yes, yes it did. There was a formula for the basic concept, but I had to actually do the math. Yeah....I had the same look on my face that you do! We all know that math is not my friend.
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| When something starts out "figure out," I know I'm going to struggle! |
It took three starts and a lot of scratching out numbers with a pen and paper, but I actually got it figured out by myself!
When we got to the State Park, the office was closed/unmanned. I suppose in the off season, it's hard to keep them staffed full time. I went to pull up the reservation details from my Gmail, but I had ZERO cell service. Not even a shadow of a bar of reception.
All rightie then.
Since there was only one cabin in the whole park, we knew that's the one we wanted. We did the on-your-honor payment for firewood and went to find our site.
I love camper cabins. You get the rustic experience of cooking over a fire or on a camp stove but you don't have to sleep on the ground, and you can go inside to crochet when it gets dark and/or cold.
We got unpacked, we realized that (1) we didn't have any potatoes, (2) Captain needed to call Bigger about a sick calf he had to treat, and (3) given the lack of cell service, Captain needed reading material. Back to Caledonia's Dollar General we went.
When we finally made it back to camp, we still had some time before we needed to start supper, so we decided to explore. Captain had seen a trail called Switch Back Trail near the entrance to the park that was less than a mile round tip. Awesome, sign me up.
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| There should be a disclaimer about how treacherous this trail really is! |
Unfortunately, neither one of us read the description of the trail in the park literature or we would have known it was going to be trouble. We didn't know that it would be "narrow trails with steep inclines" most of the way up.
I'm okay hiking uphill, but I am not okay hiking uphill when the drop off is inches away from my feet. I had to put my crocs in 4-wheel drive halfway up the hill! Plus, I don't like heights and tend to get vertigo in dicey situations like that, so several times I had to stop and reorient myself and let go of the small tree trunk I was clinging to.
When we finally got to the top, I was too pooped out and too dizzy-ish to even take a picture of the view, which was phenomenal, by the way.
I will say the trek down was better than the trek up in that the trail was wider, but it was just as steep and the backs of my thighs and calves were screaming by the time we crossed the bridge back to the campground.
When we got back to the cabin, I noticed a historical marker a couple of sites away, so we went to investigate that. It was about a natural spring just ahead in the limestone. Oh my goodness, what clear water! Just the sound of the water cascading out of it's opening in the hill and down over some rocks into the stream was relaxing.
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| This is where the natural spring comes out of the hill and starts the stream |
Then it was back to the campsite for some quiet time before supper. This is a new concept for Captain. He's a doer by nature and just sitting and relaxing with a book or magazine is a foreign concept to him. But he got the hang of it just fine!
My job for supper was to make the hamburger patties. Captain took care of the sweet corn. I thought he was going to shuck it and boil it, but he left it in the husk and put it on the grate over the fire. Interesting! He got the grill started and was working on other preparations when I noticed that the corn was on fire! Some of the silks must have caught and started the husk. Easily extinguished, and it gave the corn a smoky taste.
The whole time we were preparing and eating supper, there was a very angry red squirrel on the other side of the stream venting his frustrations at the top of his lungs. I don't know what set him off, but he had things to say.
After supper and dishes, Captain went to shower and I returned to my make-a-circle-into-a-square baby blanket. It was going very nicely by this time.
I don't know what it is about camping, but as soon as it gets dark, I'm tired. Down in the Beaver Creek Valley, dark occurs before 8 p.m. No way can I go to bed at 8 p.m.! This is where the joy of a camper cabin comes in, because we both occupied ourselves for over an hour on quiet pursuits.
By the time I was ready to go to bed, I needed to use the restroom first. I don't do walking in the dark by myself, even with a lantern. I need Captain to walk with me and carry the light. Even so, as we were walking the quarter mile to the bathrooms, there was some kind of animal noise in the woods to our left and I jumped a foot and grabbed Captain.
After he quit laughing, he told me it was an owl. Man, the critters were out to terrify me!
I was quite glad to get back to the cabin, lock the door, and snuggle in to sleep.
Tuesday morning I woke up around 6, and so did Captain. I thought about maybe going to the bathroom, and the next thing I knew it was 7:45!! When I opened my eyes I was turned toward the wall, and there was a spider strolling across at my eye level. Been awhile since I've gotten out of bed that fast!
Thankfully, Captain had the coffee ready and breakfast started. I love having a man who does the cooking, and I'm not ashamed to say so. While Captain worked on breakfast, I pulled out the State Park memory book Captain gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
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| You think it's a sock, but it's doing double duty as a potholder! |
I filled in highlights from this camping trip (so far) including the corn on fire. Afterwards, I flipped through other state park trips that I had noted. And I discovered a pattern or theme.
Captain has trouble with fire.
At Lake Louise, he did something and started the grass on fire. At Rice Lake, the Coleman lantern went haywire and he tried to extinguish it with Reggie's blanket and melted the blanket. In the Black Hills, the Coleman stove blew up and started on fire.
Thankfully, none of these incidents resulted in injury or mayhem.
After a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, camper potatoes with green peppers, and bacon plus really good coffee, we cleaned up the picnic table and fire pit and then hit the trails.
Behind our cabin there was a wide, mowed grass trail that ran along the creek back to the entrance to the campground. From there, we decided to try the Hole In The Rock Trail.
This one was a cross between the horrible Switchback Trail and the lovely grass trail. Sometimes it was wide, sometimes it was as narrow as my foot. There were freakishly scary footbridges--I had to close my eyes and hold onto the back of Captain's shirt to be led across--and rickety steps that tricked you into thinking they were sturdy when they weren't.
But we saw vistas of awesome (in the truest sense of the word) beauty and enjoyed the quiet sounds of nature. Well, except for that cow in the pasture next to the park who was seriously ticked off about something.
The park literature had said that particular trail was one mile, but I'm pretty sure they lied and it was more like five miles. At least, that's how it felt by the time we got to the other end.
By then it was time to pack it all up and hit the road for home. I vaguely remembered from my last trip to Caledonia that the road out of it was exceptionally curvy, so I asked to go home that way instead of back up to I-90.
Captain humored me, and we drove from Caledonia to Houston on a lovely--yes, curvy--two lane road through miles and miles of trees. I counted 45 curves between Caledonia and Houston! I would imagine that a few weeks from now, that stretch of road will be brilliant with fall colors.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful, and we were glad to drive back in our yard just over 24 hours after we left. You wouldn't think such a short trip would be relaxing, but it always amazes me how much spending time in the great outdoors can bring me peace.
If you ever need the kind of vacation where you absolutely leave the world behind, this state park is the place to do it. You can't help but relax when it's the only think you have to do.
Safe and happy travels, my friends!
