Mini Vacations - great little trips
Ena and I just got back from another mini vacation
(I'll write up the previous one soon). We drove from Madison to New Glarus, WI
which is about an hour away. New Glarus is called "Little Switzerland". It
was settled by Swiss emigrants in 1845 and has never really given up the swiss
theme. We went from Switzerland to Cornwall and on all within a 150
miles.
The
Sugar River bike
trail (a rail-to-trail conversion) runs south
out of town through beautiful farmland and country
side.
There are old train stations along the bike trail where you can get information and water.
We took Friday off and puttered around the house during the morning. We loaded our bikes onto the car just after lunch and headed down to New Glarus. The hotel was nice and let us check in early so we could change into our gear and head out on our bikes.
We rode for about 3 hours through gorgeous country. Sorry, I forgot to grab my camera. The mosquitos were bad enough that taking pictures would have been a blood sport. Good thing about bicycling - keeps the mosquitos off.
We got back about 5:00, cleaned up and went out to dinner at Deininger's Restaurant. Deininger's (I may hate myself for telling everyone) is a great little resaurant. It is cozy and quite and it has really wonderful food. Ena had the Königsberger Klöpse - veal and beef meatballs in a wine and caper sauce. I had the turkey cordon bleu. We started with their tomato bisque and smoked salmon and finished with Peach Melba. Yum.
We walked around Saturday Morning and enjoyed the beautiful Summer morning.
Flowers along the Sugar River Trail
The church
in New Glarus
We headed North to Mineral Point, WI which is an art-antique community about 30 miles away. It is another very pretty small Wisconsin town.
We stumbled on Pendarvis - an old Cornish lead mining community just outside of Mineral Point just as the walking tour started. It was really pretty cool. Some of the old stone houses and log homes were saved by a pair of brothers in the 1930s.
They did beautiful stone work and gardens during the restoration.
The history was pretty wild. The minors would ride down into the lead mine shafts in buckets attached to a windlass.
After hearing about how the miners ate pasties and how the brothers opened restaurant to serve pasties , we had to head into Mineral Point to the Red Rooster Restaurant to have pasties for lunch. The Red Rooster makes a good pasty. (As my brother said, "you guys went to Switzerland and Cornwall in a day. That's pretty good.")
We then went on to Spring Green for their annual art fair which is always fun. There was a very good and very funny a cappella group performing when we got there. They did a song made up completely of bumper sticker sayings. Baby on Board, I Heart My Dog's Head.
We came back home Saturday about 5. We left with a quarter tank of gas and never refilled on the trip. I don't think we drove more than 150 miles.
Mini-vacations are just a really great way to explore your backyard and to relax without a ton of planning and logistics or a ton of money. Best of all - no airlines ;-)
- jjp
There are old train stations along the bike trail where you can get information and water.
We took Friday off and puttered around the house during the morning. We loaded our bikes onto the car just after lunch and headed down to New Glarus. The hotel was nice and let us check in early so we could change into our gear and head out on our bikes.
We rode for about 3 hours through gorgeous country. Sorry, I forgot to grab my camera. The mosquitos were bad enough that taking pictures would have been a blood sport. Good thing about bicycling - keeps the mosquitos off.
We got back about 5:00, cleaned up and went out to dinner at Deininger's Restaurant. Deininger's (I may hate myself for telling everyone) is a great little resaurant. It is cozy and quite and it has really wonderful food. Ena had the Königsberger Klöpse - veal and beef meatballs in a wine and caper sauce. I had the turkey cordon bleu. We started with their tomato bisque and smoked salmon and finished with Peach Melba. Yum.
We walked around Saturday Morning and enjoyed the beautiful Summer morning.
Flowers along the Sugar River Trail
The church
in New GlarusWe headed North to Mineral Point, WI which is an art-antique community about 30 miles away. It is another very pretty small Wisconsin town.
We stumbled on Pendarvis - an old Cornish lead mining community just outside of Mineral Point just as the walking tour started. It was really pretty cool. Some of the old stone houses and log homes were saved by a pair of brothers in the 1930s.
They did beautiful stone work and gardens during the restoration.
The history was pretty wild. The minors would ride down into the lead mine shafts in buckets attached to a windlass.
After hearing about how the miners ate pasties and how the brothers opened restaurant to serve pasties , we had to head into Mineral Point to the Red Rooster Restaurant to have pasties for lunch. The Red Rooster makes a good pasty. (As my brother said, "you guys went to Switzerland and Cornwall in a day. That's pretty good.")
We then went on to Spring Green for their annual art fair which is always fun. There was a very good and very funny a cappella group performing when we got there. They did a song made up completely of bumper sticker sayings. Baby on Board, I Heart My Dog's Head.
We came back home Saturday about 5. We left with a quarter tank of gas and never refilled on the trip. I don't think we drove more than 150 miles.
Mini-vacations are just a really great way to explore your backyard and to relax without a ton of planning and logistics or a ton of money. Best of all - no airlines ;-)
- jjp
Posted: Sun - June 27, 2004 at 10:17 PM
