Playing Hooky

As today approached it was looking pretty busy.  I had five things I either wanted to go to or ought to go to on the calendar but they conflicted, no way I would be able to go to all of them, or even most of them.  One was an all day event - way back when I registered for it the day was clear but then, gradually as the day approached, things kept coming in, all landing squarely on the 17th of September, 2016.  So in the end I had to pick and choose which to go to.  To top if off, all the women-folk I live with decided they wanted to make a run to Chicago to see Erdbeere and family, go through the temple, and visit an Ikea store.  Well, I have heard enough about how Ikea stores are laid out to know I never want to set foot in one.  Plus, making that trip, as nice as it would have been to see Erdbeere and family, was yet another conflict for the day. So I decided not to go.  Most of the stuff I wanted to go to today was in the morning so that made it a little easier to decide what to do.  So I went to the funeral of a friend and decided to skip the afternoon stuff and go play. The afternoon stuff was stuff the grandkids would have been more interested it - the fun for me would have been to see them enjoying themselves. So since they had all gone to Chicago I decided to load my bike into the car and drive to the Dells of Eau Clair County Park.

According to the map, the park is full of trails, including a stretch of the Ice Age Trail, which I have heard a lot about but have been unable to find out very much about in the way of online descriptions or photographs.  Lots about what a wonderful thing it is and the great volunteer effort going on to develop and preserve it, but not much in the way of what its like to actually go on it.  Besides, I have been to the Dells of Eau Claire County Park before and its really a very beautiful little park.  I checked an online map of the park and found there is a bridge, called High Bridge, about 1/2 to 3/4 mile back in the park and decided to try to ride my bike to it.  The Ice Age Trail runs over that bridge so I thought I might be able to actually ride a short stretch of the trail.

One of the most interesting things about the park are the dells themselves, which are right off the parking lot - real easy to get to, even for someone like me who is a bit unsteady on their feet sometimes. So when I got there I spent some time hiking around on the rocks that make up the dells and looking at the water passing through them.

Quite beautiful, quite rapid water.  Not a good place to go swimming, even though some people do from time to time.  But its actually pretty dangerous to swim among the rocks.  There is a swimming beach in the park just up the river, if you want to swim.

This time of year its getting too cold again to swim anyway.  Today's temperature was only in the low 70's.

The rapids are a stretch of the river maybe 100 yards long.  Then the water settles down and becomes quite placid again.

It became apparent pretty quick that the Ice Age Trail does not lend itself well to bicycling.  More suited to walking.  But I still wanted to get to the bridge so I decided to give it a try anyway.

This little foot bridge had a smooth, even approach from the east but the west end had two steps.

There were portions of the trail that were smooth and level but they never lasted very long.

There was also a stretch where the channel started to get pretty narrow again.  There was even a switch-back at one point as the trail moved up the side of the hill, away from the water.  Away as in higher up the side of the canyon from the water.

Then High Bridge came into view.  It appeared to be wide enough that at one time it may have actually been able to accommodate cars, back before they got so big as they did in the 40s and 50s.  But now days the bridge is for foot traffic only.

Part of that is because the approach to the bridge from either side involves steps.  The south side not so bad.

The north approach, however, has some pretty steep steps.  No biking on this trail.  At least, not the kind of biking I do.

Besides, there were other portions of the trail that were pretty rocky and uneven anyway.  Lots of stones and roots to deal with.

In the end I was able to make it to High Bridge and back but I would never try doing it on a bike. This is strictly a hiking trail.  But it was a nice hike - the fall colors have begun.  Not much but a little bit of color.  And leaves have begun to fall, as well.  A nice time of year.

After getting back from the hike to High Bridge it was time for the second half of the afternoon's adventure.  I had recently discovered a covered bridge that was either fairly new or I had simply missed it in all the other times I had been looking for covered bridges.  And this bridge was on biking trail - no motor vehicles allowed.  I had to go.

And what added more to my delight, I found there was a second covered bridge just down the trail from the first!  This one hadn't been listed and it wasn't very long or big.  But it was cool enough to go through!  And under some train tracks, no less!  Both bridges were over small creeks.

A little further along the route I had mapped out was a bridge over the Wisconsin River.  Not covered, but cool enough nonetheless.

The total route I had mapped out was about five and a half miles from the first covered bridge to a little park named Bluegill Bay park.

I arrived at the park and rode around on some trails through the park. This park was on the flowage behind a damn on the Wisconsin River, just below the confluence with the Eau Claire River.  A nice little park.

Today, as I was there, there were only a few other people at the park so it was pretty quiet.  I had driven there several weeks before, just to check it out when I was in the area, and there had been quite a a bigger crowd that day.  Maybe the cooler weather has slowed the traffic down.  Anyway, after biking around it was time to retrace my route back to the covered bridges, to the place where I had left the car.

It was a nice ride, part trail and part on quiet city streets.  I went by three small parks on the way to Bluegill.  All in all, a nice day.  A total of a little under twelve miles.  And the weather was cooperative, too.  It was cloudy pretty much the whole time, with only a slight breeze.  A couple of times it got pretty threatening, like it was going to rain, but other than a few light sprinkles, it never did.  Almost perfect biking weather.  I was actually glad I had worn a jacket.

It was a good day.