An Afternoon Drive

It had been a while so we decided the other day we wanted to go for a drive.  I keep a list of interesting places around the state that I would some day like to visit. It's the closest thing I have to a "bucket list", I suppose.  Anyway, Brombeere said she didn't have any place in particular in mind, she just wanted to go for an afternoon drive so I picked a place and that's where we went. Actually, where I began, when picking the place, was picking one of the many "rustic roads" our state has designated.  I wanted to go to a new one, one I hadn't been to before.  And I wanted it to be along one.  To earn the designation Rustic Road, a road has to be at least two miles long, among other things.  I wanted one longer than that so I looked at the map and picked one that was long.  It just happened to also be in a state park I have had on my list for a while; two birds with one stone!

The road began at the top of the Black River State Forest and is 12 miles long.

This winter in our state there's been a lot of snow.  Unfortunately, it's usually been followed each time by warmer weather.  So we'd get a really nice, heavy snow fall.  It would stay cold for a week or so and then it would get warm, which would cause a lot of the snow to melt.

As we drove along the road you could see the effects of the heavy snow.  Not only would there be a lot, but it would also be heavier than normal, a little wetter than normal.  That makes good packing snow,  good snowman snow, good snowball snow.  But it can also be hard on trees and shrubbery.

So we saw lots of bent-over trees, lots of broken limbs.  A hard winter, some might call it.

But it was still a pretty drive.  It was an overcast day, it might have been prettier if the sun had been out, shinning bright in the winter sky.  But it was still a very pretty drive.  This forest was in what is referred to as the "driftless area", the leading edge of the ancient glacier that used to cover most of the state.  So in front of the glacier a lot of dirt got pushed around, resulting in today's hills found all over in the southwest part of the state.  It's a very pretty area.

We did find one parking area that had been plowed out, the parking area for the trailhead of a number of trails through the forest, used for hiking and cross country skiing in the winter.  So we stopped to look around.

We might have tried a picnic, there were, after all, some picnic tables, and we found a nearby water pump.

But the snow was a bit deep and the pump turned off, if not frozen.  So we decided to pass on the picnic.

Some of the small stream and ponds were frozen over.  Others were not; very picturesque.

Eventually we came to the end of the officially designated rustic road so we turned around and drove back along the road and through the forest.  It was a very nice drive, a good time together. The whole time we had only seen four or five other cars, we'd nearly had the park to ourselves.  We enjoyed the time very much.  It also left us feeling like we needed to come back when it was warmer; have that picnic, or maybe even go camping for a day or two.  Maybe even bring the bikes back and try one or two of the trails that were all covered with snow this time.  That could be a fun time.  But today, it was a good drive, that was all we were looking for.  But it was everything we were looking for.