Bayfield, WI

Back to Wisconsin and back to the shores of Lake Superior

The Mall of America doesn’t open until 10am so there was no chance of any last minute shopping spree ! Instead we packed up and started our tour north again, with our destination today back in the north of Wisconsin and back to the shores of Lake Superior.

Again the scenery fluctuated from the agricultural areas to the forested/lake areas where many small towns must just thrive on very short tourist seasons. We have certainly found over the past few days as the weather has turned cooler, that now at the end of August – still theoretically summer – most of the “local” tourists have gone already and many of these little towns are already pretty quiet ! And whilst Minnesota is the “land of 10,000 lakes”, Wisconsin has a reasonable share also.

Our first stop not too far along today was Franconia Sculpture Park.  It is an outdoor sculpture park that offers a combination of work, residence, and exhibition space for emerging and established artists. The 43-acre park has a rotating collection of over 120 contemporary sculptures. And it is huge ! Not far from the entrance is an area which seems to be the “construction zone” where the artists use communal resources – welding machines, band saws, etc – to assist in the construction of their creations. We wandered around for a while to take in some of these.

Leaving here, not much further along is the Minnesota Interstate State Park which has fine views of the St Croix National Scenic Riverway. The St Croix river essentially acts as the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin in these parts. We walked down to the river and took in some of the unique land formations “glacial potholes” which were formed from the circular thrust of water and rocks through molten rock to create large “potholes” in the harder rock and leave rounded “balls” created from the circular motion of the movement of the water.

Just across the river into Wisconsin, we stopped at the dam which was once a waterfall on the river.

With all the cheese around, we felt we had to stop at one of the many cheese factories so found Comstock Creamery Working Dairy. It is actually the Ellsworth Creamery Company which now sell many cheese and dairy products. As we had already tried some Wisconsin cheese, we decided to get some of the famous cheese curds to have with our coffee. And Ellsworth was proclaimed the “Cheese Curd Capital of the World” (well Wisconsin anyway) in 1983 !

Armed with our curds, we trundled along highway 63 stopping briefly for our coffee before arriving back on the shores of Lake Superior at Ashland, on Chequamegon Bay. Ashland is a nice old town and they have created “Ashland Mural Walk” around part of the old town. The buildings date back to the 1800’s and around 8 blocks of the Main Street business district is a walk through Ashland’s history as seen through the eyes of mural artists Kelly Meredith and Susan Prentice Martinsen. There are over eighteen murals depicting people and events from Ashland’s past. The display is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

We left Ashland and followed the bay back around the lake shoreline further north for our final destination, Bayfield, arriving around 4pm. We checked in and then had a walk around the town. It is right on the water and there is even a car ferry service which chugs back and forward to nearby Madeline Island.

The weather is certainly cooler the last few days – probably high teens, and cooler with the wind – and there has been a lot of cloud around. When we stopped to have our coffee today in a little park on a lake in a town called Shell Lake, it was damn cold ! Although the weather predicted otherwise, by the time we reached Bayfield late afternoon it was quite sunny and pleasant as we walked around the town. Our hotel, the Bayfront Inn, is right on the waterfront overlooking the bay.

Our aim in Bayfield was to do an Apostle Island Cruise – similar to the one we did at Munising where the boats take you out along the lakefront on Lake Superior where the water has eroded the sandstone lakeshore. These are not as high and spectacular but the erosion is probably more creating bigger cave indentations. In winter, they form ice caves where the water dripping down freezes. Unfortunately, due to the lack of numbers presumably, or possibly the choppy lake conditions, the cruise didn’t run so we decided to have an easy self catered dinner on our balcony over looking the bay.

Tomorrow we farewell Winsconsin as we head for further northern reaches of Minnesota …

Today’s Tour Trivia – Barbie, the improbably-proportioned doll of a million career and wardrobe changes, comes from the (fictional) town of Willows, Wisconsin