The main reason we made this stop near Baraboo, Wisconsin, was because we wanted to spend some time in Devil's Lake State Park. The rock climbing guide from our trip to Arkansas in April was from Baraboo, and she told us her favorite place to climb was Devil's Lake. So after three days of planning around the heat and the smoke, we were up early this morning to (finally) make the hike. The smoke moved out and when we started the hike at 7 a.m. It was a comfortable temperature in the 70's.
We started at the CCC parking lot within the state park. That's because we had read that this would give us the hard part of the hike first when we were freshest and the temperature was the coolest. This hike was rated as strenuous, and we soon found out why.
We were on a constant uphill climb. It was like being on a stairmaster to the top of the bluff overlooking Devil's Lake.
At times we would come out of the forest to an overlook. We paused there for the increasingly higher views--and to catch our breath.
This hike reminded us of Colorado hikes, where steep scree fields often decorate the sides of mountains.
The only other people we found on this early morning hike were rock climbers. These rock faces are well-known to experienced climbers like our guide in Arkansas.
We talked to a guide getting a route set up for a group of guys for a bachelor party. This natural rock face does not have permanent anchors. So this guide must lay out a route and put natural anchors on the rocks.
These rock faces are straight down, and it was a long ways to the ground.
The smoke had pretty well left this area, but this day we had a thick layer of low clouds that was hiding the sunrise.
We hiked closer. At first, Mark was content to stand at the bottom of the Devil's Window formation.
Then he climbed behind the rocks and onto the platform to the left of the rocks. The lighting wasn't great, but you can see him if you look carefully in the bottom left corner of the picture below.
Then four boys and a father showed up, and they scrambled their way into the opening of the window. We took some pictures for them. Well, we guess if a bunch of kids can do it, so can an old man. He might have a scraped shin as a souvenir, but we got the signature shot of Mark right in the Devil's Window!
We hiked back up the trail to the ledge, for the last picture high above Devil's Lake.
Then it was the worst part of the hike--going all the way down on that endless stairmaster. Denisa actually prefers going up rather than down. Her knees don't like that constant downward motion. No one has ever fallen UP the mountain, but falling DOWN this steep set of slippery rock steps was a very real possibility. We have developed a system where Denisa laces her fingers through the back strap on Mark's backpack. That gives her a stabilizer that saved her from two different falls on the way down this day.
Half-way down was another of this park's best rock formations. It's a small detour to "balanced rock."
While Denisa was content to sit beside the rock, of course Mark thought it would be a better picture to stand beside it. That's a big hunk of rock trying to nudge him off the steep edge.
Back down at lake level, it was another mile's hike to get back to the pickup. We hiked 2.5 miles with 610 feet in elevation gain on this early morning hike. It was warming up, but we were glad that we had finally seen the view from the window at Devil's Lake.
The good thing about getting up so early is that we still had a lot of morning left. So we made the drive into Baraboo for their Saturday morning farmer's market. We found some interestingly purple bread at one of the booths. Made from the Ube (pronounced "you-bay") plant, the vender was raised in the Philippines where ube is popular.
We are always looking for interesting things to eat in new places. We had a colorful picture from our three farmer's market purchases--purple Spanish ube bread, red goat meat stick, and a green zucchini squash.
We took showers, hooked up the trailer and dumped tanks, and were on the road to our next destination before lunch. It was a three hour drive across central Wisconsin where we zigged and zagged across county roads. The good news was that some of those narrow paved roads were through Amish communities. We love finding things like a field of wheat put up in shocks.
As soon as we saw the Amish buggy signs along the highway, Denisa started googling for bakeries. Our phone signal was almost non-existent, but we lucked into finding "Oven Fresh Bakery" somewhere down a county road in central Wisconsin. There was no parking for the trailer on this narrow country road, so Mark stayed in the pickup while Denisa bought a pan of caramel pecan rolls, a peach fried pie, a cream-filled bismarc, and a piece of pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Only open on Friday and Saturday, we were lucky to be here at the right time. With the number of customers carrying out huge bags of baked goods, we were also lucky to have some inventory left to purchase.
While Denisa was shopping, Mark caught sight of movement on the hillside. A horse-powered mower was cutting the grass on the hill.
With our sweet Amish treasures, we were back on the road and excited about our next destination. We pulled into a Boondocker Welcome site in Door County, Wisconsin. It was a perfectly level spot near a grass air strip, and we were parked in front of their hangar. It was so fun meeting our host, who had local tourist information and smoke masks for us. The air quality was actually better today than yesterday, but still hovering in the unhealthy zone.
We couldn't wait to start exploring Door County. So we made the three mile drive to a nearby county park for our first view of our first of the five Great Lakes on this trip.
This is Lake Michigan, and specifically Green Bay. That fluorescent sun is getting low in the sky over one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the world. It felt more like we were on an ocean beach instead of a lake shore.
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