ROADTRIP! Just me and Greg! It was AWESOME!

Ever since we moved up here eight years ago, we talked about the fact that we are so much closer to so many really awesome things in Wisconsin.  Stuff that was four (or more) hours away is now just a couple hours away.  The only problem was, with the store and everything else happening in our lives, we never had a chance to visit any of them.   We changed all that this weekend!  


We have a reporter/meteorologist on the news that does a piece called "Wandering Wisconsin."  He goes to all sorts of really cool places here in North Central Wisconsin.  Last week, the piece was on an area of the Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest called "Cathedral Pines."    This particular area of the Forest is also the nesting grounds for Great Blue Herons -- one of my favorite birds!  I see them often around here, but have never seen their nests, nor have I ever heard them.  It sounded VERY cool, so we decided (well, OK, I did), to take a "roadtrip" and go explore the Cathedral Pines and see the Herons!


I had to work Saturday morning, so we got kind of a late start, and didn't get on the road until about 1 p.m.  That's OK, though, as we had no other plans for the day.  It was about a two hour or so drive to the area of the forest we wanted to see.  The nice part about it was that it was mostly on a county highway, rather than an interstate, so it was a somewhat "scenic" drive.   A short drive out of Wausau, and we came upon a town with a rather unique name . . . I knew it was here, but Greg didn't.  I convinced him he had to stand near the sign so I could take a picture.  

Greg said he felt silly standing there and me taking a picture, but I'm pretty sure we are not the first folks to take a picture of that sign!  LOL


We still had a bit of a drive after stopping here, but finally made it to the Forest! 

I'm sure by now you're wondering how on earth to pronounce the name of the Forest!   It's pronounced "Schwa-ma-gon."  Simple really!  :-) 






The Cathedral Pines area of the Forest is outside of a small town called Lakewood.  We ended up driving about three miles too far out of town and went right past the road we were supposed to turn on!  DOH!  Oh well, what's a roadtrip without a little detour?!  We figured it out and made it to where we wanted to go . . . 

This part of the forest has some of the oldest and most unique trees in all of Wisconsin. According to the story I saw on TV, "In the 1900's logging companies cleared entire forests supplying lumber for construction. 

But when Lucy Rumsey, wife of the president of the Holt Lumber Company saw the towering trees outside Lakewood, that mentality changed. 

She used to bring her kids here and walk around under the pines and said the sounds of the breezes moving through the tall trees reminded her of a cathedral and she would teach them Bible stories there." "Because of her love of this landscape; that's why these massive trees remain."  

Apparently, these trees were just saplings when George Washington was born!   How cool is that?!  

We thought that there was a "auto tour," and the "hike" looked LONG from the picture above, so we decided to drive on down the road.  We figured out, after a couple miles, that this was not the "auto tour" and we needed to get back to that sign and get out and walk.  That's OK, because I got some really great pictures!  

The road was NOT wide enough for two vehicles, so it was a good thing we didn't run into anyone else!  Isn't it pretty, though?!  

This part of the road was quite a bit larger, and at least had enough room for two vehicles to squeeze past each other.  

We got back to the starting point and started over . . . only this time on foot!  

The pine trees in this part of the forest are HUGE! 

The tree on the left looks like it had been hit by lightning. 

We thought the ones on the right were really cool looking, with the way the grew kind of twisted around each other!

We followed along the paths, looking for the herons.  We could hear one of them, but couldn't find it.  Another person mentioned that he found one, and when we asked him how, he said they looked at the ground, and when they found a lot of bird poop, they looked up and found a nest!  LOL  Sooooo, that's what we did and lo and behold, we found some nests!  

You can see two of the nests in this picture.

In this picture, you can see three nests!  There's a fourth one, but it's somewhat hidden.  

In my desire to try and get a picture of one of the birds, I ended up going off the trail and following the sound of one of the Herons.  I turned around and had the daylights scared out of me!  Hanging in a tree was THIS: 

At first, I thought it was a dead skunk hanging in a tree, but upon closer inspection (but not too close!), I discovered it was a dead heron!  At first, I thought maybe it was a youngster that had fallen out of a tree, but it's not the right time of year for that, as the babies are just hatching.  Not sure what happened here, all I know is that it scared me half to death!  

It was MUCH better to look up and find THIS Heron sitting just above the nest! 

Once we left the Cathedral Pines area of the forest, we decided to head on over to the Mountain Fire Lookout Tower that was not far away.  Of course, we ended up missing our turn once or twice, but again, that was OK!  It was quite a scenic drive, so we didn't mind!  

The Mountain Fire Lookout Tower is the last remaining fire lookout tower in the Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest.   

Walking up the tower reminded me of the lighthouses we visited in the Outer Banks in North Carolina!  LOTS of steps!

  

Looking up the stairs from the bottom.  

I LOVE this picture!  

Of course, I had to get a picture of Greg climbing up! 

The view from the top!  There were no maps or anything at the top, so I'm not sure what/where those hills are in the background.

I know it's a little goofy, but I had to take a picture of the shadow of the tower!  I tried waving, but it didn't show up!  LOL

Greg's afraid of heights, but seemed to be enjoying himself here!  

So, that was our little roadtrip today!  This was one of the very few times we actually went somewhere without the kids!  Erica had to work and didn't want to come with anyway, and Abby was busy working at the neighbors and getting ready to leave for camp on Sunday.  We had a really wonderful time and brought home more information on the Forest with more areas to visit.  The Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest is kind of divided up across the northern half of our State, and there's quite a bit of it in the Northwestern portion of the state.  That's a bit closer to us, so we will be visiting that area and learning more about the forest and it's inhabitants!   

Blessings to all! 

Julie