Vacation / Travel Supplement

Fun and affordable: For a truly varied vacation, visit Wisconsin

Sailing in Green Bay in Lake Michigan is a fun recreational activity during a vacation in Wisconsin. Door County, a peninsula in the northeast corner of the state, is located between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The scenic peninsula and Washington Island offshore, which is reached by a daily ferry boat, are popular tourist destinations. (Submitted photo)

By Cynthia Dewes (Special to The Criterion)

To most of us, Wisconsin may seem like an inviting travel destination, and for me it has the added attraction of being home to many members of my family.

For all of us in Indiana, when gasoline prices are high it’s an economical and fun place to go on vacation.

Scandinavians make up a large part of Wisconsin’s population, including my Norwegian Lutheran relatives, who attend one of the many typical and picturesque country churches in their west-central area.

But Wisconsin has more to offer than Norwegian bachelor farmers and lutefisk, which is probably a plus in the minds of many tourists.

One of my favorite places to stop is Lena and Ole’s Gift Store in Woodville. Here you may find all manner of Scandinavian and other European items, ranging from Christmas candles, fine china and lace table runners to krumkake irons and lefse mixes. It’s where I annually stock up on nostalgia.

Nearby is the Cady Creek Cheese Factory and Shoppe, where you may purchase all-natural cheeses of every variety. No surprise, since Wisconsin is well-known for its dairy farming. The organic food movement has really caught on there in other types of farming as well.

“The Western Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas,” found at www.farmfreshatlas.org, provides a long list of locally grown fresh produce, meats, honey, maple syrup, herbs and flowers, most of them organic and all for sale.

Farther down the road near Spring Valley, the rolling farmland turns to wooded ravines and creeks. Here you find Crystal Cave, advertised as “Wisconsin’s Longest Cave Underground.” When I was taken there as a pre-school student, it sure seemed to be exactly that.

Wisconsin is also known for its hunting, fishing, boating and many other outdoor opportunities for fun in any season.

Door County is a peninsula in the northeast corner of the state, lying between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. It’s a popular tourist destination as is Washington Island offshore, reached by a daily ferry boat. Towns such as Sister Bay, Fish Creek and Egg Harbor line the peninsula, offering cabins and other vacation accommodations, restaurants and sporting equipment rentals.

One popular event is the Fish Boil, in which potatoes, onions, codfish or other white fish are boiled in a gigantic kettle outdoors and ladled onto eager diners’ plates.

Further south and west is Wisconsin Dells, another popular tourist spot and venue for weddings and honeymoons. In fact, my parents were married there long ago. It’s like Myrtle Beach West, with every kind of resort, dining, entertainment attraction and shopping imaginable, most of it family-oriented.

When our kids were young, we used to stay nearby in Pioneer Park, a family campground which offered a large outdoor swimming pool. Wisconsin may be cold in the winter, but it can be terribly hot in the summer, and the pool was the family-on-a-budget’s answer to cooling off in the heat. Children will also love the gorgeous but expensive water park in town.

Of course, Wisconsin Dells is most famous for its beautiful site on the Wisconsin River, including the dells—lined with impressive rock formations—and Lake Delton. The Original Wisconsin Ducks and other boats are available to take visitors on tours of the scenic wilderness.

Wisconsin offers a different kind of beauty in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect who is a native of the state. His home, Taliesin, and the FLW Architectural School occupy a 600-acre estate near the Wisconsin River valley town of Spring Green. The home was renovated twice after fires, but still displays the cantilevered roof, large windows, great room with huge fireplace, and open floor plan that mark Wright’s distinctive style.

Another Wright project is the Seth Peterson Cottage, located seven miles southwest of Wisconsin Dells, which we happened to visit by chance on the day it was dedicated as part of Mirror Lake State Park in 1992.

The cottage was one of Wright’s last commissions, built in 1958 for a young man who was a great admirer of the then-90-year-old architect. Peterson’s untimely death left the cottage in the hands of others until it finally fell into disrepair in 1966. Today, the cottage is the only Wright property available for vacation rental.

According to a Wisconsin Heritage brochure, the cottage contains “more architecture per square foot than any building Wright ever built.”

Other Wright creations include the S.C. Johnson (wax) headquarters in Racine, and buildings in Milwaukee, Richland Center and Madison.

Wisconsin indeed contains many more interesting things in addition to Lena and Ole jokes, and herds of placid cows. This summer might just be the time to give it a try.

(Cynthia Dewes is a member of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Greencastle, and is a regular columnist for The Criterion.) †