Grant Park

Yesterday Isaac and I wanted to enjoy the beautiful weekend by getting out in the wilderness. Unfortunately, Wisconsin has a different idea of wilderness than what we were used to in Utah.


For example: the state of Wisconsin charges you for everything. If you want to go to a state park, you have to buy a $25 pass. If you want to bike, you have to buy a $20 pass per person. If you want to camp, you pay a $15 camping fee + $10 reservation fee, just to stay overnight on a 10x10 ft pad in a 700 acre "nature preserve". The state parks are really small patches of land in the middle of a city, so you can hear and see cars driving by. They claim the parks have 5 miles of hiking trails, but since there are no mountains (or hills) it is more like light walking as opposed to hiking. When you look at the map of the "hiking trails" it says 0.2 miles from the parking lot to the tent site, 0.2 miles from the tent site to the bathroom, 0.2 miles from the tent site to the lake, etc. so when you add up the total mileage, there are 5 miles of walking. (That's not quite what we are looking for in a hike.) They don't quite comprehend the idea of having hundreds of miles of absolutely nothing where you can hike for 10+ miles without running into anything.
Anyway, Isaac and I went to a place called "Grant Park". We had to drive about 20 miles to get to the park, but it was the closest thing we have found to wilderness. We walked along a 0.5 mile hiking trail to the lake shore, where there were tons of people (including a wedding party with a woman in a wedding dress, so that shows how difficult this trail was if a woman was willing to walk it in high heels). Then we wandered around some side trails until we popped out at a normal city park with little kiddies playing soccer. Fortunately Isaac brought his new frisbee, so we tossed that back and forth for a while. (Isaac has a lot of energy, so he wanted to improve his Ultimate skills by making me throw the frisbee far away and making him run for it. I felt more like I had a pet dog than a husband.) But we had a good time anyway, and the scenery was very beautiful.


Next weekend Isaac and I are planning to go camping with some friends, so check back soon to see how that turns out.