Autumn Vacation, Part 1

Thankful for asters providing late season color.

It's been quite awhile since I've written on this blog, but my family has just returned from a trip to Wisconsin and back, and I have more I want to share about it than just throwing some pictures up to Facebook.

Our primary destination was a small cabin outside Viroqua, Wisconsin. We wanted to spend some time away from the internet, TV, and other distractions. It was perfect, because even though we had our phones with us, we rarely had any data coverage. Between us, we read several books, drew some pictures, kicked crunchy leaves, threw sticks into streams, ate lunch outside, and took lots of photos.

Why Viroqua? Years ago (I don't remember how I found it), I used to read a blog called Drift Less, Learn More. It's no longer active, but it was written by an environmental educator about her life there. (She's no longer in Wisconsin--she lives in Maine now, and you can find her on Instagram.) Ever since then, I've been interested in visiting the Driftless area. So when Jonathan and I were considering visiting Wisconsin, Viroqua came up as an option. From there, I found the cabin on AirBnB. I'll share more about it later!

But before we got to all that, we realized that the Effigy Mounds National Monument was along the way. Since I was a kid, I have been intrigued by the prehistoric effigy mounds, but rarely went to the eastern side of the state and never visited. I've seen little round mounds in other places, but not effigy mounds.

Toting a toddler, we weren't able to hike to very many effigies, but we saw Little Bear and Great Bear, as well as the conical and liner mounds along the way. It was an honor to visit the sacred places of ancient and present native people.

Conical mounds stretching out to Fire Point

Same as above

Great Bear Mound

Tree shadows next to Little Bear