Turned out to be my dream trail! We rode the trail on a sunny Saturday in July from Kendall to Sparta, about 31 miles when you add various excursions to explore little towns and shops along the trail.  The trail itself was hard-packed dirt, a fine surface for riding, and we were under a canopy of trees almost all the time which provided perfect shade and the feel of a sun-dappled lane. I was a little nervous about the three famous railroad tunnels en route – and they were, as promised, very dark and one was almost a mile long with literally no light at the end of the tunnel for some time. I was very glad that we brought flashlights. I noticed that some of the parents with young kids kept up a steady patter as they walked through the tunnel and I found that chatting with D. helped keep my mind off of the fact that we were practically entombed in this dark chamber in the earth. Some kids wore lights strapped around their foreheads like junior coal miners. This is as close to mining as I’d ever want to get.

The scenery otherwise was bucolic Wisconsin dairy land, tidy farms with red barns, blue silos, white wood frame farmhouses, grazing cattle and perfect green cornfields. Really lovely.  There were some fun places along the trail to stop – near Wilton, the Dorset Valley School Restaurant & Bakery, a former school house which now has a restaurant, an Amish furniture shop (where I bought a great little bent hickory and tile table – and picked up later in the car), a coffee/fresh smoothie shop and my personal favorite, a barber. One rider got his hair cut mid ride!  A b&b is next door.

There was also a popular trailside ice cream shop that was doing a banner biz with families with little kids. The famous pie shop is no more in Wilton replaced by another cafe that looked fun. We opted instead to picnic in the pretty town park, near the busy public pool.  The trail was busy but not too – and there were fewer hard core speedsters than we’re used to on Iowa’s trails – and no riders with boom boxes either. Amen!