July 16, 2011 · 5:46 pm

Another good option for eating out in Iowa City

It’s always hard to choose a place to eat in Iowa City because there are so many good options. Now there’s another – Short’s Burger and Shine. It’s an upscale burger joint on Clinton St. right across from campus – that touts its locally-produced meat and Iowa-produced beer (Millstream, Peace Tree) and cider (Sutliff). It’s also supposed to have good black bean veggie burgers. We stopped for a burger at 7 p.m. on a Friday and got a seat at the bar in the dark, narrow little exposed-brick restaurant. Burger oozing with real cheese accompanied by delicious hand-cut (or some such) fries came out shortly after. We were back on the road – as we needed to be – by 8 p.m. Bartender was a cute kid who did his job well. My only beef: I couldn’t get a rare burger. Closest I could get to rare was medium.

Fun Fact: the name comes from H.D. Short, who ran a shoe shine shop were the burgers now shine! “Expert Workman – best materials used – prompt service” was and remains the motto for both businesses.

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July 15, 2011 · 6:28 pm

When we return to west-central Wisconsin – what to do

I always seem to return home from a trip with things I didn’t do but want to remember to do during our next visit. So here’s some of those for West-Central Wisconsin:

– bike on the 25-mile Great River State Trail which goes through  Trempealeau. We’re told we can get shuttle service for this too – which we loved having on the Elroy-Sparta trail (it meant we could ride one way and be picked up at the end, rather than having to doubleback on the trail)

– in Pepin – maybe stay at A Summer Place http://www.summerplace.net (looked nice. It’s open mid-March to mid-November); other options include Lake Pepin Beach House, Journey Inn (an eco-retreat) and Pepin Farm Pottery and Guest house; TansyHus in Stockholm

– Go to the Oct. 7-9 Fresh Art Fall tour – a self-guided tour of seventeen artists studios and galleries in Lake Pepin region. see http://www.freshart.org including Gail Pommerening’s studio in Plum City (we liked her store, Art & Soul in Alma)

– in Stockholm – win the lottery so I can afford to buy something at the wonderful gallery, Abode.

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July 15, 2011 · 12:51 am

How to find the best backroads in Wisconsin

For some reason, we could not get a Wisconsin map at any of the tourist offices we visited while there last weekend – and we tried several. Perhaps it’s part of some budget cutback? Anyway, it forced us to rely on partial maps we found at the tourism offices – most notably a multi-county map of good roads for bicyclists.  The one we used was the West-Central Wisconsin State Bike Trails map, which includes “safe roads to ride,” “bike trails” and “Amish community.”  With it, we found a pretty series of mostly letter-named roads that went diagonally from Sparta northwest to Alma on the Mississippi. I suppose cyclists wouldn’t appreciate me sending car drivers on these roads but the fact is, they were great for both.  We took I-90 west to 108 north to Mindon, then VV (not to be confused with W, as I did) to Ettrick, then D, and T to Acadia, then 95 to E to Waumandee, then more E to 88 and my favorite named town – Cream, Wisconsin – and then E again to Alma. You do have to pay attention because these road names/numbers change pretty quickly.

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July 13, 2011 · 10:45 pm

Exploring Wisconsin’s Mississippi Coast

Last Saturday, we drove along the Mississippi Coast of central Wisconsin, stopping in several towns well-appointed for tourists including Alma, Nelson, Pepin and Stockholm.  The last stop was most surprising since it’s a tiny town but totally decked out for visitors with a lots of interesting shops and restaurants including a topnotch art gallery/crafts shop, Abode, that has Santa Fe quality work and the Bogus Cafe, which has a nice outdoor patio for dining.

In tiny Pepin across from the harbor we ate at the aptly named Harbor View Cafe.  Inside the cheerful old building, we found a pretty dining room lined with books stacked in high built-in shelves and a lovely  The food was sophisticated and a wee pricey – and a tad heavy for a hot July afternoon, especially since the restaurant’s air-conditioning was on the blink. Terrific homemade bread, caesar salad and gazpacho would have been enough. But the entrees were huge, heavy and hot – I had sautéed chicken with garlic, chipotle sauce atop linguine; D. had a pork shank in a too-sweet sauce. Would have been fine fare on a winter’s night.

In Alma we stopped at Fire and Ice for iced coffee and chanced upon a remarkable two-story garden in the back of the shop’s old building, beautifully landscaped with topiary, statues of near-naked men. Turns out the place is owned by a guy who is fixing up several adjacent buildings – as shops and a hotel. He gave us a little tour of the hotel which has almost rococo decor. His motto “It’s not done until it’s overdone” and his slogan “French without the attitude.) The place is called the Hotel de ville. (oui, oui.) We also visited a nice craft shop next to the cafe run by an artist who donates part of the proceeds to charity.

In Nelson, we stopped at the creamery – mostly because we were drawn to the big old brick building. Inside they served ice cream (no samples though, which seemed stingy) and light sandwiches (yes, we should have eaten dinner here) and had a wine bar in the back. Cool space. Lots of people.

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July 12, 2011 · 11:43 pm

Sparta-Elroy/Elroy-Sparta Trail in Wisconsin

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!

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July 12, 2011 · 3:50 am

A tale of two beds – in western Wisconsin

Just back from a great trip to southwestern/west-central Wisconsin where the difference in the two places that we stayed may best be described as a tale of two beds. The first bed appeared to be as old as the historic hotel it was in – which dates to the 1880s. Sagging and soft from the start, it sat atop bouncy springs that creaked and moaned at our slightest move. Not good. The room itself was small but had considerable old world character, kind of like a place Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have stayed at after a robbery. We shared a bathroom with several other rooms – the bathroom down the hall. It was surprisingly available. We only saw one other lodger – a bearded biker who greeted us from his room by waving a bottle and asking “Want some Cherry bomb?” Um, no thank you. But hey, the room at the historic Trempealeau Hotel in Trempealeau, Wi. along the banks of the Mississippi River was $43.20.

The second bed was maybe the best bed I’ve ever slept in – king-sized (which the owner of our b&b said means it’s as wide as a queen bed is long…) with a special remote control that you can use to adjust the firmness ON EACH SIDE. I went with 45 (who knew) and Dirck went with 40. And we were both very happy at the lovely Justin Trails B&B Resort outside Sparta, Wi.  We stayed in the “Garden Suite” – on the side of a sunny yellow farmhouse on a former dairy farm with a big red barn, two newly built cabins,  lovely grounds, two lamas (Dusty and Rusty). We had a large room, with a glassed in porch overlooking a beautiful garden and beyond that a cornfield, a white barn and blue silo in the distance, and a green bluff rising beyond that. Classic gorgeous Wisconsin dairyland.  We never saw any other guest although apparently there were some. And that’s what you get for $135 (or so) a night. More tomorrow.

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July 8, 2011 · 9:09 pm

trempealeau hotel

Well I booked the last room this old hotel has for the evening – $40 and sharing a bathroom – but figured worth a try and more interesting certainly than our other dirt cheap options for one night (i.e. the howard Johnson’s in La Crosse which sounds grim.) This hotel at least has character, is right on the Mississippi and isn’t that far from where we need to be the next day (about 40 minutes from Sparta.) It’s “Catfish Days” in the tiny town of Trempealeau so going to be lively, we’re told. We pick up the key at the bar!

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July 7, 2011 · 10:44 pm

Off to bike/canoe in southwest Wisconsin!

We’re finally leaving tomorrow for three days in southwest Wisconsin around La Crosse, spending one day riding the famous Sparta-Elroy trail and the next maybe canoeing on the Kickapoo River or driving north on the Mississippi to re-visit towns like Trempealeau and Pepin that we went to some 20 years ago. In Sparta, we’re staying for two nights at Justin Trails B&B Inn which comes well-recommended by a friend here. (We were tempted to stay one night at the old Trempealeau Hotel – for much less than the Inn but figure it’s best to stay put.  Not sure where we’ll stay tomorrow night en route or, i hope, in La Crosse.Planning to bring picnic stuff since restaurant options are reportedly limited.

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July 2, 2011 · 5:19 pm

VBT – a long way from Vermont Bicycle Touring

I guess there’s a reason Vermont Bicycle Touring changed its name to VBT – they don’t seem to offer many trips in Vermont, judging from their latest catalog of hiking and biking vacations all over Europe, South America, Central America and the U.S. My family was among the first to go on VBT trips back in the early 1970s (I see from the catalog that the company is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary – so that’s about right) and they were wonderful. We biked from beautiful country inn to beautiful country inn w/great food and scenery. Now looks like might not be in our price range. Oh well.

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July 1, 2011 · 10:32 pm

Iowa county fairs to visit

Yes, the big kahuna is Iowa’s state fair – and it is all it’s cracked up to be. But here’s some county fairs in Iowa that are worth a visit according to Iowa Farm Bureau’s Family Living publication (which my husband happens to edit…):

– Clayton County Fair (aug. 2-8) in beautiful northeast Iowa, which will have its first “officially sanctioned” bull-riding event (not clear if this is the first or the first officially sanctioned.)

– Cherokee County Fair (july 7-1o)

– Adair County Fair, (july 20-24) with an Ag-themed Olympics and a text messaging contest (not ag-themed). Something for everyone!

– Washington County Fair (july 17-22) and check out the surprisingly authentic, sophisticated Italian restaurant Cafe Dodici in Washington if you haven’t filled up on fair fare.

No mention of the famous Clay County Fair  in Spencer, (sept. 10-18) with is almost as huge as the Iowa State Fair, I’m told.

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