Governor Dodge State Park

[sillygoosegirl]

Josh and I camped Friday and Saturday nights at Governor Dodge State Park. This is our second trip to Governor Dodge since moving to Wisconsin, our previous trip was before all the snow melted and when everything was gray and ugly... it didn't give me a very good impression of the park. As it turns out, it did not give me a fair impression of the park either. Governor Dodge is an absolute gem of a State Park, it is just about everything a state park should be. They have magnificent rock formations, lakes and streams, waterfalls, trees and wildflowers. They have car camping, 1/2 mile in "backpacking" sites, a significant amount of hiking-only trail, biking and horse trails, swimming, boating, and fishing. They don't have rock climbing or weekly big band concerts with dancing... but we didn't much make use of those features at Devil's Lake either. And furthermore, it is only 45 minutes from our home and we showed up at 7pm on the Friday before Memorial Day, and were able to get a site for the full weekend without a reservation (the second to the last available for the full weekend). I am in love.

In researching for this weekend, I also ran across Kickapoo Valley Reserve almost by accident, and it looks like a place worth a trip. It is about 2 hours northwest of here. And on the subject of places to visit, Folklore Village (which is on the way to Governor Dodge) has a number of events I may be interested in, and a nice listing of other things in the area I may be interested in. Little Norway also looks like it is worth a day trip, at only like 10 miles away. Speaking of which, it looks like I don't, strictly speaking, need to become a Pagan to celebrate the Summer Solstice with other people in this area... of course, I might just want to anyway.




There were pretty birds...


And there was a bird's nest right next to the falls...


I had fun with my super-zoom--this is the stream above the falls and photographed from below... it's not often the day is bright enough to do anything with my 24x optical+digital zoom!


Some kid threw a rock into the water right as I was taking a picture. Cool splash, eh?


Next we followed the romantic little stream down away from the waterfall.


I borrowed Josh's wedding ring for some artistic fun. He was very relieved when I gave it back to him.


After that, we headed back up past the waterfall...


On our return trip, we ran across an old "refrigerator" house, which is a house build across the stream which people used to keep their food cold in the summer. It was pretty neat.


Further along the trail, we came to another refrigerator house, this one not over a stream, but just seemed to be full of nasty water. I wouldn't want to store food there, but the toads seem to like it.


After our morning hike, we went back to camp and took naps. Then we went to the beach.


At the beach, this butterfly was kind enough to hold still long enough to be photographed.


Then we decided to go on a little walk, because we'd eaten too much and were not hungry for dinner yet. Our little walk ended up circumnavigating the lake. I don't seem to have taken a picture of the lake, but it was pretty big. There was a wonderful peninsula into the lake, with a side trail along it. It was one of the nicer picnic/snogging sites I've seen in a long while.


I might just make this next one into a user icon.


Also, there were tons of wild flowers. My mom would have liked this trail. We took pictures to entice her to come visit.


There were lots of rock outcroppings like this one. The peninsula into the lake was very much like this.

Comments

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Beautiful pictures!

[zwilichkl.livejournal.com]

Looks like a fun trip! Are you using a timer for the pics of the two of you or did you find convenient strangers to take your picture?

[sillygoosegirl.livejournal.com]

Convenient strangers for the first one... we were still spitting distance from the falls and there were a decent number of people about. Timer for the second... we saw only one other person on the several-mile trail around the lake.

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

Looks gorgeous! I'm wondering, though -- were any of the rocky areas the sort that one could go rock climbing on? I think that was T's favorite part of Devil's Lake. (Not, of course, that one has to have rock climbing every time, but it's useful to know these things.)

Newt

[camlost.livejournal.com]

We didn't spot anything like the rock climbing available at Devil's Lake. I mean, maybe actual rock climbing, but not much scrambling available. There are some rocky bits that jut out places that you go out to, but they aren't large and have vaguely scary cliffs about. The second picture with us together is like that and there is a sharp dropoff into the water behind us. There was some safe climbing-over-rocks to get there, but not much.

[sillygoosegirl.livejournal.com]

What about at the waterfall? I think there were some kids availing themselves of scamping rocks around there, were there not? I don't think T needs a lot of milage...

Anyway, we'll be back at Governor Dodge this summer I'm sure... we can keep a look out for T-safe rock climbing.

[katmerlin.livejournal.com]

Really nice pictures. :). I really like the first waterfall picture in particular.