Wilderness Wandering

9/9/25

We are almost done with seeing all 63 National Parks. We are beginning a more modest quest to see all the WI State Parks. We were heading to the western edge of the state and decided to check out Perrot State Park.

Perrot State Park is located on the Mississippi River in Trempealeau County Wisconsin. It’s 1200 acres of bluffs and woods in the Driftless Area, a region that was never covered by  glaciers during the last Ice Age. The campground has 102 sites. The sites are spacious and private! We were lucky to get the last campsite on Trempealeau Bay.

We enjoyed our dinner looking at the water and watching the sunset. We had a little campfire, but the mosquitos drove us inside. The next morning, we had a fantastic bike ride through the state park and on the roads along the river into the quaint town of Trempealeau.

Before we left the park, we hiked the East Brady’s Trail, 3/4 mile of switchbacks up the face of a bluff on the Mississippi River. We enjoyed the expansive views of the countryside from the top! There was an awesome shelter built by the CCC during the Depression. 

We went north to spend a day with dear friends in Eau Claire. After a fantastic visit with our friends, we headed south to Lanesboro, MN to ride one of our very favorite bike trails, The Root River Trail in SE MN. 

Driving from Eau Claire, we passed through Winona, MN. Tim really likes Winona, so we did a quick driving tour of St. Mary’s University of MN. Then we wound our way south stopping in Rushford for lunch. Rushford is one of the little towns that the Root River Trail passes through. 

The Root River Trail is a 60 mile paved trail in SE MN that runs through picturesque small towns, lush forests, charming bridges, beautiful rock ledges, and meandering rivers. The Root River also offers great opportunities for tubing, kayaking, canoeing and exceptional trout fishing!

We arrived early afternoon to Hwy 251 RV Park and met up with David and Linda, our friends we made along the Southern Tier Bicycle route.  We made camp and enjoyed some fabulous fajitas before rain showers drove us into David and Linda’s comfortable RV for some catching up and reminiscing about our cross country adventures. 

9/10/2025

It rained most of the night, but day dawned with some light fog and soon after blue skies. The four of us rode our bikes from Lanesboro west and south to Preston and then on to Harmony, which is actually an extension of the Root River Trail known as The Harmony-Preston Valley State Trail. We rode 24 miles one way. We took a break in Harmony. 

We had generous servings of ice cream at Breakers. There was a very cool playground with objects you could make music with. On the way back we saw many cyclists. Probably 75% were on ebikes. We also saw a huge snapping turtle on the trail. 

We got back and relaxed. We had a baked potato bar for dinner and made campfire apple crisp in our campfire. 

9/11

We woke up to thick fog. We waited a bit for the fog to thin, then we rode from the RV park onto the bike trail. We savored a glorious ride on perfect pavement through trees changing colors to Rushford. We had a hawk flying just ahead of us for a bit. It would take off and land in a tree along the path and take off again just before we reached it as if it were leading us down the trail.  David and Tim chatted with a guy who has lived in his RV full time for five years and likes to ride his motorcycle.

We rode back to Aroma Pie Shop in Preston. It’s right on the trail and very popular. They are open from 10 to 3 daily. We arrived about 12:15. They were already out of 8 of the 10 types of fruit pie. I got the last piece of blackberry peach pie. Their pie crust is out of this world! A scoop of cinnamon ice cream went extremely well with the pie. Have I ever said I bike to eat?? Tim loved his Coconut Cream pie.

We also checked out Tiger Trail Lefse Chip Company, a cute little family business in Peterson, MN that makes snack chips out of lefse, a very thin Norwegian bread that looks like a tortilla. Lefse has wheat flour but also potato flour in it. The samples did us in, and we bought a few bags to take home. 

Back at the RV park, we showered and rode our bikes 1/2 mile into town for dinner at Pedal Pushers, a bicycle themed restaurant. We sampled some decent deep fried cheese curds and shared a wonderful bowl with shrimp, Brussels sprouts, mango and apple over rice. Then we checked out a very nice art gallery with stunning work by local artists. We ended our visit to town with a visit to Sylvan Brewing. Linda and David shared a flight of some yummy unique beers and Tim and Linda duked it out with a game of Connect Four.  We had a campfire, and smores and star gazed. 

9/12/2025

No fog this morning. Crisp and sunny- perfect riding weather.  We did one more ride from Lanesboro to Fountain. The trees get a little more colorful every day. We had quite a few deer join us on the trail this morning.  The trip to Fountain was slightly uphill most of the way. That made the return route mostly a delightful downhill. Linda didn’t join us for the ride this morning. So she was a gem and rode to Aroma Pie Shop and ordered for us and had it waiting for us when we arrived at 10:30! My Sour Cherry Crumble pie was still warm from the oven! We rode back to the RV park,  packed up and headed home with plans already made for a reunion at another bike route for next year!

If you like to cycle and eat, check out the Root River Trail!