Wilderness Wandering

October 22, 2026

We departed Lake Mills on a beautiful blue sky Thursday and arrived late morning at Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee. Lakeside is the smallest state park. It is a 22 acre strip of island in Milwaukee Harbor and was created from the rubble of Milwaukee’s Deep Tunnel Project. It became a state park in 1998. 

You can reach the park via bridge or water. There are 1.7 miles of paved trail that connect to The Hank Aaron State Trail. You can fish and bird watch. It appears to be a popular running and walking path. We enjoyed ambling around and seeing the Milwaukee skyline. 

We continued north to Kohler Andrae State Park. Kohler Andrae is one of my favorites. The park is 1000 acres and features 2 miles of sand dunes and Lake Michigan beaches. The weather changed from Milwaukee to Kohler. The lake and beach had an eerie fog hanging over them. You could barely see the sun through the fog. 

This was the first time the Nature Center was open while I was here. It’s full of good exhibits and very informational. There are stairs to the roof, but due to the fog, we couldn’t see much. We walked south from the Nature Center along the Lake Michigan shore scaring lots of seagulls, and geese. At the parks southern border we turned in land and caught part of a trail heading north until we reached the boardwalk and took that through the sand dunes back to Calypso at the Nature Center. By then it was late enough for us to go to our campsite. 

The campground is simply gorgeous! There were many leaves on the ground, but still a lot on the trees, too. Our site was very large and we didn’t have anyone near us. We started a campfire right away, since it felt a little chilly. We heated up some soup I made at home and ate by the campfire. 

Later, we watched a few episodes of The Diplomat, a Netflix series we have been enjoying and Tim was able to see some of the Bears game on his phone. 

The campground was so dark and  quiet that we didn’t need to put down any curtains in the van. 

October 23, 2026

We woke up a little before sunrise and had some breakfast. We walked a trail to The Black River Marsh Boardwalk. Along the way we stopped to chat with two ladies who were sitting by their morning campfire. They camp in a utility trailer that they pull with a pickup truck. 

We have been amazed at the variety and amount of mushrooms we have seen everywhere we have walked this fall. This park was no exception. When we got back to the van, we packed up and headed to our next destination.

Lizard Mound State Park is in

West Bend, WI. I hadn’t heard of Lizard Mound. It was created in 1950 and is also about 22 acres.  The park preserves an indigenous burial ground and cultural landscape. It features a large, well preserved effigy mound group. The area is considered sacred to indigenous people. Between 1250 and 800 years ago, about 61 earthen mounds were built. 28 are preserved in the shapes of panthers, birds, linear and conical forms. We learned a lot and the woods were really beautiful. This is a day use only park, so no camping is available in the park.

On an impulse, we navigated over to Horicon Marsh. We’d been there before at a different time of year and the Visitor Center had been closed. Horicon Marsh isn’t a state park. It is a State Wildlife Area as well as a National Wildlife Refuge. There are three Visitor Centers around the perimeter of this gigantic marsh.

We visited all three and they were all great. At one of them, a volunteer was playing Iris by the Googoo Dolls on a ukulele and pipes. 😊

We mostly drove the perimeter of the marsh. We didn’t do much hiking. We saw swans, geese and many ducks. We want to bring our kayaks up next year!

Next, we drove southeast to Lake Kegonsa State Park just outside Stoughton. This 342 acre park is popular with fishermen. The lake is a 3209 acre glacial lake. 

We showed up without a reservation and drove through the campground checking out the sites that were open. We selected a site and then drove over to check out the beach.  The beach is on the small side, but it has a a beautiful shower and changing house and very nice playground.

Back at our site, the camp hosts drove by and Tim flagged them down to ask if we could purchase some firewood. They were very sweet and went and brought us two bundles of wood.  

We enjoyed the evening with our campfire, and listening to geese honking. The first game of The World Series was on. We could hear cheering from various parts of the campground!

October 24,  2026

Woke up to a pretty sunrise and perfect crisp fall temperature. After breakfast we hiked two trails in the park. The Oak Trail is a 1.2 mile loop through a nice forest. We enjoyed it. The Prairie Trail was only OK. After a final drive through the campground, we headed home to Lake Mills. I hope we can get at least one more camping trip this fall, but many of the state campgrounds close at the end of October.