America’s Dairyland

Wisconsin, America’s Dairyland, is proving to be quite a lot of fun! This state is full of amazing people, beautiful scenery, incredible wildlife, polka dancing, great mountain biking, tasty beer, and of course delectable cheese!! This is the 43rd state we’ve been to on our journey in the RV and one regret is that we wish we’d come here sooner.

Our Wisconsin trip started out with a visit to Appleton (just outside Green Bay ) for some RV maintenance. We’ve had some unusual popping sounds coming from the RV steering column and front wheel spring areas and were able to find a repair shop that we had to book 3 weeks prior due to recent popularity in RV sales and service. After our short repair stop in Appleton (turns out no serious issues were found in the RV), we headed northwest through Dairy Land making our way up to the quaint town of Hayward. From Hayward we would head to Duluth, MN and then ultimately into northern Minnesota near the Boundary Waters to hike the state high point of Eagle Mountain.

Bull Falls Brewery – Wausau
We found a brewery in Wausau, WI through a camping service known as Harvest Host as a place to stay for the evening. If you RV camp, you might investigate Harvest Host as they offer hundreds of places to stay across the country for free that belong to many local businesses such as farms, vineyards, museums, and breweries. The accommodations are rudimentary (think boondocking), but the experiences are almost always unique, genuine, and truly amazing, not to mention the immersion into the local culture. The brewery, established in 2007, has a great story about a couple of IT guys chasing their dream to become brewers and who ultimately opened their own brewery to share with others that which they enjoy, which is really good beer. In fact, this is probably some of the best beer Tara and I have had while on the road and we’ve tried a lot, in many (if not all) of the different states we’ve visited. We spent the evening at the bar with Randy and Peg, a married couple who took up hops farming as a second career and now supply Bull Falls and other breweries in the area with their crop. The education we got on hops farming from these two was incredible giving Tara and I each a newfound appreciation of the challenges around growing hops and all the subtle nuances that can occur from year to year to yield a quality product worth selling.

Timm’s Hill
From Wausau we headed to Barron, but not without a quick stop to visit the state highpoint of course. Timm’s Hill is the state’s highest natural point standing at a modest 1,951 feet. There is a scenic park built around it with a fun play area for kids as well as several trail systems for hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing which is very popular here. My plan when visiting the high point was to drive right up to the parking spot in the park in the RV while Tara drove the Jeep separately. Upon arrival to the one way road that enters the park my plan was quickly foiled as I realized getting the RV down this road would not be possible. Fortunately, we were able to find a gravel lot near the one way road exit and ended up driving to the summit trailhead with dogs in tow. This high point was an easy one or roughly a half mile out and back hike to the top where an observation tower stood with stunning 360 degrees views of the Badger State.

Dragsmith Farms – Barron
Next stop was a little over 2 hours away to Barron, WI. Barron is a big farming town and a place where we decided to plant ourselves for the night. Again, through Harvest Host, we found a major organic foods farm, or Dragsmith Farms, to take in just a bit of farm life and local culture. After a short detour (result of a failed GPS direction) we wound up on a dead-end street where we needed to disconnect the Jeep from the RV in order to turn around and get back on course. The immediate challenge however would be how we would get out to perform the disconnect with a rather large German shepherd patrolling the grounds just outside our rig. After a few beeps of the horn the owner came out and was able to ease our minds that her dog was friendly and would not hurt us while disconnecting and turning around. We quickly became friends while going about our business to right the “ship” so to speak and get back on our way.

Minutes later we arrived at our destination where we were immediately greeted by Gail who runs the farm. This farm has been in her family for over 130 years of which she and her husband have operated for 32 years. Gail’s father taught her how to farm organically and she has never done it any other way. She and her team, grow certified organic produce, grass fed meats and other popular farm products and sell them mostly to upscale restaurants in the Twin Cities area. />I had so many questions about organic farming and Gail was so very informative and was quite obliged to provide me answers. Of course, Tara had a field day in the produce shop, racking up potatoes, butter, sweet corn, micro-greens, squash, and even some homemade blueberry and pineapple flavored hot sauce that was out of this world. We ultimately found our way to our site for the night, which was just perfect, yielding a large spacious patch of grass for our rig with sweeping and scenic views along the Vermillion River.

Our time in Wisconsin was so much fun while also giving us pause and newfound perspective on life in the Midwest. We got glimpses of the kinds of challenges that are faced by those who farm the land and routinely provide food to our dinner tables. We remembered the stresses we dealt with while doing the beltway grind in and around the DC metro area which really seemed to pale in comparison to the kinds of challenges faced by these Wisconsin farmers. Our daily multi hour commutes to the city throughout the week seemingly became inconsequential as we listened to a typical day of a farmer. There are months of sunup to sundown days preparing the grounds, harvesting crops, repairing machinery, fixing greenhouses, or just taking care of the administrivia required to keep the operation running. The time spent here in Wisconsin has been eye opening while obtaining a first-hand education around farming, which in my opinion is still one of the toughest and most important, but underappreciated jobs in America.