‘Travel & Tourism’ Features

Fires broke out yesterday along the south bluff of Devil’s Lake State Park between 2-3pm.  Reports of up to 6 individual blazes on the south shore of the park had fire crews racing to the scene from around the area to assist. Driver’s along Highway 113 near the corners of County Rd DL and South Shore Road could see up to 4 columns of smoke rising from the bluffs. Although park maintenance crews were blocking driver access to the south shore day use areas, onlookers were gathering at the Roznos Meadow parking lot to watch the smoke rise in the distance. Over the course of the next 2 hours each individual column of smoke began to disappear one by one as fire crews did their work. All the while a spotter plane circled the scene from above. By 5:25pm Devil’s Lake reported all fires were out.  The initial cause of the fires seems to have been sparks created by a passing train igniting dry brush along the tracks. A fast response by local fire crews avoided a potential conflagration.

** On a personal note we had witnessed the first large plumes of smoke rise into the air as we were walking the trails of the Merrimac Preserve just to the east.  I made nothing of it as I had seen smoke in a similar location just the day before.  There are also many controlled burns in the area as part of prairie restoration projects. Smoke in the wilderness does not instantly scream out “emergency” here in the Baraboo hills.  Interestingly we watched the fires with mixed feelings. It was obvious how quickly these fires could have spun out of control among the still dry forests and prairie landscapes. It also came to mind that if there is were no property in the area there is something to be said for letting fires run their course.  The problem in this area and at this time of year, is that they could quickly get out of control. If not put out quickly the fires would have soon threatened homes and businesses in the area. Again, thankfully our fire crews did a fantastic job.  What’s more, rain has begun to fall in the area.

To See More Pictures From Yesterday’s Fires: Pop-Up Slideshow | Flickr Gallery

Spring is springing here in the Baraboo Hills!  Temperatures in the 50s have been melting away the snow and opening up the water in the lakes and ponds around the area.   At Devil’s Lake State Park hundreds of small rivlets and water falls are carrying melt water down from the top of the bluffs and down into the lake below.  Here’s a short, raw video of the first real days of spring at the park.

Driving city streets this time of year can get downright dangerous!  Potholes on Baraboo’s main streets are quickly becoming canyons.  Thankfully our city crews have come to the rescue.  Today you’ll find them out there filling those dangerous and damaging chasms as quickly as they can.  If you see a bunch of steam up ahead while driving around town today, slow down. Smile and wave!  These guys are are shoveling hot  joy, fixing our streets and saving our suspensions!  Yippee!

The annual Wisconsin Governor’s Conference on Tourism will kick off Sunday, March 6th at the Kalahari Resort & Conference Center in Wisconsin Dells and run through the 8th.  Attendees will get to spend 3 days listening to various experts in the tourism industry speak about ways to improve their bottom line as well as  listen to Governor Scott Walker “share his vision” for the state’s tourism industry as well.  The Governor’s speech will begin at 8:30 am on Monday.

For those of us interested in outdoor recreation it’s fair to say that this event is not on the top of our annual agenda.  By any standard WIGCOT is a quasi-political event filled with movers and shakers on the high end of Wisconsin’s travel industry. It’s no surprise to anyone that it’s held in Wisconsin Dells. What’s more, the new governor has taken a strong stance against many of the state’s environmental issues including a budget that eliminates mandatory recycling & funding, making it harder to acquire land for preservation and recreation through the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program, cutting funding for cycling & pedestrian trails and more.  He has also separated Wisconsin’s DNR wardens from the rest of the state’s law enforcement when it comes to exemptions to the removal of collective bargain rights for state workers.

So while the attendees to the 2011 WIGCOT event are enjoying “a six-story Ferris wheel, 24 lanes of bowling, 18 holes of mini-golf, over 200 arcade games, go carts and so much more!”,  we’ll still be trying to find enough volunteers to keep the trails clear and pick up the trash that will soon start piling up at our understaffed and underfunded state parks. While there is good reason to believe attendance at Wisconsin’s state  parks & natural areas will only go up in the near future, funding will most likely keep going down.

• WIGCOT 2011 Official Website

Late February in Wisconsin is a time when cabin fever can be at its peak. Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin can offer a much needed break. More often than not, knowing spring is around the corner only makes the late winter chill that much more unbearable. ”Get outside” often comes across as adding insult to injury, rather than good advice. Well, when skiing and snowshoeing are no longer making the winter days feel any better, it’s time for a visit to the Bolz Conservatory at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in state’s capitol. For those of us here in Baraboo, that’s just less than an hour’s drive away.

The Bolz Conservatory is a warm refuge of filled with green tropical plants & fragment flowers, free-flying birds, and even a relaxing waterfall all under a green forest canopy. Visitors can walk the winding paths, feed the koi from wooden bridges, or simply find an open bench to sit and take it all in, or read a favored book. The conservatory is housed under a 50 foot tall glass pyramid and is around 100 ft square at its base. Temperatures are maintained between 65 & 80 degrees year around. (Occasionally even warmer) A visit to the conservancy this time of year not only takes the chill out of your bones, but also soothes the soul.

The Bolz Conservatory is open Monday – Saturday from 10am to 4pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm. General Admission for non-members is only $1.00. Children 5 and under are free.

We’ve posted a few more pictures from the Bolz Conservatory right here. |Or choose the pop-up slideshow

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“I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

If there is an issue with environmentalism today, its simply that it sometimes feels cliché, a self-righteous tweet, a way to sell gear, something perceived by the right as a cause-du jour of elitist, left-wing 60′s revivalists and Prius driving, tree huggers.  A cliché’ is easy to ignore after all. What’s worse is that “Green” has now become a marketing slogan.  And while increased awareness has it’s benefits, in the end all slogans go to a special hell reserved for the likes of Ray Jay Johnson and Urkle.  Conservation has become a brand that many simply won’t buy.  Aldo Leopold understood the foundation of this.  In fact, in his forward to the Sand County Almanac he wrote, “These wild things, I admit, had little human value until mechanization assured us of a good breakfast..” THIS, is what turned me on to Aldo Leopold. He also wrote, “Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land.  We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity…” That was in 1948. Still, without understanding these concepts, one cannot possibly be prepared to work for the protection of our environment today. While I may have been won over to environmentalism by the “dying green fire”, I realize many of those around me view a wolf as nothing more than a valueless burden on production & threat to recreational hunting.  Again, I’m brought to something else Aldo Leopold had said,“It is hard to make a man, by pressure of law or money, do a thing which does not spring naturally from his own personal sense of right and wrong.” I often wonder if we spend too much time preaching to the converted, when the real challenge is working with those who have not developed the moral grounding that is paramount to preservation of our environment.

Luckily change is happening, if for no other reason than rampant abuse of the environment has become obviously less sustainable than it had seemed in the middle of the last century. Too many years of simply taking from the land has finally made conservation a necessary economic tool for even the most closed minded among us. It’s a sad human truth that sometimes it’s only in seeing the stark results of our abuses, by pushing things to the very limit, do we find ourselves forced  to chance course. Environmentalism today is not brought on by a good breakfast, but by too many years of taking that good breakfast for granted. While it must be said that we’ve come a long way since A Sand County Almanac was first published in 1949, it’s also obvious we still have a long way to go.

Green Fire Premiere

So with that little diatribe, I’m happy to announce Wisconsin’s premiere of Green Fire, the first full-length, high-definition documentary film ever made about legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold, will be hosted here in Baraboo, WI., at the Al Ringling Theater on March 1st, 2011.  Green Fire highlights Leopold’s extraordinary career and traces  how he shaped and influenced the modern environmental movement.  Maybe most importantly the film helps us to re-acquaint ourselves with why we found ourselves caring about environmentalism in the first place.  The evening program will include an introduction by members of the film team, and a catered reception will follow the film. Doors open at 6:30pm.  To purchase tickets online or find information about presentation dates around Wisconsin and around the country just go here.  Tickets are also available at Community First Bank and at the Al. Ringling Theatre Ticket Office.  Tickets are $8.00 in advance and $10.00 at the door.

OR

You can score a couple free tickets to the Baraboo presentation of Green Fire slated for March 1, at the Al. Ringling Theatre.  Just click here and comment on our Facebook.  The winner will be announced on 2/24/2011 on the same FB post.

*Photo of Aldo Leopold copyright by the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Used by Permission.

Commentary – If you asked anyone close to the park system, they would tell you Wisconsin state parks are vastly underfunded today. It’s not surprising that parks are low on any governments priority scale of course. So how are they managing? Well, for one thing parks & national resource jobs draw in people who care about what they are doing. Often they put in a lot of personal time to get things done. In addition, some Wisconsin state parks are becoming  more and more dependent on their Friends groups. These non-profit, volunteer organizations have been taking over a growing amount of the work that the under staffed parks simply can’t manage. In some cases the Friends Orgs have even helped fund staffing. Many issues such as control of invasive plants within the parks are little more than quixotic tasks for the warriors of lost causes.  There’s not enough money or enough feet on the ground. This in part, is why what’s going on in Madison, Wisconsin right now is important to everyone who enjoys our natural areas. Even if we prefer to stay out of politics and keep to the woods. Read the rest of this entry »

There seemed to be a nice turn out  for the annual Snow Train Weekend at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom.  The museum will once again open full time for the summer season beginning the first full weekend in May.

The Railway museum has been around for many years and has been part of the “Baraboo” attraction triad as far back as I can remember.  (The other two big name attractions being Circus World Museum & the International Crane Foundation.) A lot has changed since I first visited the museum some 20 years ago.  Most notably the iconic steam engines that once chugged, smoked and whistled between North Freedom and La Rue have been derailed by time and budgets to be replaced by much less aesthetically pleasing diesel engines.  Economic pressures seem to hit hardest at historic or cultural establishments, and our local railway museum is no exception. Read the rest of this entry »

The drive between Baraboo and Portage will take a bit longer than expected over the next few months.  The  Highway 33 bridge across the Wisconsin river near Portage will be closed until at least June as the Wisconsin Department of Transportation replaces the entire deck.  This means traffic will need to find an alternative route, most often by way of  Highway 39 &  Highway 16.  We have marked out a couple options in the map below.

Detour Options

Summer is still a long trek away… The good news is, the days are getting longer, the average temperatures are getting higher and well, the Green Bay Packers are going to the Superbowl!  That will get us through a couple more weeks at least! Thing is, even if you could afford the flight to Texas, the cost of tickets and even parking rates are verging on the insane. Here in Baraboo there ‘s undoubtedly going to be some friendly discussion about the fact that local company McArthur Towel and Sports LLC is the maker of the Pittsburgh Steelers legendary, “Terrible Towel“.  Hmmm., having Pittsburgh fans waving Baraboo made Terrible Towels every time the Steelers score against the Pack… well, that  just ain’t right!  Stay tuned! Read the rest of this entry »