A Weekend To Remember, Part 2

We started our second day in the Dells with breakfast at the inn – it was good, but nothing to write home about. But hey, it was free! (Well, not exactly free, but included :)

My plan was to spend the day at Devil’s Lake State Park, a big state park south of the Dells and I had hoped for good weather, but the forecast wasn’t looking very promising. It was cloudy and overcast and supposed to rain, but it was warm so we decided to chance it and figured we’d come back if we got rained on.

I’m so glad we did! It never did rain, and while it would have been great if it was sunny, we still got to take in some gorgeous scenery.

The park had tons of hiking/climbing trails. As we were looking at the list trying to decide which ones to try, Dave suggested we do The Ice Age trail. “Except, it’s 13 miles…I don’t know if you’re up for that,” he said.

Which I took as a challenge.

So we set off on the trail…only to realize a little while later that the estimated time listed to hike the entire trail was 8-10 hours! We decided to change our route :)

The park is so beautiful and there are tons of rock formations. We climbed up almost to the top of the mountain and looped back around – so still a pretty decent hike. And again, pictures don’t nearly do it justice.

Here I am with my 23 week baby bump. I think it kind of looks like I’ve been photo shopped in :)

After the hike we ate a picnic lunch – super yummy strawberries,    sub sandwiches, and some of this stuff

Have you ever tried this? So yummy. It’s all natural, no high fructose corn syrup and according to the back, two whole servings of fruit!

The park has a really nice beach area and there were people swimming but the water was pretty cold so we decided to rent a kayak instead.

By that time it was late afternoon so we decided to go back to the Inn and chill till dinnertime. By this time my back was killing me from all the climbing we’d been doing. I’m such an old woman :)

For dinner, we wanted to go somewhere really nice – Dave wanted steak and I wanted seafood – so we picked out what looked like a super nice local steakhouse:

Honestly? We were pretty underwhelmed. I mean, the service was great and you could tell from the moment you walked in that this was an upscale place.

And the food was good – but we could have gone somewhere less fancy and gotten basically the same thing for a fraction of the price. I ordered a glass of Pepsi and when I finished it, I jokingly said to Dave, “I need a refill. I wonder if they charge for those?”

Um…yeah. They do. Three dollars for a 12 ounce glass of Pepsi – they’re making a killing on pop alone!

At the end of the meal they brought us warm hand towels with our check. I say, keep your hand towels and just give me free refills :) Clearly we don’t dine at fancy, expensive restaurants very often :)

After dinner we walked down to the downtown shopping district – it reminded me a lot of a beach boardwalk (only without the ocean). Lots of tourist-y stuff. Played some mini golf. Got some ice cream. Looked at souvenirs.

Sunday (our last day) after breakfast we did a little shopping at a nearby outlet mall (a really good one!)

Then we ate lunch at another local restaurant – this time we went for something a little more down to earth :)

It was great! Definitely would recommend this one. They mix some of their own sodas too – grape, orange, and root beer which was kind of cool.

After that we headed home – but not before making one last stop:

Cheese. I heart cheese.

And you can’t go to Wisconsin and not pick up some up while you’re there!

Cheese curds, one year aged cheddar (which we’ve already dived into), and smoked gouda. Yum-o!

We had so much fun, and we didn’t even come close to doing all the things we could have while we were there. It’s definitely a place we’ll probably take our family someday for vacation!