Post by billhammond on Oct 14, 2006 20:43:46 GMT -5
Friends -- I was asked to write a piece for the Star Trib's travel section about a little six-hour jaunt I took last weekend. It will run Oct. 29 as a "Traveler's Voice" feature, wherein the feelings of the tripster are generally more prominent than the actual nuts and bolts of the trip itself. Here is what I have come up with so far. Any and all suggestions are most welcome, and thanks in advance.
By Bill Hammond
bhammond@startribune.com
Topping my list of prized possessions are a 2002 Goodall guitar, a 2006 Nissan
Altima and a 2004 Wisconsin Atlas & Gazetteer.
On a recent Saturday night, as I struggled with a new tune on the Goodall, my
thoughts drifted to the black Altima in the driveway, the Wisconsin map book on
the table and to a totally unbooked Sunday the following day. I put the Goodall
back in its case, grabbed the gazetteer and PORED, baby. ...
Now, I am a Cheesehead by birth, proud of it, and there is little in the way of
terrain between the Twin Cities and my homeland of Eau Claire-Chippewa Falls
that I am unfamiliar with. At least that is the attitude I convey until those
delicious moments when I squint into the recesses of my beloved topo maps and
find amazing new stuff: airstrips, marshes, boat landings, quarries,
radio towers. ...
And best of all, BACK ROADS. Some of them with NO NAMES, oh, be still my beating
heart. A would-be Andretti on deserted two-lane blacktop -- it just don't get no
better than that, as we might say in Wisconsin. Before long, a sketchy flight
plan was being formed by the practical side of my brain, while unfettered
automotive fantasies caromed about the testosterone side.
Eventually, the two sides agreed: I'd hit the road shortly before dawn, escape
to Wisconsin via interstate, peel off onto empty two-lane roads east of
Hudson and fly under the radar while probing the performance envelope of the
still-new-to-me Nissan. After about an hour of back-roads merriment, I'd refuel
with breakfast on the shores of Lake Wissota in exurban Chippewa Falls.
Then I'd follow the Chippewa River upstream as far as I wished, cross it and
head back to Chippewa Falls and its famed Leinenkugel Brewery, where the Leinie
Lodge gift shop would open at 11 a.m. There I'd exhaust a gift certificate that
I'd been hoarding for too long, then scoot back to Minnesota via the boring
four-lane route.
With any luck, I'd be on my living room couch in time for the second half of hot
NFL action.
-------
Eastbound five miles out of Hudson, I abandon I-94, hop on Hwy. 12 north and
hang a right onto County UU (it's all about U), also known as Badlands Road. For
miles, the speed limit stays pegged at 45, but the narrow road, abrupt inclines
and an impressive variety of homesteads keep things interesting.
Badlands becomes 80th Avenue, then County TT before lazing into Hammond, Wis.,
home of the Hammond Hotel (where my family, the Eau Claire Hammonds,
occasionally met up with the Twin Cities Hammonds for family reunions in the
1960s -- nope, we had no relatives in Hammond).
From Hammond, my due-east roadway becomes Hwy. 12 for three miles before
reverting to 80th when Hwy. 12 heads south. Now I feel
truly ruralized and nostalgic, as this is clearly a farm road, used mainly by
farm folk, and I grew up with farms on all sides of my community. The landscape is
serene, genuine and beautiful. I roll down the driver's-side window -- ah, that would be Holstein, yes?
Reaching Hwy. 128, I head south to rejoin I-94 briefly and treat my eyes to the unbeatable
vista of Knapp Hill. Thickly forested in hardwoods, it looks like a brightly lit bowl of Trix on this autumnal weekend.
East of Menomonie, I lose the freeway for northbound County Hwy. B, swing east
on 650th Avenue and once again I'm in the sticks, listening to "The Polka
Show" on WCFW-FM. (HOO-hoo-hoo!)
Now the route makes a jog to 640th, then to 830th St., then to E, which becomes M,
which leads to N (and that rhymes with zen). I'm having an absolute ball tossing
the car around these corners, now with the radio off so I can just listen to the motor
and the transmission and the tires and the wind rushing past my ears. Way too
soon, the water towers of Chippewa Falls appear in the distance, and I am back
to civilization.
-------
The rest of my road trip sends me idling down Memory Lane:
-- Past Gutknecht's Market in Chippewa Falls, where we kids bought penny candy as our parents bought fresh bratwurst when we were visiting my cousins on Olive Street.
-- The Chippewa River dam at Jim Falls, where Grandpa Joern took me fishing more than once.
-- Bucolic Hwy, 178, which we merely called "the river road," and its many supper clubs, all featuring lazy-Susan appetizer trays that seemed required by Wisconsin law to include green onions, radishes, cottage cheese with chives, crinkle-cut carrots, Melba toast in cellophane, and -- of course -- cheese spread.
Like a good car, a good route and a good map, it just don't get no better than that, folks.
By Bill Hammond
bhammond@startribune.com
Topping my list of prized possessions are a 2002 Goodall guitar, a 2006 Nissan
Altima and a 2004 Wisconsin Atlas & Gazetteer.
On a recent Saturday night, as I struggled with a new tune on the Goodall, my
thoughts drifted to the black Altima in the driveway, the Wisconsin map book on
the table and to a totally unbooked Sunday the following day. I put the Goodall
back in its case, grabbed the gazetteer and PORED, baby. ...
Now, I am a Cheesehead by birth, proud of it, and there is little in the way of
terrain between the Twin Cities and my homeland of Eau Claire-Chippewa Falls
that I am unfamiliar with. At least that is the attitude I convey until those
delicious moments when I squint into the recesses of my beloved topo maps and
find amazing new stuff: airstrips, marshes, boat landings, quarries,
radio towers. ...
And best of all, BACK ROADS. Some of them with NO NAMES, oh, be still my beating
heart. A would-be Andretti on deserted two-lane blacktop -- it just don't get no
better than that, as we might say in Wisconsin. Before long, a sketchy flight
plan was being formed by the practical side of my brain, while unfettered
automotive fantasies caromed about the testosterone side.
Eventually, the two sides agreed: I'd hit the road shortly before dawn, escape
to Wisconsin via interstate, peel off onto empty two-lane roads east of
Hudson and fly under the radar while probing the performance envelope of the
still-new-to-me Nissan. After about an hour of back-roads merriment, I'd refuel
with breakfast on the shores of Lake Wissota in exurban Chippewa Falls.
Then I'd follow the Chippewa River upstream as far as I wished, cross it and
head back to Chippewa Falls and its famed Leinenkugel Brewery, where the Leinie
Lodge gift shop would open at 11 a.m. There I'd exhaust a gift certificate that
I'd been hoarding for too long, then scoot back to Minnesota via the boring
four-lane route.
With any luck, I'd be on my living room couch in time for the second half of hot
NFL action.
-------
Eastbound five miles out of Hudson, I abandon I-94, hop on Hwy. 12 north and
hang a right onto County UU (it's all about U), also known as Badlands Road. For
miles, the speed limit stays pegged at 45, but the narrow road, abrupt inclines
and an impressive variety of homesteads keep things interesting.
Badlands becomes 80th Avenue, then County TT before lazing into Hammond, Wis.,
home of the Hammond Hotel (where my family, the Eau Claire Hammonds,
occasionally met up with the Twin Cities Hammonds for family reunions in the
1960s -- nope, we had no relatives in Hammond).
From Hammond, my due-east roadway becomes Hwy. 12 for three miles before
reverting to 80th when Hwy. 12 heads south. Now I feel
truly ruralized and nostalgic, as this is clearly a farm road, used mainly by
farm folk, and I grew up with farms on all sides of my community. The landscape is
serene, genuine and beautiful. I roll down the driver's-side window -- ah, that would be Holstein, yes?
Reaching Hwy. 128, I head south to rejoin I-94 briefly and treat my eyes to the unbeatable
vista of Knapp Hill. Thickly forested in hardwoods, it looks like a brightly lit bowl of Trix on this autumnal weekend.
East of Menomonie, I lose the freeway for northbound County Hwy. B, swing east
on 650th Avenue and once again I'm in the sticks, listening to "The Polka
Show" on WCFW-FM. (HOO-hoo-hoo!)
Now the route makes a jog to 640th, then to 830th St., then to E, which becomes M,
which leads to N (and that rhymes with zen). I'm having an absolute ball tossing
the car around these corners, now with the radio off so I can just listen to the motor
and the transmission and the tires and the wind rushing past my ears. Way too
soon, the water towers of Chippewa Falls appear in the distance, and I am back
to civilization.
-------
The rest of my road trip sends me idling down Memory Lane:
-- Past Gutknecht's Market in Chippewa Falls, where we kids bought penny candy as our parents bought fresh bratwurst when we were visiting my cousins on Olive Street.
-- The Chippewa River dam at Jim Falls, where Grandpa Joern took me fishing more than once.
-- Bucolic Hwy, 178, which we merely called "the river road," and its many supper clubs, all featuring lazy-Susan appetizer trays that seemed required by Wisconsin law to include green onions, radishes, cottage cheese with chives, crinkle-cut carrots, Melba toast in cellophane, and -- of course -- cheese spread.
Like a good car, a good route and a good map, it just don't get no better than that, folks.
