Mirror Lake, Wisconsin

Although we spent the majority of our weekend at Devil's Lake, we couldn't book a campsite for that night. About twenty minutes away, there was another park - Mirror Lake - which had exactly two campsites available for the nights we'd be there. We took a "group campsite," which was more expensive, but we could have kept up to five tents on site. Saturday was the more crowded night. Our neighbors included boyscouts, a family reunion, and a group that spent the night playing beer pong. The second night, we were one of two groups in the area, which got a little creepy, but you'll be happy to know that we were not visited by any mass murderers or sasquatches. 

Somehow I managed to forget to take a picture of the actual lake, but I did get some great shots of the hiking trails there. On our last day, after packing up the car, we got to enjoy some of this great park.

I love the name! The trail was even better than the name!

One of the things I really loved about Mirror Lake was its dedication to accessibility for everyone - fortunately, neither of us fell into that category while we were there - but it was great to know places make that a priority.

Accessible bridge

You won't find this in Chicago

Echo Rock

After climbing on top of Echo Rock, we took the "Pioneer Trail" for a couple miles, looping back to the car and our bathing suits. 

The hill wasn't that steep, but I guess it was a warning for the skiers?

Then we saw a snake! We still haven't figured out what kind it was, but it was little and kind of flat.

Snake!

And of course I needed to take a picture of Smokey the Bear :) Good to know that the fire danger was only "moderate" during our stay.

Breakfast in Milwuakee

Neither Ben nor I had been to Wisconsin prior to our recent camping trip. One of the best things about picking Devil's Lake (other than the awesomeness of Devil's Lake itself) was that we got to check out two of Wisconsin's major cities on the trip.

Our first stop for breakfast, was The National, an adorable coffee / brunch place. Here are a couple shots of the exterior - I hate being that person who takes photos of meals, so you'll have to visit to get a taste of their delicious food.

The National's exterior - we ate in the booth on the right side of the photo.

I had their amazing French toast, and Ben had a vegan dish. There was exactly the right amount of syrup, and we were amazed at how nice the people in the restaurant were! A couple had a young toddler who decided to make friends, and upon hearing our destination, an older gentleman came over to tell us how much he LOVES Devil's Lake. He told us to spend time on the East Ridge - which we certainly did.

Side shot of this awesome brunch place

After breakfast, we took a drive along Milwaukee's portion of the Lake Michigan waterfront. While we didn't take the time to park and explore, this is definitely a city I want to check out more. In addition to the lake being INFINITELY clearer than Chicago's lakefront, it seemed like more of the city front was able to enjoy the lake - downtown Chicago might have the view, but it certainly doesn't have the accessibility to the water. There were also at least a hundred people out at that hour exercising.

We also saw wild turkeys, and went under the bridge to the Milwaukee Art Museum - we didn't take the time to stop, but it's definitely something I want to check out in the future.

And now, here are some awesome pictures I took from the car of Milwaukee's skyline:

Clearly my photography skillz need some serious work

How to camp when you have to rent *everything*

Last weekend, Ben and I went to Devil's Lake. We live in Chicago and don't own either a car or a tent, and only have a sleeping bag, but we both really wanted to go camping.

Camping is the perfect cheap vacation - no hotels, no meals out, and all your entertainment is found by visiting the local state parks - plus, it's a super head clearing way to really get away from it all. This was necessary given my lay-off in May and the 62-hours I worked the previous week at my temp job, which I was convinced was ending the day before we left.

So about a month before the trip, when I got that feeling of "I need to leave town before I go crazy," I did some research. One of the benefits of belonging to a gym attached to a university is that my gym just happens to rent outdoor equipment. For $34, we rented a two-person tent, two sleeping mats, a sleeping bag, and a lantern for up to four nights. Not having a car, I brought one of my giant wheeled suitcases - large enough to get me through ten weeks and then some on the other side of the world - and loaded everything in. It wasn't that difficult to get the suitcase onto the L at rush hour on a Friday. I had to transfer everything into the GIANT suitcase I've only used before for moving once I added the second sleeping bag and two pillows (yes, I brought pillows camping).

We had checked various travel options - taking a train or bus to Milwaukee or Madison before renting a car, for example - but the most time and cost-efficient way was to rent a car from O'Hare, even when factoring in the hour plus train-bus-train ride there. For three days, our Mazda 2 hatch-back (super fun to drive!) cost about $90, plus gas, and the car was the perfect size for everything. The GIANT suitcase fit nicely under the hatch, and everything else (a cooler and two backpacks) went on the back seat.

I didn't get a picture of our tuff in the car, but here it is on the train

One thing to remember: you probably have rental car insurance through your auto insurance or your credit card. Ben confirmed this by calling Visa Signature - the policy is even on the first page of website! This saved us $30 for the weekend - a third of the price of the car!

Ben negotiating with the rental car representative about car insurance

We purchased all our groceries up in Barraboo, WI (including a delicious case of Spotted Cow beer, not available outside of Wisconsin), and we had to purchase firewood within 25 miles of the state park we were staying in. Add in the $5/day vehicle permit to bring the car in and some tolls (note: way cheaper just to pay the tolls, even if they're more expensive, than to pay $7/day on the rental car's ipass. We didn't spend $7 a day on tolls), and there you have it!

The worst part of the train-bus-train-car, car-train-bus-train part was construction we faced Monday on I-90 that seemed to go on forever. It actually was about 25 miles, but in 90-degree weather in slightly pre-rush hour traffic, this kind of sucked, especially knowing that we had to drag all of the stuff back to the gym via the train in rush hour.

Review of the rental system: not a bad way to go. We spent approximately $400 between us, which was a little more than I'd hoped (damn you, gas prices!) but we also made stops in Milwaukee and Madison for breakfast Saturday and lunch Monday. I'm hoping that when we go camping next year, we'll have a tent (either one we buy or one used from family). As far as the car, I decided that I'll wait until I have a job that needs one before purchasing, so maybe next year we'll still be making that trek out to O'Hare.

Until next time, cheers!