North Woods Dinner Train and Fireworks on a Lake

 

Yesterday Travalon and I got going early and drove through scattered rainstorms, stopping at antiques shops, one in Tomah and two in Black River Falls. We also had lunch at a coffee shop in Black River Falls. I got a couple of rosaries, and we got three stuffed animals (a duck, a crawfish, and a giraffe), and Travalon got a Hamm's bear sign and a goofy duck. Photos soon.

We drove up to Spooner and took the Wisconsin Great Northern Railway dinner car. Travalon had not understood the website, so he got us a table in the dining car instead of a private car like most diners had. This wouldn't have been so bad except that there was a very loud woman in the dining car, and the air conditioning in that car didn't work. Eventually we moved to the club car, where the windows opened, so we got some fresh air and could really hear the train whistle. Here are some photos.

Photos are loading very slowly here, so I'll put more on when we get back home. During the main course, the train stops on a bridge over the Namekagon River, where Travalon had gone tubing some years before with his friend who lives in Japan, and they had seen the train. Ever since then, he has wanted to take it. 

Check out this house with a house on top!

And these trees making a natural arch!

More photos later. When we got to Rice Lake, I wanted to take a walk by the lake, but we saw people were gathering to watch fireworks, so we got the camping chairs from our car and set up too. The fireworks weren't the most spectacular ever, although they did have smiley faces, but the view was the most spectacular because we were right beneath them. A little bit of ash fell in my hair. I'll post some photos soon - they haven't downloaded from the cloud to my computer yet. Then we went back to the hotel and swam, which was wonderful because we were the only ones in there. The pool was a bit cold, but once I got moving it was fine, and there was a hot tub to warm up afterwards. Now we are relaxing a bit before starting today's adventures. Who knows? Maybe there will be two blog posts today.

Famous Hat