Along the path to heaven's gateway
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By Bill Wundram | Monday, October 13, 2008 |
ON THE TRAIL OF AUTUMN — We’re not sure where we are going, but about four or five hours north of the Quad-Cities, we are in the northland. We sense it. We take long, deep breaths. The air is as brittle as an autumn apple and there is a scent of woodsmoke.
Our annual search for autumn color is at first elusive. Up around Dubuque, the color is supposed to be in dabbles here and there during the first week of October, but all is still a vast spread of green.
It is that way into Wisconsin, past Potosi, which claims to have the longest main street in America and the best beer. The latter is absolutely true, after a stop at the just-restored old Potosi Brewery. Here, Steve Zuidema, a Davenporter who knows his hops, is brewmaster.
Autumn travels south, about 15 miles a day, from the far northland. At that rate, the stealth of autumn will be many weeks away from the Quad-Cities.
The trees begin to show shades of color around Fennimore, where Igor, the gigantic sentinel mouse, stands to greet visitors. Once in Fennimore, you know you’re at the edge of the rush of autumn. Sumac sweeps the hillsides like red blankets. Sumac matches the trees that are turning into quick splashes of red.
We detour — never knowing quite where we are going — into a little town called Birchwood, Wis. It is near twinight, a time of deep shadows around Little Lake and Big Lake and Birch Lake. So many of the birches have been hit by blight. They are bare, leafless, and in this end of day, they stand like chalky skeletons.
This is the land of loons, with their mystic sounds. They switch from gliding in silence to a flap of wings and then abruptly to a tremulous hooo-t-t-t. Then, stillness. I want to call the moment, “Silence of the loons.”
There is little to do in this town that calls itself the Bluegill Capital of the World, with an immense plastic bluegill to greet visitors. Surprisingly, we find a classy club out in the boondocks where it’s obvious that this is the northland: The menu calls for Wapitic elk medallions, with parsnip sauce.
There is a fresh chill in the air and the dew is heavy on the grass as we head out in the morning after overnighting at a bed and breakfast.
Far getaways like this are experiences that are nothing short of pure, unrestrained relaxation. Your spirit is lifted. The only signs are for bait or cordwood. Here and there, a lonely house is alongside a lake or stream that is not quilled-narrow by a beaver’s dam. It is an empty land of fir trees and occasional splashes of a maple’s deep orange.
There has been a frost. The frost on barbed wire is like a string of stars in the morning sun. We head for the land of the north shore, Lake Superior, the “Riviera of the Rugged.”
Wednesday: The search for red October and its state of mind.
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.
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