Wisconsin, Part 3 - Wisconsin Dells [240630]

What exactly is a "dell"?  Other than the fact that a childhood song told us that it's something that a farmer can apparently be in, we had no idea either.  The dictionary defines a dell as "a secluded hollow or small valley, usually covered with trees or turf."  Wikipedia describes the Wisconsin Dells in particular as "a 5-mile gorge on the Wisconsin River...noted for its scenery, in particular for its Cambrian sandstone rock formations and tributary canyons."

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The wonderful sounds of "Walmart Radio" being piped through the store's external speakers woke us up at 7 a.m. Sunday morning.  We got up, did our morning routines, and then worked a little bit more on the South Dakota, Part 7 blog post until 11 a.m., when it was time to leave for our next adventure.

Driving 50 miles southeast to Wisconsin Dells, we passed by this interesting looking rock formation.  A Google search later revealed it to be Castle Rock (in the city of New Lisbon).

After lunch we headed to Dells Boat Tours, and boarded the boat for our two hour tour of the Upper Dells.

As we began our cruise up the Wisconsin River, we passed between Romance Cliff (on the left) and High Rock (on the right).

Up next was Chimney Rock.

And then Blackhawk's Face.

A bald eagle watched us from his perch overhead as we passed by.

Our journey took us through The Narrows - a pinch point in the river where it almost seems to dead end, but really makes a right angle turn to the left.  (Video sped up 3x for brevity.)

The highlight of the tour was when we got to disembark at Witches Gulch, and walk the slot canyon cut through the Cambrian sandstone.  This accelerated video takes you through the Whirlpool Chambers, past Witches Bathtub, Witches Falls, and Witches Window, and finally down Spooky Lane.

Then it was back on the boat to get to our next stop . . .

...at Stand Rock.

The locals claim that Stand Rock is "the birth place of stop motion photography", largely because of this famous photo:

That photo was taken by H. H. Bennett, who was a photographer that popularized the Dells through his photographs in the late 1800's.  He was also an innovator in the field of photography, and invented a stop action shutter which allowed him to take photos of instantaneous events; previously it took several minutes for a camera to take a picture, and any movement of the subject over this time caused it to become blurry in the final photo.  Using his new shutter, he was able to capture this photo of his son, Ashley, leaping across Stand Rock (rumor has it: after 16 attempts).  They're not allowed to make children jump across the chasm for the entertainment of tourists any more - so they make a dog do it now.

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After the boat tour, we walked the gift shop and tourist attraction lined downtown street.  At the far end was a cute little Bavarian Village section, where we waited at the half hour to see if the large clock would do anything interesting - but it didn't.

We browsed the shops in the area, including the Carr Valley Cheese Shop where we sampled various cheeses and then bought some fried cheese curds (a "regional cuisine") to snack on.  They were good - sort of like a slightly firmer version of fried Mozzarella sticks.

By the time we finished the fried curds it was near the top of the hour, so we waited by the clock again to see if it would do anything interesting on the hour.  The clock was not exactly what you'd call a "finely tuned timepiece", as apparently the hands and the fanfare were both late (but not by the same amount).  But a little after five o'clock, the bells started ringing out a little tune - ending with striking out 5 rings for the five o'clock hour.  (We didn't catch the beginning on video, since we kind of had decided by then that nothing was going to happen.  But you'll notice in the next video that the bells are ringing out the 5 chimes when the hands are still at 4:57.)

Then there was an overly long dramatic pause - during which time we assumed the show was over.  But eventually the clock proceeded to tell an impressively long (for a clock) version of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin - complete with an additional alternate "happy" ending.

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A 19 mile drive south brought us to Devil's Lake State Park, where we'd be staying for the next two nights.

Despite being by a lake, the campground was relatively mosquito free so not only were we able to grill dinner outside unmolested, but we were also able to eat dinner outside for the first time in a long time!

Later in the evening, we started work on building bug screens for the top portion of the cab windows using vinyl gutter guard material we had purchased from Home Depot a little while back.  We had made similar screens for our old Toyota Sienna years ago, but didn't think we'd be needing them for the Travato since all of the windows in the back "house area" already had screens.  But it had become apparent that the cab area retains a LOT of heat, and being able to cross vent some of that in the evenings would help in the overall cooling of the van.  We only had time to complete the passenger window one before heading to bed, since we needed to rest up for tomorrow's adventures.