![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
It all began with an enameled horse trough/hog scalder.
It grew into an empire that includes a five-diamond resort, a collection of upscale shops, an innovative art center, a foundation that rescues Wisconsin folk art and, in fact, an entire town that's so perfect it's almost eerie.
That horse trough evolved, too, into such products as the Body Spa, a futuristic shower stall with a waterfall and 10 jets that pummel tired muscles with 80 gallons of water per minute.
We all know Milwaukee for its beer, bratwurst and oompah bands.
But not many people know it’s also a great place for bicycling.
Sure, there’s a constant stream of bicyclists on the lakefront stretch of the Oak Leaf Trail. From Lake Michigan, bicyclists can veer off onto a secluded stretch of the Milwaukee River or head toward Miller Park on the Hank Aaron Trail.
In summer, overheated tourists head for the Cool City.
Two Rivers, Wis., gets its nickname from cooling breezes that come from three sides: the East Twin River, the West Twin River and Lake Michigan. Swimmers can cool off with a dip from Neshotah Beach, a great strip of sand, but there’s an even better one five miles north, where Rawley Point Lighthouse towers over the dunes of Point Beach.
Two Rivers also is the birthplace of the ice-cream sundae — how cool is that?
In the middle of southern Wisconsin farmland, there’s a mystery that rivals those of the Mayans and Anasazi.
Riding along the 52-mile Glacial Drumlin State Trail east of Lake Mills, I stopped on a bridge over the placid Crawfish River to read a plaque, "Glacial Time in Perspective.’’ It noted the retreat of the glaciers 143 lifetimes ago and then directed me 1½ miles northward, to where, "17 lifetimes ago, an ancient civilization flourished.’’
There stood Aztalan State Park. Between 1100 and
1300, a cluster of the Mississippian people lived here, growing corn, fishing in the river and performing ceremonies atop two
large, conical temple mounds, one of which had two platforms reached by stairs and a priest’s house on top.
The man with the big, Dentyne smile and Marlboro voice slammed his fist into his palm.
"Okay, here's the game plan,'' he bellowed. "No. 1! You WILL see Lambeau Field. You WILL see the press box. You WILL see the executive skyboxes. You WILL sit in the club seats and see a video.
"So where are you all from? How many of you are not Packer fans? Ma'am, you have my condolences. The rest of this group, we know the Packers are the best team in the NFL this year.
Once, every child in America celebrated Christmas without battery-operated toys.
Instead, they played flap jacks and dominos. They made paper ornaments for the tree. They got an orange brought all the way from Florida.
That’s still what kids do during Christmas time at Old World Wisconsin, where it’s always the 19th century. Danish, Norwegian, German, Polish, Finnish and Yankee families toil there, trying to get ahead on the American frontier.
No one knows how to celebrate Christmas like the Germans.
It's thanks to them that Americans decorate Christmas trees, hang wreaths and put nutcrackers on mantels. Because of them, we bake gingerbread men, open Advent calendars and fill stockings with treats.
Still, not every German Christmas tradition has crossed the Atlantic.
On a spring morning in east-central Wisconsin, two geese suddenly shattered the stillness, honking urgently. Yellow warblers zoomed down from trees and out of sight. Redwing blackbirds clung to cattails, swaying in the stiffening wind.
It was only 6:30 a.m., but it was rush hour on the Horicon Marsh.
A human here feels oddly out of place, a lumbering interloper on a fast-moving avian freeway. Birds own this marsh, and they aren't shy about saying so, rending the air with trills and tweets as they go about their business.
The forest was quiet and the afternoon still. Unnaturally still.
Fifteen Union Army infantry units were camped around wagons in a meadow, near artillery and cavalry. Along a split-rail fence, a drum-and-fife corps pounded drums and blew trumpets.
Gunners began to load their muskets. The cavalry got on pawing horses. Then a Union skirmish line marched down the meadow, followed by a tight column of infantrymen.
In the middle of Wisconsin, the village of Rural is just far enough off the beaten path.
Founded by Yankees in the 1850s, it was the halfway point on the Stevens Point-Berlin trade route and once had a mill, an inn and a dry goods store.
But when it was bypassed by the railroad in 1870, the village eased into a slow, genteel decline.
