A Good Winter: Eau Claire

We set off with the idea of skiing and a possible story idea for a romantic weekend getaway.  Tower Ridge Recreation Area has 12 miles of intersecting cross-country ski trails. With rolling terrain, towering snowy pine trees and the sun peaking through every other branch, my husband and I glided off on the trails.   The day was cold, really cold.  My fingers were so cold, they were burning.  Finally, I warmed up and relaxed into my rhythm.  There was a general feeling of happiness on the trail, big white smiles and exclamations of “great day” and “beautiful out here”...and it was.  We stayed for a long time, several hours.  I was starting to feel the fatigue and wanted to be back in town in front of a towering frothy coffee.  As we skied and skied around this corner and that bend and this grove of trees, the sun was starting to fall.  A beam peaked through a bough and a sliver caught me around a corner and I kept following it, reaching for our destination, the end of the trail.  My legs ached, my body wilted, my arms strained.   We reached the trailhead, the sun sank over the trees and I took a last cold, invigorating breath.  Winter sports in Wisconsin. 

We spent the rest of the weekend taking long, cold walks through the snowy streets, the neighborhoods still lit up with Christmas lights.  I fought my husband when he insisted we should walk...everywhere.  But we did walk everywhere, and I'm glad we did.  We ate warm and spicy food at Taste of India, chocolate mousse at The Chocolate Lounge tromped around town more, ate tasty pasta at Mona Lisa (bad service, good food) had drinks at the Red Bar, woke up with the sun and I thought about our soundtrack.  The music that was the back splash to our weekend.   Bon Iver came to mind.  Bon Hiver is French for “good winter”.  The band Bon Iver, from Eau Claire, intentionally misspelled the word, intending just to convey the feelings of winter culture.  Justin Vernon, the lead singer, believes "we are who we are essentially because of where we come from".  So he holed up in a cabin in Eau Claire, "the northwoods of Wisconsin" and wrote a hit album.  It is about loss and sadness and searching, conveyed through the lens of a long, cold Wisconsin winter.  I kept searching for our soundtrack.


There are so many ways to tell a story, to convey an experience.  Sometimes words are best, sometimes pictures, or just one picture, or a piece of music.  This is my sophomore effort.  There will be more.  More Driftless Destinations, more stories, more walking around Wisconsin towns.  Eau Claire, this was our experience of you.  The Decemberists sang us home.


Destination Eau Claire, WI from Polly Scott on Vimeo.