1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (74 page)

W
HERE
: The Wisconsin Great River Road starts at Prescott (about 22 miles east of St. Paul, MN) and runs to Kieler (about 8 miles north of Dubuque, IA);
www.wigreatriverroad.org
.
H
ISTORIC
T
REMPEALEAU
H
OTEL
: Tel 608–534-6898;
www.trempealeauhotel.com
.
Cost:
from $35.
T
REMPEALEAU
W
ILDLIFE
R
EFUGE
: Tel 608–539-2311;
www.fws.gov/midwest/trempealeau
.
D
ELTA
Q
UEEN
S
TEAMBOAT
C
O
.
: (Seattle, WA) Tel 800–543-1949 or 206–292-9606;
www.deltaqueen.com
.
Cost:
weeklong trips from $2,140 per person.
When:
summer and fall.
J
ULIA
B
ELLE
S
WAIN
: Tel 800–815-1005 or 608–784-4882;
www.juliabelle.com
.
Cost:
overnight cruises from $279 per person.
When:
May–Oct.
B
EST TIMES
: Mar–May and Oct for bird migration; In La Crosse, July 4th weekend for Riverfest (
www.riverfestlacrosse.com
) and Sept for Oktoberfest (
www.oktoberfestusa.com
).

Home of Frank Lloyd Wright

Spring Green, Wisconsin

Renowned architect and Wisconsin native Frank Lloyd Wright left an incredible legacy, from several notable homes near Chicago (see p. 496) to New York’s Guggenheim Museum (see p. 184). But in Spring Green
you can visit Wright’s own rambling 37,000-square-foot home and his original architecture school, an estate he tucked among the rolling hills of his childhood.

Wright espoused the importance of designing in harmony with the surroundings and using local materials. Taliesin is the embodiment of Wright’s tenets, its wings of limestone, wood, and glass meandering along the contours of the landscape. The name “Taliesin” is Welsh for “shining brow,” reflecting the home’s location along the “brow” of the hillside—enveloping, rather than overpowering, the site.

Wright lived at Taliesin for more than 30 years and trained his apprentices here. He moved to Arizona and established Taliesin West in the mid-1930s (see p. 695), but many leading architects and Wright aficionados consider the Spring Green property his finest work.

Taliesin Preservation offers immensely popular tours of the 600-acre complex, which includes several Wright buildings, providing an intimate look at the flowing interiors. Guides point out the architect’s meticulous attention to detail and also indulge visitors with a few anecdotes of his legendary caustic and controlling personality. He banned Holstein cows from Taliesin in favor of buff-colored Jerseys, for instance, because he felt the Holsteins’ black-and-white hides didn’t blend well with the pastures.

W
HERE
: 40 miles west of Madison. Tel 877–588-7900 or 608–588-7900;
www.taliesinpreservation.org
.
W
HEN
: May–Oct.
B
EST TIME
: Sun in June for the Summer Chamber Music Festival in Taliesin’s Hillside Theatre.

Exploring his philosophy of “organic architecture,” Frank Lloyd Wright mixed sand from the nearby Wisconsin River into the stucco walls to evoke the river’s sandbars.

The Wilds of the Great Lake Country

Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, “Up North” is local parlance for escape: Escape to quiet wilderness beauty in the northern tier of the state, where farm and field segue into thick forests of pine, spruce, and fir, peppered with thousands of lakes
.

In parts of Wisconsin’s lake country—especially in the Northern Highland–American Legion State Forest—the concentration of lakes is so intense that water makes up 40 percent of the surface area. That’s a greater concentration of lakes than almost anywhere in the world, creating a recreational playground that has drawn generations of vacationers for fishing, boating, hunting, hiking, paddling, mountain biking, and other pursuits. Visitors come in winter too, for skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and quiet moments.

Northwestern Wisconsin’s pristine rivers are also a recreational paradise. The 98-mile Namekagon is part of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, and is popular for multiday canoe trips. A bit farther north, the Brule courses between old-growth red and white pines. Known as the “River of Presidents,” it has attracted five—including Teddy Roosevelt—to fish its famous trout waters. Other rivers were dammed decades ago to form immense man-made lakes: Waterways like the Chippewa Flowage and the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage are prime fishing destinations, with healthy populations of bass, walleye, northern pike, and the state’s most famous fighting fish, the muskellunge or “muskie.”

There are several early 20th-century Adirondack-style log lodges in the area, including Spider Lake Lodge, near Hayward and the vast Chequamegon National Forest; Seven Pines Lodge in Frederic, situated on 65 acres and with prime fly-fishing on Knapp Creek; and
Stout’s Island Lodge, blissfully stranded on an island in Red Cedar Lake near Birchwood.

W
HERE
: Hayward is 340 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
S
PIDER
L
AKE
L
ODGE
: Hayward. Tel 800–653-9472 or 715–462-3793;
www.spiderlakelodge.com
.
Cost:
from $139.
S
EVEN
P
INES
L
ODGE
: Frederic. Tel 715–653-2323;
www.sevenpineslodge.com
.
Cost:
from $125.
S
TOUT’S
I
SLAND
L
ODGE
: Birchwood. Tel 715–354-3646;
www.stoutslodge.com
.
Cost:
from $169.
When:
late May–Oct.
B
EST TIMES
: Sept for the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival mountain bike race (
www.cheqfattire.com
).

Aquatic Adventures Abound

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Dells gets its name from the stretches of river valley chiseled through 150-foot-high honey-hued bluffs, but that’s not what draws millions to this south-central Wisconsin tourist mecca. They come for the
waterparks: “The Dells” boasts the largest single waterpark, the largest indoor waterpark, and largest number and variety of waterparks anywhere in the nation—21 at last count.

And the waterparks are merely the aquatic anchor of a full-fledged family vacation destination with an exhausting array of kid-pleasing attractions: amusement parks, go-kart tracks, boat tours, water-ski shows, circus acts, haunted houses … It’s made this small city the state’s No. 1 tourist destination.

It all began with the natural attraction of those sandstone bluffs. Visitors were stopping in the Dells as early as 1850 to tour serpentine side canyons and towering escarpments by rowboat. Riverboats, amphibious “ducks,” water-ski shows, and the rest all eventually joined in too. The Ducks—immense WWII landing craft—are still a hugely popular attraction, trundling along downtown streets and then plowing right into the Wisconsin River for a tour of its rock formations. Traditional boat tours, too, offer views of the Dells’ fern-draped canyons and pillars of stone.

Anyone with kids will find it hard to deny the simple pleasures of the waterparks. Noah’s Ark is America’s largest, an eye-popping 70-acre array of 36 waterslides, two wave pools, two artificial rivers, and rides like “Flash Flood.” Resorts in the area have built their own versions. The result is nearly two dozen indoor water-parks, including the Kalahari Resort’s 125,000-square-foot creation that includes a 570-foot-long roller coaster, and Great Wolf Lodge, with its 12-level tree house and water jungle gym.

The elegant Sundara Inn & Spa is a organic-style inn hidden away in the pines on 26 acres. Services at the well-known spa include “purifying rituals” such as aroma steam and rainfall showers. Turns out, there are water attractions in the Wisconsin Dells for adults, too.

W
HERE
: 120 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
N
OAH’S
A
RK
: Tel 608–254-6351;
www.noahsarkwaterpark.com
.
Cost:
$27.
When:
late May–early Sept.
K
ALAHARI
R
ESORT
: Tel 877–253-5466 or 608–254-5466;
www.kalahariresort.com
.
Cost:
waterpark passes $39.
G
REAT
W
OLF
L
ODGE
: Tel 800–559-9653 or 608–253-2222;
www.greatwolflodge.com
.
Cost:
waterpark passes $30.
S
UNDARA
I
NN
& S
PA
: Tel 888–735-8181 or 608–253-9200;
www.sundaraspa.com
.
Cost:
from $199 (off-peak), from $299 (peak); spa treatments from $125.
B
EST TIMES
: July–Aug for outdoor waterpark fun.

Demo version limitation

Immersed in the Animal Kingdom

Omaha, Nebraska

Sure, everyone has heard of the Bronx Zoo and the San Diego Zoo. But the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha often outranks them as America’s favorite, securing an international reputation with “total immersion” exhibits that
are considered among the best in the world. Attracting well over a million visitors a year, the 110-acre Henry Doorly Zoo (named for a benefactor back in the 1960s) has a secret
weapon: Omaha’s great wealth. The city ranks eighth among the nation’s 50 largest cities both in per capita billionaires (Warren Buffet was born here) and
Fortune
500 companies, and the community gives generously to keep its animals (and kids) happy.

Perhaps Gorilla Valley best illustrates the zoo’s vision and budget. Instead of passively gazing at caged (and mighty bored) gorillas, visitors stroll through a glass tunnel that discreetly winds through 2 acres of outdoor habitat lush with trees, wild grasses, and cool streams. There’s plenty of room for nearly 20 lowland gorillas, along with screeching monkeys that swing through the trees, red river hogs, and birds.

In Kingdoms of the Night, the world’s best and largest nocturnal exhibit, blind fish and alligators swim in the “bottomless pool” of the man-made wet cave, while a thousand fruit bats hang like laundry in the 70-foot-high Bat Cave. Directly above this underground world is the Desert Dome, where three different deserts have been re-created inside a 13-story-high biosphere. Pumas and peccaries roam the sands beneath the biggest geodesic dome on the planet.

Other highlights include the Lied Jungle exhibit, where you walk on rope bridges past steep waterfalls through Asian, African, and South American geographic zones. And an aquarium with an underwater tunnel lets you stand in awe beneath sharks and stingrays, as if on the ocean floor. Nearby, an enormous aviary is home to 500 exotic species of birds that fly freely around you.

W
HERE
: 3701 S. 10th St. Tel 402–733-8401;
www.omahazoo.com
.

You can get up close and personal with the residents in Gorilla Valley, which cost $14 million to create.