As expected, our Friday road trip through the Driftless Area was full of fun and adventure. (And lots of driving. Sheesh. We spent roughly eight hours in the car, but that’s what we get for just going with the flow instead of picking an actual destination.)
After hitting the road at 9 a.m., our first stop was Black Earth, Wisconsin, home of the Midwest’s largest shoe store.
Tara bought a pair of comfy shoes for work but I wasn’t in need of new footwear, so I mainly just browsed and hung out with the caged macaw in the men’s loafers section, as one does.
Every shoe store should have a parrot. Just my opinion.
(Side note: “Black Earth, WI” is also the name of a killer song by Chicago-based indie rock band Ratboys. Check it out if you have eight and a half minutes to spare and love anthemic guitar riffs and tornadoes.)
Next up was Peck’s Farm Market in Spring Green. This is where we picked up our Bigfoot statue a couple of years ago. We needed something to cover up a couple of concrete blocks next to the koi pond, so naturally, our first thought was a little Amish-built wooden wheelbarrow, which we will eventually fill with flowers. Bingo!
Sadly, the onsite animal park that featured goats, pigs, turkeys, peacocks, sheep, ducks, pigeons, and a cow is no longer there. The owner told us kids were harassing the animals while their parents were doing diddly squat.
People suck.
We’d been to The Shoebox and Pecks before, but from there, it was all new. We discovered thousands of acres of fruit orchards in Gays Mills, the “Apple Capital of Wisconsin” (who knew there was such a thing?) and will be returning this fall to stock up. After lunch at Dante’s Tavern, we crossed the Kickapoo River – gotta love that name! – and continued on our way.
Eventually we made it to the Great River Road, which parallels the Mississippi River. The sky was super hazy thanks to Canadian wildfire smoke so there aren’t any shots of the Ol’ Miss, but this graffiti in Ferryville made me laugh.
I’m a sucker for barns, and we saw hundreds throughout the course of our day. I thought this one was especially scenic, situated in a verdant little valley.
The Driftless Area is just so beautiful! The topography in that part of the state is so different than ours (hilly vs. flat). But we’re closer to Lake Michigan, so it’s a tradeoff, I suppose.
I chose our route with one goal in mind: we had to pass through Gotham so we could hit up the local dive bar. Gotham is so small (population: 189), it’s a “census designated place” rather than an actual town. And while the name has nothing do do with the Caped Crusader – it actually honors Captain Myron Wheeler Gotham, a resident in the 1800s who (bummer alert!) died tragically alongside his sons when their ship sank during a violent storm on Lake Erie – the tavern proprietors leaned hard into the whole Dark Knight theme by naming their bar The Bat Cave.
With a vast collection of superhero memorabilia; colorful, friendly locals; and a damn good Brandy Old Fashioned, this was my favorite stop of the day. And I’m more of a Spiderman fan, so that’s saying a lot!
While enjoying our beverages at The Bat Cave, I mentioned to Tara that if we had stuck with our original plan, at that very moment we would be kicking it in front of a campfire, preparing for an uncomfortable night sleeping beneath a thin layer of canvas atop the hard ground.
“Do you have any regrets?” she asked.
“Just one,” I replied. “I wish we’d discovered The Bat Cave sooner!”
Tara is actually warming up to my idea of purchasing a little travel trailer at some point in the future, so there may yet be more camping in our future. More comfortable camping, at that.
Mark My Words 
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