![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
Winter is slow for shops and restaurants in the smaller villages on this wide spot in the Mississippi. But they've emerged from their slumber with the reopening of the popular Harbor View Cafe in Pepin, which marks the start of tourist season.
On a warm spring day, Lake Pepin is everyone's favorite road trip.
Where to start: It's a 70-mile loop from Red Wing, Minn., in the north and Nelson, Wis., in the south.
What to do: Explore the artsy shops in Stockholm (pictured). Visit the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. Have a latte in downtown Red Wing or climb Barn Bluff.
Events to catch: March 20, St. Patrick's Day Parade and Spring Equinox Festival in Stockholm.
Where to eat/snack: In Maiden Rock, the Smiling Pelican Bakery. In Stockholm, Bogus Creek Cafe. In Nelson, the Nelson Cheese Factory. In Wabasha, Flour Mill Pizzeria. In Lake City, Rabbit's Bakery.
In Pepin, the Harbor View Cafe is open for lunch and dinner Thursdays-Sundays. On particularly nice days, many people arrive by 5 p.m. (4:45 p.m. Saturdays) to avoid a long wait (on Sundays, it's open from 11:45 a.m. through 7:30). No reservations or credit cards.
Details: For more, see A spin around Lake Pepin.
Past fast plans: Spring in the Ozarks, Birds in the bluffs, Gunflint prime time, Fast times in Wausau, Baseball in Milwaukee
St. Patrick's Day Parade and Irish Fest in New London, Wis. This town west of Appleton becomes "New Dublin'' for the week, with festivities that include a big Grand Parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, followed with Irish music, food and marketplace under a heated big-top tent. March 15-20.
St. Patrick's Day Festival in Emmetsburg, Iowa. In northwest Iowa, this is the state's Irish capital, and it celebrates with many festivities, including a parade at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. March 17-21.
St. Patrick's Day Parade in Stockholm, Wis. This Swedish village on Lake Pepin is reviving an old tradition and also celebrating the start of the spring shopping season. March 20.
Soar With Eagles in Wabasha, Minn. The National Eagle Center is sponsoring birding field trips, an eagle-calling contest, live-bird programs and a homing-pigeon release. March 20-21.
It's a cold dawn on a Wisconsin marsh, but to a bunch of prairie chickens, it's a hot Saturday night on the town.
They've come to see and be seen, and hormones are in charge. It's serious business, perpetuating a dwindling species.
But to humans watching from a blind, it's high comedy. Whenever a girl chicken is nearby, the boys inflate neon-orange sacs under their throats, drum their feet and start scurrying around like, well, chickens with their heads cut off.
And when a male steps into another's territory, his rival runs up, stares him down and leaps into the air, the bird version of head-butting.
At first, it seems all show, no go. But then we see a male bow, and a female shake ruffled feathers. We've barely seen it, but we know the deed is done.
"Oh, good, I was getting worried,'' said Marta Anderson of Madison, my seatmate in the blind.
Every April, hundreds of people get up before dawn and head for the mating grounds in central Wisconsin and northwest Minnesota, where the last populations of prairie chickens live.
Even if it looks like winter outside, you can count on maple trees to know otherwise.
In late February, their sap starts to run, and that's "the sweet good-bye of winter,'' writes naturalist John Burroughs.
In the awkward time
between winter and spring, the promise of maple syrup also gives people
a good reason to get outdoors and into the woods.
Festivals across the region offer tours of the sugarbush, nature walks and, often, music and games in addition to tapping tutorials and pancake breakfasts with syrup.
In Minnesota, five state parks offer make-your-own programs. Here are some of the best events in 2010.
If the flapping of giant sails makes your heart flutter, this is your summer to be on the Great Lakes.
The Denis Sullivan of Milwaukee’s Discovery Center is leading an armada of international schooners, barks and sloops on a race through the Great Lakes, from Toronto on Lake Ontario to Cleveland on Lake Erie, Bay City on Lake Huron, Chicago and Green Bay on Lake Michigan and Duluth on Lake Superior.
The Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge 2010 will promote freshwater conservation and youth sail training along the way. But the crowds gathered in ports along the way mostly will want to see the spectacle of hundreds of sails flapping over historic vessels rarely seen on the Great Lakes.
They include the Amistad, a 129-foot replica of the schooner on which kidnapped Africans launched a revolt in 1839 that later became the basis for the Spielberg movie; the Europa, an 185-foot Dutch bark that was built in 1911 by the city of Hamburg, Germany, as a floating lighthouse on the Elbe River; and the 165-foot German brig Roald Amundsen, which once served the East German Army and sports 18 sails.
No summer vacation is more fun than a Circle Tour of one of the Great Lakes — and nothing is more of a pain than planning one.
This year, I’m planning to cabin-camp my way around Lake Michigan, which is lined by state parks with gorgeous stretches of sand and dunes. You can’t buy a better beach vacation at any price, but you have to plan ahead.
Planning is tricky because you pass through four states, 30 state parks and two big metropolitan areas, each of which floods beaches with hordes of sun-worshippers on weekends.
You have to navigate around big festivals that fill every hotel and campground within 50 miles — if you arrive in Traverse City without a reservation during National Cherry Festival, for example, you’ll be sleeping in your car.
Nearly every desirable place in tourist areas has a two-night minimum on weekends, so you’ll either be spending two nights or staying in a Super 8. And you can’t count on getting walk-up campsites: In Michigan, the most popular beach parks are 100 percent reservable.
The good news is that it’s not too late to claim your place in the sun.
Many of the Michigan mini-cabins, rustic cabins and camper cabins that line this Midwestern Riviera still are available for midweek stays in summer, and a few have weekend openings.
In Wisconsin, a brand-new campground opens May 5 in Harrington Beach State Park, and it has plenty of non-electric and hike-in sites open for weekends in July and August.
Not all the beach camping in the Upper Midwest is in a state park or even in the countryside.
In the western suburbs of the Twin Cities, Three Rivers Park District offers camping and camper cabins on lakes in three park reserves. They’re a great deal for visitors and also for locals who want to save gas money and travel time.
Reservations open for the season at 8 a.m. Monday, March 15, and holiday weekends will fill in the first few hours. They're phone-only; call 763-559-6700.
The campsites at Baker Park Reserve in Maple Plain, near the beach on Lake Independence, are most popular. The campground includes four camper cabins with screened porches; three sleep six and one is accessible and sleeps five. They’re $50.
If you’ve always wanted a second home – or a third, or a fourth – now is the time to acquire one, at least for a weekend.
People who snapped up beach houses and country retreats during the real-estate boom now are renting them out, trying to pay the mortgage. But renting a vacation house straight from the owner was popular even before the bust: Why not see how the other half lives?
Browsing the pages of HomeAway and Vacation Rentals by Owner – VRBO, the biggest and best-known listing service – is like going on the Parade of Homes, except you get to stay in the house you like best.
Each place looks more appealing than the last – the Lake Geneva cottage with the white picket fence, the 1920s log lodge in Hayward built by a gangster, the condo in the Chicago skyscraper.
True, you won’t know exactly what you’re getting, and it’s not like a hotel, where you can ask for another room if you don’t like the one you get. But the surprise is part of the fun, and you're almost certain to get a good deal.
Even in a dismal economy, there's no need to stay home.
If you're on a budget, you'll have to look beyond fancy resorts, spas and bistros. Try the western Minneapolis suburbs, where you can rent a cabin for eight for $115, firewood included.
Watch prairie chickens courting on the central Wisconsin sand plains or go up north to Ely for a spring paddle. Ride a zip line at a Missouri camp or go bicycling on the Munger Trail from a lodge in eastern Minnesota.
Each weekend costs $100 or less per person, based on double occupancy. Here are 12 great spring trips for 2010.
When we’re stressed out, a lot of us think: Gotta go to a spa.
Not a day spa, where you’re anointed, kneaded and tossed back into the cold. No, a destination spa, where you lounge around in white robes and relax until you’re half paralyzed.
Not many of us can afford that kind of spa . . . unless it’s in Paul Bunyan land.
Set deep in the woods outside the old logging town of Rhinelander, Woodwind Health Spa is a spa for the fleece-and-flannel set. Nothing is fussy – not the food, not the service and especially not the prices.
“We keep it affordable, so that the people who need it the most can come,’’ says owner Marj Champney.
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