Friday we headed out for a mini get-away to a B & B about three hours from home in Sparta, WI. As we drove southwest, it was cloudy — the 19th day in a row with no sun.
After about two hours of driving there was just the tiniest of clearing in the sky. I caught a wee glimpse of the sun peeking out from behind a cloud and grabbed my camera to get a picture. If you look close enough it created a small rainbow, which I thought was so neat.
Our time away was very relaxing. While I would have loved to see some historic homes or points of interest, what we didn’t realize until we arrived, due to the holidays, and the winter season, many things were closed.
But we made the most of it driving around the very hilly countryside and taking a trip into LaCrosse. I’d never been there so it was fun to drive around the city. We visited a car museum, took Gidget for a little walk where she had great fun trying to chase after pigeons. Then we had lunch at a place with a hip atmosphere, an awesome young waiter, and delicious food.
The B & B we stayed at, also a wedding destination, called Justin Trails, was out in the country situated on 200 acres. The couple, Don and Donna, have been running the B & B since 1987.
There were several little cabins, each a different name, such as the Garden Suite where we stayed, The Cottage, The Paul Bunyan cabin, and Little House on the Prairie. The Lodge, with a woodstove burning, is where we had breakfast each morning. They also have a large barn where they do wedding receptions and the pictures on the walls in the lodge showed how beautiful those come together in the barn.
Donna is an excellent cook making her own granola which I enjoyed very much, along with bacon, homemade scones, eggs and pancakes. On Sunday she made apple, pear, raspberry compote and I was wishing I could take home a gallon of it – it was so good!
Gidget was a perfect little traveler and I’m so proud of how well she did. I wasn’t sure how she would be, but she did really well.
And though it is always nice to get away, it was so nice to return home again too. To what is familiar. To our cozy little home. To our own bed. After being in about 300 square feet which our suite was, our house seemed huge!
I love to take vacation and now and then a little mini escape, but all in all, I’m really a homebody. Coming home again is always a reminder to my heart of how much I love our home and my life here in Elkhart Lake. And perhaps that is what vacation is all about… a sweet reminder of all that we hold so dear and near to our hearts in the place we call Home Sweet Home….and I think Gidget is happy to be home too, as she has been snoring up a storm this morning as I work in my writing cottage!
