photo: Wisconsin Devil’s Lake by Goodfreephotos_com

Wisconsin Devil’s Lake State Park is located in Baraboo, Wisconsin, about 10-15 minutes driving from Wisconsin Dells. It is the biggest state park in Wisconsin. I didn’t plan to come here until I saw this photo online. I was amazed by the color of the whole picture. I wanted to see it so bad by my own eyes! Finally, we went there on Friday, October 19th, 2018.

It was the MEA weekend, no school since Thursday. “What are we going to do for four days weekend?” I had this question in my mind as early as October 1st. I’d like to plan a getaway trip for the whole family since everybody is enrolled in school this fall, and every one is doing pretty good in school so far. So I decided to go to Wisconsin Dells. Why? First of all, there is a Polynesian Water Park Resort in Wisconsin Dells. We are a member of the timeshare, so I don’t have to worry about the place to stay. Second, it is not too far away from Rochester, only two and a half hours driving. Last reason is the fall leaves are so colorful right now, we may enjoy the beauty of nature that God created for us. Devil’s Lake State Park was the first stop on my travel plan.

We left home around 9:00 AM Friday. The weather report showed there was an 80% chance of rain over Wisconsin Dells. I was worried about it and even had the second choice if the rain getting worse. But we were lucky enough that when we got there, the rain stopped, and the park path was pretty dry because of the breeze. The air was so fresh after the rain. It was a perfect day for hiking! Let’s started!

We parked the Van by the Headquarters on the north shore first so we could get closer to the water. As you saw on the map, the whole lake was shaped like a footprint. The wind was pretty intense. The water of the lake was not so clear due to the rain. The lake was around by the rocky hills. Most of the tree leaves were yellow and orange color, just a little bit red color decorating in the middle of the yellow tone. Kids were excited to see the lake. They took photos with each other, saying they could use it as their profile picture for school iPad. I thought that was a good idea.

Then we drove closer to the hiking start and parked in the parking spot right down the hill. On the north shore, there were two trails for hiking, one was East Bluff Trail which was 1.1 miles, the other one was East Bluff Woods Trail which was 1.3 miles. We chose East Bluff Trail so that we could climb up to the bluff and see the entire lake.

This was the picture I took at the beginning of the trail.  The path was covered by leaves. Is it pretty? Following up the steps, you were on the path to the top of the East Bluff. This reminded me about my hometown. I used to live in a small town very close to the Qinghua Mountain in Xi’an, China. I used to climb the mountain with my friends all the time during my childhood. So this path made me feel like that I was close to home. I missed my old friends!

We went up to the top of the East Bluff. There were lots of the huge rocks on the top of the Bluff. My son Daniel found a flat rock. He asked his sister to lie down on it, joking that rock was a therapy rock, and this was his therapy time. He sat beside his sister, pretending he was the therapist. Was it funny? The view of the lake was so pretty from the top of the rock. There was a pine tree growing out by the side of the Bluff. If you are brave enough, you could climb over and sit on the root of the pine tree just like my kids did in the picture, and enjoy the fresh breeze from the lake.

After the top of the bluff, the path went down the hill. There were steps and path combined together. The whole trail was so beautiful with light yellow and dark orange leaves. But when I took the picture with my iPhone, the leaves’ color a little bit more greenish than yellow. I guess this was because of the filter that camera added to the photo automatically. We saw some hikers too. That was surprised me. I thought we were the only one who came to hike in this kind of weather because of the time of the trip. But there were some local hikers too. They came to hike all the time no matter it was rain or sunny.

We didn’t finish the trail due to the weather. It started drizzling again, so we decided to turn back on the 2/3 parts of the trail. We really enjoyed the beauty of nature, and amazed by the creation of God.