Videos
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Video of Far View House – Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
Ancestral Puebloans lived at Far View 200 years before the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were built. Approximately 50 villages existed over time within a half mile area of each other. Peak populations on this site occurred between A.D. 900-1300. Six excavated sites are connected by trails; Far View House, Pipe Shrine House, Coyote Village, Far View Reservoir, Megalithic House, and Far View Tower. Slide copyright 2008, Creative Juice LLC.
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Video of Mill Bluff State Park – Camp Douglas, Wisconsin
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Video of Governor Dodge State Park – Dodgeville, Wisconsin
Governor Dodge State Park is Wisconsin’s second largest park with an area of 5,270 acres. It is named after Henry Dodge, the first Territorial Governor. The ice sheets of the last Ice Age bypassed this area and left intact valleys sculpted out of 450 million year old sandstone. Human occupation of the area dates back over 8,000 years. There are two man-made lakes in the park, Cox Hollow and Twin Valley, that are encircled with miles of trails for hiking, biking, skiing, and horseback riding. The Military Ridge State Trail continues all the way to Madison. There are 269 family campsites, eight group campsites, 11 for horse campers and six that require a hike in the back country. Camping reservations are recommended for this very popular park in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. Nearby is the restored Cornish lead mining community of Pendarvis and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin. Music by Maury Smith.
Governor Dodge State Park campsite videos
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Video of Perrot State Park – Trempealeau, Wisconsin
Nicholas Perrot, a 17th century French Canadian fur trader spent the winter here in 1685. In 1731 Godefroy de Linctot built a fort at the “mountain whose foot is bathed by water”, sometimes written “La Montagne Qui Trempe a Leau” and now called Mount Trempealeau. Platform mounds associated with the Mississippian culture of Cahokia have been located in the nearby village of Trempealeau. Effigy and burial mounds of the Hopewell culture are also found in the Park. Today you can get excellent views of Mount Trempealeau and the Mississippi River Valley by climbing the trail to the top of the 520 ft. Brady’s Bluff. Or canoe through the bottomland to see some of the thousands of birds that nest or pass through this magical terrain. There are 98 campsites in the park. The tent sites by the water have spectacular views of Mount Trempealeau. The Great River State Trail for bicycling can be accessed directly from the campground. Cyclists can then explore three other bicycle trails in this extensive trail system. Music copyright 2008 by Maury Smith. Slide show and photographs copyright 2008, Creative Juice LLC.
Perrot State Park blog postings
Weather forecast for Trempealeau, Wisconsin vicinity
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Video of Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah
Natural Bridges, 6,500 feet above sea level on Cedar Mesa, is home to three spectacular sandstone landforms. The three massive bridges where formed from sandstone that was once the shore of an ancient sea. Sipapu (In Hopi methology, a gateway through which souls may pass to the spirit world), is the second largest natural bridge in the world. Kachina (named for the dancers that play a central role in Hopi religious tradition), is the youngest of the three. A rock fall in 1992 dropped over 4,000 tons of rock to the valley floor. Owachomo (rock mound in Hopi), is named after the rock formation on top of the southeast end of the bridge. The “Bear’s Ears” buttes are seen on the horizon. Horsecollar Ruin is a well preserved ancestral Puebloan site that is more that 700 years old. There is a campground available with 13 sites. An 8.6 mile loop trail will take you to all three bridges. Shorter trails lead to each bridge from the scenic drive.
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Video of Roche-A-Cri State Park – Friendship, Wisconsin
Roche-A-Cri (means shouting or whooping rock) or “crevice in the rock” as the French explorers called it, is a 300 foot sandstone bluff near Adams-Friendship, Wisconsin. The park, established in 1948, has viewable Native American petroglyphs and pictographs discovered in 1851, but were “written” a thousand years ago. Roche-A-Cri is made of Cambrian sandstone about 500,000 years old. It is a long narrow flat-topped ridge bordered by shear precipices. The bluff was once an island in the 1,800 square mile Glacial Lake Wisconsin. In 1994 a Wisconsin Conservation Corps group finished a 303 step stairway to the top of the bluff. The 605 acre park has a number of soft trails strewn with pine needles that are all linked to the 41 site shower-less campground. One leads to a prairie restoration project, crossing over a foot bridge on Carter Creek, a picturesque trout creek. Slideshow and photographs copyright 2008, Creative Juice LLC.
Blog entries for Roche-A-Cri State Park
Weather forecast for Friendship, Wisconsin vicinity
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Video of Rosholt, Wisconsin
Rosholt is in the northeast corner of Portage County along the Flume Creek. In 1867, Jens Rasmussen, who came from Lolland, Denmark, purchased land and improved a beaver dam here to furnish power for a grist mill. In 1885 the dam was acquired by John Gilbert Rosholt for a sawmill. A community grew around the sawmill. In 1893 a post office called “Rosholt” was established and in 1907 the village was incorporated.
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Video of Collins Park, Portage County – Rosholt, Wisconsin
Collins Park is a 21 acre space on the 42 acre Collins Lake three miles outside of Rosholt, Wisconsin. Early Polish settlers had passed the land to the county after a depression-era tax default. The deep cool lake in the heart of glacial moraine farm country has remained relatively free of development. This park of towering white pines, has a boat ramp, playground, beach and picnic lodge. The 27 campsites all have electrical hookups.
Map of campsites at Collins Park
Map of Collins Lake (Fish Lake)
