Minocqua/Woodruff

Our stay in Woodruff and traveling into Minocqua has been good. Not quite as many crowds as I feared over the weekend but still plenty! The first day we walked the city and had lunch at the prime corner spot overlooking the lake at Thirsty Whale. Nice place - good food. Then we explored the campground and ended up down by the water for sunset. We saw a few deer coming out at dusk - I am shocked you can see them in the photo as it was way darker then it looks here.

The next day we explored the city a bit more. We ended up relaxing at a local distillery, Northern Waters. Bill enjoyed some tastes while I prefered my diet Coke! It sure looked beautiful in the tasting though! Then Linda and Kelsey, who I have not seen in years, drove down to meet me for dinner at Oakfire Pizza. What a delight to catch up with them! Linda ordered something called a burrata - which I had never heard of. It is a big ball of mozarella cheese filled with cream. It looked so good Bill and I went back there the next day after our broadwalk hike to try it ourselves! Yum!

The final day we went to see the Largest Penny in the world - which may not look like much in the photo but the story is quite remarkable. The story goes that in 1952 local Dr Kate Pelham often had to snowshoe to reach her patients in the winter as the roads were impassable. She was determined to build a hospital in town. The geometry teacher in the district of Woodruff started a campaign with his students to request donations of 1 penny. It took less then a year with donations from around the world to bring in 1.7 million dollars and the Lakeland hospital was built! The penny was built to commerate such an amazing achievement by this small community.