Chippewa Falls, WI

Today I took a day trip over to Chippewa Falls to meet up with my friend Erin from grad school. She has been living in Madagascar, and is back in the states for a couple weeks' vacation, and so we met halfway-ish for an afternoon of fun and catching up.

First of all, Wisconsin is lovely.

View of Hudson, WI, a stop I made on the way to Chippewa Falls.

When we found each other, we walked around Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls and saw lots of neat things.

We found a large log with a label on it inside a cage. I made Erin pose next to it. We don't know what it is.

Rumble Bridge

St. Croix river behind us!

An adorable old schoolhouse

Erin at the petting zoo in the park

Other cool things we saw at the park: an old settler's cabin; an albino bison; elk; a zoo with tigers, hyenas, and bears; graduation parties at the gazebo; a white ash tree (labeled); enormous ducks at the duck pond. 
We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that had good food and campy decor.

We got ice cream at a sweet candy shop next door. (Get it, sweet??)

Beautiful candy

We walked around downtown Chippewa Falls, which is quite cute. I eventually found the public library, but I was driving, so I didn't get a picture of it.

It didn't rain on us, as the weather channel had told me it would.

On the way home, I stopped at a very lovely rest area.

It was a great mini-adventure with a good friend!