Earlier this summer, my wife and I spent a few days in the Glacial Lakes region in Kandiyohi County in west central Minnesota, about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities. We had been wanting to go to Minnesota and hang around a lake for sometime, but just never found the opportunity to do so. But it was on a trip to St. Cloud earlier this year that I discovered that there was a Hampton Inn in Spicer, MN, right on Green Lake, a 5400 acre body of water. Being the cheap guy that I can be at times, we decided to use some of the points I get from being a Lifetime Hilton Diamond member and spend a few days there.
After spending our first night in Rochester, MN, we took off on a cross country trip across Southern into West Central Minnesota. It turned out that with flooding earlier this year, a number of roads along the Minnesota River near and west of Mankato had been closed due to damage. We ended up having to take a detour in New Ulm, MN that took us into the city.
It was rather fortuitous for us in that we would have never discovered the August Schell Brewery nestled in a small park in New Ulm not far from the banks of the Cottonwood River. (see map) I've been somewhat familiar with Schell's American Lager for a number of years, but over the past few years they've branched out with a number of different styles of their craft beer. And Schell's also owns and brews Grain Belt Beer, an Upper Midwest institution.
We walked around the grounds that featured the original Schell house that cozily sits amongst tall trees and lush terraced gardens. We found the gift shop and looked around at what they had in there, but we didn't take a tour of the brewery. We did end up, however, in Schell's beer garden enjoying a couple of their India Pale Ales before we made it back on the road.
The detours probably added 45 to 50 minutes of regular travel time between Mankato and where we ended up in Spicer. Spicer is located on the western edge of Green Lake. It's a small town with three or four restaurants, a grocery store, at least three boat dealers, and a large general store - Mel's Sport Shop - that sold everything from clothing to beer to fishing tackle to snacks to guns to gifts to gas. Mel's had you covered if you needed anything while you were in Spicer.
As I said, we spent our nights at the Hampton Inn in Spicer (see map). They billed themselves as a resort, but it was really just a newer Hampton Inn, finished in mid-2017. And it wasn't even on the lakefront. There were houses and trees in between the hotel and the lake. From our tiny hotel room (one of the smallest - if not THE smallest - King-bed rooms I've ever been in), we could see slivers of the lake in the far away distance.
When we checked in, we found ourselves talking to the manager of the property who did a bang-up job of selling us on Spicer and the nearby town of New London. She talked about all the activities that we could do (they had a couple pontoon boats that we could rent for $250 for 8 hours plus added fees), the shopping in New London, the wonderful restaurants in the area, the great hot breakfast provided free at the hotel, and the peaceful, laid-back atmosphere that brings people to Green Lake. We found out in a couple days that she really oversold some of the activities and the charm of Spicer and New London. And the free hot breakfast was nothing more than a standard Hampton Inn breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese omelets and turkey sausage. But one thing she didn't oversell was the laid back nature of the Green Lake area.
Green Lake is a large, island-less lake that had crystal clear water and little shoreline vegetation. Because Spicer didn't have many - if any - tourist-type places that catered to little kids, there was a distinct lack of screaming little turds around the streets, parks and beaches along the lake. It could have been that we were there during the week, also after a large Fourth of July celebration the city of Spicer puts on annually. But it was peaceful, restful and laid-back.
We spent much of our time on a deck at a city park in Spicer looking out over the lake. It was a couple blocks from our hotel and it was just fabulous sitting there with a book or an iPad catching up on our reading. Or just sitting there looking out onto the lake hearing the geese honk or the loons cry in the distance. Since our room was so small, we couldn't wait to get out of there each morning. We walked along Lake Ave. up to Skyline Dr. nearly every morning (we woke up to rain one morning) and stopped at the deck at the park to enjoy the light morning breeze and the warm summer sun. Other than a day or so of rain, the weather was picture perfect with highs in the low 80's with low humidities.
This was the view from the deck at Pirotta Park in Spicer as we sat in one of their wonderful swinging rocker chairs. Many times we were the only people on the deck. It was our own little slice of heaven.
We took a drive around Green Lake our first night there and we couldn't believe the number of homes for sale along the lake. We were talking with a couple who we met at a brewpub in New London one evening - they recognized us from the previous evening as we were sitting outside a beachfront restaurant in Spicer enjoying mai tais while staring out at the lake - and they had a vacation house on the lake. We asked them about the number of houses for sale around the lake - it was my wife's estimation that nearly a 1/3 of the homes around the lake's 12 mile plus loop were for sale. I thought it was, maybe, 1 out of every four houses. But we did see a number of homes in a row that were for sale at different places around the lake.
The guy told us that many of the houses are owned by both people from the Twin Cities and by farmers in the area. With the uncertainty of farm markets going on with trade wars with China, he explained to us that many of the houses were owned by farmers who couldn't afford to keep the lake homes. "But you're right," he said to me. "There's a lot of houses for sale."
He also mentioned that a number of other homes owned by people from the Twin Cities go up for sale annually. "It's a 100 miles from the center of the Twin Cities out here," he was saying as we talked at the brewpub. "And it's not an easy 100 mile drive from the cities. People get a house out here, find out that they only use it two or three times a year, then realize that it's stupid to have a lake home so far from the city. Then they end up selling it, usually to someone else from the Twin Cities who then realizes after three years that he doesn't use it enough."
The one other thing that I didn't see around Green Lake were resorts. In fact, there was only one or two places that billed themselves as resorts, but they were nothing more than glorified campgrounds for people who wanted to put camper trailers on the grounds for the summer months. I was told that over 30 years ago there were over 20 resorts on the lake. The last one closed last year - Spicer Castle, a 15 room, 1 cabin bed-and-breakfast that was built in 1895 by Spicer's founder, John Spicer. There were no supper clubs in the area, no large campgrounds, no real attractions. If you were looking for a place to veg out and do nothing, Spicer was the place.
The one day it rained, we decided to head up to New London and check out the place. The lady at the hotel made it sound like New London was a destination that rivaled the likes of Galena, IL with its charming shops, restaurants and brewpub. It was far from that. After driving down the main street of the small town (about the size of Spicer), my wife and I sort of looked at one another and thought, "This is it? This is all there is to New London?" We didn't get out of the car that day, but we did go back another day when it was nicer and walked the three or four blocks that make up the downtown retail area. Most of the shops were geared toward seasonal tourists - tourists with a lot of money. My wife wound up shaking her head in dismay and disbelief after leaving the last shop we were in that morning.
What New London did have - in addition to a great brewpub with an attached farm-to-fork restaurant that I'll be writing about at a later date - was a number of lakes chained together by the middle fork of the Crow River. One afternoon, we found a park with a long curving lake by it and we watched an instructor for a local ski club pull some young skiers - we surmised that they were not even teenagers yet - up and down the lake with a ski boat. They were actually quite entertaining to watch. There was a grandstand on the shore near us and a ski jump ramp in the lake and it was my guess that the ski club put on shows there. (The kids didn't use the ski jump ramp.) I think we sat there for over an hour, not only watching them but enjoying the cool shade along the lake.
Outside of New London was Sibley State Park, a 2900 acre park that featured nature trails, camping, an interpretive center, and a handful of small lakes including a beach at the largest, Lake Andrew. The centerpiece of Sibley State Park was a viewing tower on the top of Mount Tom. We drove up through a tree-shrouded lane to a parking lot near the viewing tower. It was a short hike up a trail, then a few steps up the tower gave us a 360 degree view of a 50 mile radius around the park. My wife, who is very skittish with towers, was able to get up the sturdy steps and take a look at the surrounding area with me.
We had passed a winery on our way between Spicer and New London a few times on our back-and-forth's between the two towns. We decided to stop in one afternoon and check the place out - Glacial Ridge Winery. Owner Ron Wothe was in the tasting room and we sat down to give some of his wines a taste. He explained to us that he has many of his grapes shipped in from Northern California and he makes the wine there.
He had two whites and five reds to sample that day. Two of the wines - a wonderful white American Vermintino by the name of Bacio, and a velvety lightly oaked cabernet by the name of Green Lake Girl - were definitely head and shoulders above the others. We liked the Bacio wine so much that we bought a couple bottles to take home for our next door neighbor lady who was doing her best not to let our plants and flowers die while we were away.
Glacial Ridge also hosts a summer concert series and they were setting up for that evening's show while we were there. Ron Wothe told us that they had been rained out of the previously scheduled events. "It's been a bad spring and early summer up here," he said as he watched some of the band members set up on the small stage in the orchard across the parking lot from the winery. "We could have 300 people out here later tonight," he said before inviting us to come back. We did drive by going up for a beer at the New London brewpub and a large number of cars were parked along the line going to the winery and far down the road that gets you to the entrance of the lane. I'm guessing he had a good night that evening.
On the rainy day, we did drive down to Willmar - 10 miles from Spicer - to check out the largest town in the area. Here's a road tip - there's NOTHING in Willmar. I mean, nothing. We did find a pretty good restaurant on a picturesque golf course that I'll let you know about at a later date, but that was about it. The couple we met at the brewpub in New London that week were from Willmar and even THEY said there was nothing in Willmar.
And one day, we decided to make the 50 minute trip up to St. Cloud to have lunch and look around. After lunch at the White Horse Restaurant in downtown St. Cloud (click here to see the original Road Tips entry on the White Horse), we ventured over toward the campus of St. Cloud State University and went over the Mississippi River to find a wonderful botanical garden - the Munsinger Gardens part of the Munsinger/Clemons Botanical Society based in St. Cloud.
The garden was one of the best ones we've found in our travels - and that even includes going to botanical gardens in Hawaii. It featured bricked walkways that went through all different types of flower and plants - both annuals and perennials. The botanical garden had a number of fountains that were centerpieces of different sections of the property. Down the hill from the botanical garden was a tree-laden park that went along the Mississippi River. We dodged off-and-on rain drops as we walked through both the garden and park that day.
My wife and I were especially interested in the rose garden they had at the Munsinger Gardens. However, a tough winter and cold spring took its toll on many of the rose bushes and they were in the midst of replanting many of the roses when we were there. One of the many workers at the garden told us that the combination of heavy snow cover, then a cold snap in early May damaged many of the rose bushes. We were sort of disappointed because this was a large rose garden and we wanted to get a peek at some roses we may want to put in our garden at home. But only a handful were blooming.
So, that's a quick synopsis of our laid-back, veg-out, do nothing vacation. Well, we actually did some things, but for the most part we hung out when we could. We spent about an hour of our last morning in Spicer sitting on the deck at Pirotta Park looking out at the peaceful water on Green Lake. It was really tough to leave Spicer and it was almost a culture shock when we stayed in downtown Minneapolis that evening with all the hustle and bustle compared to calm and quiet of Spicer. We would have no problem heading back to chill at Spicer and to hang out in the great little brewpub in New London that I'll write about sometime very soon.
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