Review: Have you been to Spring Green?

August weather in Florida makes us remember fondly our time in Wisconsin this July. A large storm moved through and brought the temperature down into the 70’s during the day while we were there. Ahh…. We’ll spend this week reminiscing about those cooler days and unique activities in the area.

Spring Green, Wisconsin is an area that when I mention to friends they say, “Where is that?” This small artisan town has been spawned to life by the nearby House on the Rock and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home and studio.  In non-COVID days, it is home to the American Player Theatre’s outdoor stage and a budding nightlife of artisans.  I first heard of the town in high school when our drama club took a weekend trip to experience Shakespeare at the theatre. Hopefully they will return to a full season of shows in 2021.

Art galleries and small stores still remain open now, but mostly on the weekends.  Being a unique jewelry collector, I talked my guys into a stop at The Opal Man, a local jewelry store that insets, you guessed it, opals from all over the world.

The scenery is awe-inspiring with the valleys and hills surrounding the Wisconsin River giving way to hidden pockets of farms with red barns on the hillside.  You’ll also find artisans of another sort in the farming communities surrounding the area.  Peck’s Farm Markets hosts in-season crops, local honey and home-made jams and salsas.  This is also dairy country, and cheese factories abound.  We visited the nearby town of Plain, WI, about 8 miles away, to see the award-winning Cedar Grove Cheese Factory in action, then stopped in to the Straka Meat Market for fresh steaks, brats and Amish salted butter.

We pulled our travel trailer to the Wisconsin Riverside Resort, about 1.5 miles outside of Spring Green.  The campground holds enough amenities to keep a person busy for days, including a restaurant.  We added some in-season sweet corn to our finds, and we had so many delicious meals on the trip, there was no need to eat out!

Our time here wasn’t long enough, and we are already thinking about what to do on a return trip.  The House on the Rock takes a day by itself, and deserves a blog post of its own. See more about the attraction in our next post.