With all the melting snow this time of year, it’s hard to believe that these photos were taken less than a month ago. In mid-March, I was invited to celebrate my friend Hanna’s bachelorette party in the northern town of Solon Springs, Wisconsin. It was almost a four-hour drive from my house in central Minnesota to the remote cabin on a snowmobile path. Leaving Friday evening the weather was fine, but Saturday there was a threat of a large snowstorm moving through. We all made the trek anyway, hoping the weatherman was wrong.
I arrived a little before 9 pm on Friday night, and we spent the evening hanging out at the hunting cabin owned by Kaitlin’s (the maid of honor) family. The cabin was run purely on a generator and FULL of antlers, mounts, and tanned hides. As an avid hunter myself, I felt right at home amongst the trophies. You could feel that this place was full of wonderful memories and we were excited to make our own as a bachelorette party.
The next day we woke up, and after breakfast and a mini photoshoot, we checked the weather. It wasn’t great, so we got in contact with a neighbor at the cabin down the road. The cabin itself was located way back in the woods, and the neighbor graciously allowed us to park our cars in his driveway so we wouldn’t get stuck if we got the foot of snow that was expected to fall that day.
We moved our cars and went into a local bar in Solon Springs for lunch and to meet up with another friend. The bar, Doorn’s Inn, was exactly what you’d picture when you hear “bar in northern Wisconsin.” Lots of wood paneling, locals coming through on snowmobiles, and a menu with great bar food. We had lunch and ventured out to another bar, because we got tipped off they were having good drink specials.
We made it to bar #2, the Decoy Inn, which was basically a house that had been converted into a bar. It was magical. They had root beer floats on specials, $1 jello shots, and people bringing in crock pots of food to celebrate a retirement party for someone. The place was packed. I loved the vibe of that place, and if the snow hadn’t started falling we probably would’ve stayed longer.
As I mentioned, the snow was starting to fall and we wanted to make it back to the cabin before things got really bad. When we got back we loaded our pockets with drinks, layered up, and went outside for a walk in the winter wonderland. It was magical to watch the snow fall amongst the giant towering pine trees.
We spent the rest of the night cozied up in the cabin, playing games and telling stories. It was fantastic for us all to relax and get away. The stress of jobs, school, parenting, and life were non-existent inside the walls of that wood-stove-warmed building.
The next morning we woke up to snow still falling, over a foot had fallen since the early afternoon on Saturday and it took us an hour to clear away the snow from the truck that was taking us back to our vehicles and get the cabin sealed up until it’s next use. Once we got to our vehicles it was another solid half hour of brushing and shoveling show to clear off our own vehicles. Thank goodness that we parked closer to the road, I was the only one with an all-wheel drive vehicle and I wasn’t even confident I would have gotten out from the cabin road itself.
The ride home was stressful, to say the least, it finally stopped snowing about two hours into the four-hour drive. And as white-knuckle as it was, I would’ve done it all over again for the fun that was had during that weekend.
The Small Town Tourist 
Leave a Reply