Schmeeckle Reserve’s new interactive app features aerial-photo layers underneath a trail map. Click photo for a closer view.
Last week’s Gazette column is posted on the paper’s web site, which can be accessed at this link.
In the meantime, here’s a screen shot of the app. Head on over … and, as a teaser for this week’s column, I wish everyone happy holidays! (Yes, I’ll make fun of Texas, my former home state. But it will be an equal-opportunity column.)
These chairs are so beautiful, they need their own set of photos. They were carved at Schmeeckle Reserve and are on the new patio at the head of the Trail of Reflections Loop.
“By three methods may we learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; third, by experience, which is bitterest.” (Confucius)
The small green space next to Sentry’s downtown building.
We all got a reminder Nov. 4 of the good that can happen when citizens speak up and both government and business listen to them. The right thing just might get done.
Big thanks are in order for both Sentry Insurance and the City of Stevens Point for examining an eminently reasonable solution to a proposal that could have killed off a small park downtown.
The issue came before the Historic Preservation/Design Review Commission Nov. 4. Citizens argued that Sentry’s plan to add more parking to its lot on the 1200 block of Clark Street would take out a number of mature trees and probably the very best open, green space in the center of downtown. Continue reading
This is my Oct. 22 column for the Portage County Gazette. The paper’s web site is not quite there yet, but it’s coming soon. I’ve been a bit distracted lately by my day job, including chairing a faculty search committee.
A swing at the pond on Schmeeckle’s Trail of Reflections.
Bad circulation, bad sleeping. Bad bones, bad muscles, bad mood. Mental decline. Shorter life.
Bad week? More like a bad month. Or maybe it’s been a month and a half. I don’t remember.
The good thing, though, is a short walk with an old friend reminded me of something I can do to fix those things. Thanks, Schmeeckle.
I write, of course, about Schmeeckle Reserve, one of the most spectacular offerings of any kind that we have in Stevens Point. The 280-acre conservancy just north of UW-Stevens Point drew me back for a walk recently, and like any good friend reminded me of the things I already knew but was neglecting.
Among those are the extraordinary benefits that come so freely to us if we just make the effort to get off our tushes and onto the trails – or sidewalks or back streets, for that matter. Regardless of the route we choose, walking blesses us with the opposite of my list above: better circulation, better sleep, stronger bones and muscles, a longer life, and a hedge against mental decline.
One of my goals this year was to camp more with my family. A way to make that happen is to write about it, so I have committed to a weekly column with the Portage County Gazette. Here’s most of my first column in its original state (but different photos). The paper is redesigning its website, so direct links aren’t available yet; I’ll frequently post these a couple of days after they appear in the Gazette. Feel free to share or send feedback either here or at the Gazette site. — Steve
The old County Y stone bridge just above the Dells of the Eau Claire, taken from a rock outrcropping over the river a day or two after heavy rains in 2008 (personal photo, as are others in this post; click for larger view)
We camped in Dells of the Eau Claire county park recently, and it was hot. There were some college guys blaring a country station late one night, and the next night our neighbors’ child got cranky and kept folks up. Did I mention that it was hot? Sticky, stinky hot. I got stung on the head by a hornet. While everyone else went to the river, I sat around the campsite waiting for some friends to show up, and they never did. We got some kind of tree sap or resin all over our expensive tent. It was hot.
It was glorious.
Words Are Roads 