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Pepin, WI – Why We Came Here

BBQ Pork Tenderloin

Food. That’s why we came to Pepin, WI.

Harbor View Cafe, Pepin, WI

In the mid-90’s we took a road trip in our 1982 Nissan 280ZX (the car that talks).

Aside: This was the car we drove one summer to the El Tovar Hotel overlooking the Grand Canyon.

Anyway . . . some time (we forget the year) in the mid-90’s we stopped at the Harbor View Cafe, waited in line with everyone else (there are no reservations) and had a great meal. A GREAT meal.

It’s a dinky restaurant that seats maybe 20 people tops. But the food! OMG . . . it’s all from scratch. Just the fresh bread is a meal.

So 20-some years later we returned in an RV instead of a sports car. That in itself is telling, eh?

Anyway, we’ve had two lunches at the Harbor View Cafe so far and we have not been disappointed.

Both Jan and I had a BBQ Pork Tenderloin sandwich with new potatoes and cucumbers marinated with cilantro and a curried lentil soup.

Yum.

Pizza on a Farm

And then we were told about great pizza served every Tuesday on a farm near Stockholm, WI . . .

Farm Pizza

The directions to the farm pizza were the kind that tax a GPS. I kept getting warning messages from our CR-V’s GPS and dotted lines on the GPS that led off the map.

Along the way, I passed Saint Sophia’s (a Liberal Catholic Church).

When I found the farm, it was like a speakeasy in the woods. Like everyone there was in on a secret. Very cool.

By luck, a VERY large group arrived at the order line before me and ordered SEVERAL pizzas — but each pizza only took about 5-10 minutes to prepare.

What???

Pizza Ovens

Then I saw the pizza ovens. Big.

I bought some maple syrup from one of the local farms that was collected this spring.

And the pizza? Very good, but you had better like garlic.

NEXT: Stockholm, WI and pies.

Pepin, WI

Lake Pepin Campground

Arrived at the Lake Pepin Campground on Sunday, May 11.

Pepin House I Liked (not a shed)

This is a “seasonal” campground — most sites are occupied by people who have the site for an entire camping season. However, most of these folks just seem to visit on weekends, so Jan and I pretty much have the campground to ourselves during the week, except for a handful of people who are here full time.

The campground’s web site says there are 130 sites, but the owner is adding another 50 sites which are already “pre-sold” to another batch of seasonal campers.

So every weekend the seasonals show up to boat, fish, and generally work on their places.

Another Pepin House I Liked

Sheds are big. Literally. My site neighbor, a full time seasonal and Burner (more on that later), said it all started when one of the seasonals put up a shed the size of a small  house on his site. It took off from there. For example, this morning a large, loud vehicle dropped off a shed on the site behind us.

According to my site neighbor, someone is living in one of the large sheds. He figures this is true because there’s a satellite TV antenna hooked up to it.

Seasonals are busy folks. A lot of them are building wood decks next to their campers. However, a lot of them don’t like mowing the grass on their sites which annoys the management.

Back to my site neighbor . . . the Burner. He’s a very congenial guy and very smart, but he’s always burning stuff — morning, noon, and night — and he mostly burns garbage. Little fires that smolder and smoke.

Pepin Has Alleys

We love this place. Really.

When we first arrived, we thought staying a month in Pepin was a mistake, but upon further investigation and exploration, it’s a great small town.

It’s quaint and cute and all that, but it’s more. Pepin has alleys. Though I grew up with alleys, I haven’t lived in a place with alleys since then. Pepin has really nice alleys.

We know this because we’ve pretty much walked the whole town every day. That’s what having dogs is all about. We’ve tried to take 8-month-old Flirt on a long walk each morning and afternoon because otherwise she’d bounce off our RV walls at night.

Anyway, the walks have been great. Jan says I’m getting tan and losing weight from these walks. The former is true.

Flirt and I have  gone up and down First through Seventh Streets from the campground (which is at one end of town) to Dunn Street (the other end) where they’re working on the sewage treatment plant down by the railroad tracks which are about 1/2 mile from the campground.

Pepin Marina

About those railroad tracks . . . I’ve heard that people who live close to a highway, airport, or railroad get used to the noise. We can vouch for that. Those trains roll through here day and night and the heavily loaded ones vibrate our motorhome.

Did I tell you that we love this place?

We do. Really.

Finally, the weather has been harsh. Mornings have been generally ok, but afternoons have been thunderstorm after thunderstorm.

We’ve been in a number of severe thunderstorm and at least one tornado watch.

Wisconsin was at the northern end of storms that devastated Oklahoma.

May 19, 2013

NEXT POST — The reason we came to Pepin.