Cedar Lodge and Settlement - Wisconsin Dells

This is the outside of Cedar Lodge and Settlement cabin number 29. Obviously, this is that night. All of the cabins have these lights on them which look pretty neat. Cabin number 28 and 29 are both two bedroom with a loft cabin. Each of the bedrooms has a queen bed and the Loft has two queen beds, plus a sleeper sofa in the living room.

I think what I liked most about the place was its location along the river. The kids could go and play on their place at or dig in the sand beach and we could sit there and enjoy the calmness there after having spent the day in downtown Dells or at Noah's Ark or another water park. This is a picture of the fire pit. They do provide wood and paper and matches to start it. We brought along our own marshmallow sticks and s'mores supplies but they did sell s'mores kits in the office.

My kids and their cousin are young enough to still enjoy a place that so this was an asset to us to have this available for them too get rid of some energy. There were other kids staying in the hotel part that they played with at the place that as well.

Here I am set up at a chair enjoying the coffee my husband picked up for me looking at the river and the Bluffs. You do see some army ducks tours go by and people floating down the river on tubes or in kayaks. Right next door is a place that rents fishing boats, tube, and kayaks. It is quite a lazy river so it will not be and exciting tube time but a relaxing one instead.

The cabin rental did include passes to go to both Noah's Ark and the water parks at Chula Vista Resort for our entire State. We did go to Chula Vista to the indoor waterpark the first night then we went to Noah's Ark the next two days. The inclusion of these wristbands help offset the cost of the cabin which was quite a bit. The cabin next door at the other place seemed to be cheaper but did not include the passes. Had this not been a waterpark intended trip I may have looked at the place next door instead which we may do in the future. It also included passes to go to the Big Cat Rescue but that look to be almost a half-hour away in the opposite direction of where we were going to be heading when we go home.

The place also did have a pool but we never got a chance to use it because we were busy doing other things. We thoroughly enjoyed having the use of a full kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We stayed there with my sister and her family so there were two families in the cabin.

One thing I didn't care for was that we were required to remove our own trash. It's not a big deal but when you pay $400 a night, you expect them to remove the trash. I also found it to be quite Dusty on the lights and light fixtures and underneath the beds. If the kids weren't playing hide-and-seek and came out covered in dust bunnies we probably would not have noticed but I expect it to not have so much dust.

Overall though, it was a nice place to stay and the inclusion of passes was awesome. They only required a two-night stay which is why we chose this place where as a lot of other places in the Dells require a three-night stay in the summer.

She Is......Women in the Outdoors Weekend at Eagle Bluff

Let me tell you a little bit about She Is. It is a nonprofit organization that plans outings for women to do as a group. This is my third year going to the she is spring women's weekend. They do have one coming up in the fall but it will be hard for me to know whether or not I can attend that one because of when my kids might have swim meets.

The spring weekend is held at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center in Lanesboro Minnesota. When you register for this weekend you will pick out classes in your order of preference. Each person will get for classes but you rank 10 of them in your preference order. I think there was about 25 classes to choose from so there is a wide variety of things to do outside and inside. I tend to gravitate towards the ones where I can be most active.

The above picture is me on the ropes course and the zip line. I have done this class each of the three years I have gone. I find it to be such a thrill.

 This is just a picture of one of the meals they served us. Sometimes we get to have things that we might normally not have at home. This is just a taco so nothing different here but we did have Watercress shelter at one meal and rabbits to add another. Both do things to me. Eagle Bluff tries to use local and sustainable ingredients when they are making their meals as much as possible. But as a mom I just enjoy that someone else is doing the cooking and cleaning for an entire weekend.

 The indoor crafty class I chose to take this year was to make a hammock cocoon swing. I did finish it but I still need to buy cushions to put inside and figure out where to hang it from. It might go up to our cabin.

 This is me with my friend Lori. She drove about 4 hours to come spend the weekend with me and three other of my friends. I had not seen her in a couple of years so I was thrilled to be able to have this time with her. We did go canoeing together as one of our classes and did the hammock swing class together as well. I didn't bring along my phone when we went canoeing so no pictures from that.

 It is morel season time in Minnesota when we were there and I found for that were all about this big.

 One of the classes I took was survival 101 where we were taught about different types of shelters you can build and how 2 make your own fire. We were split into groups of three women and had to work together to use the resources we have available to us and see you what we could do in regards to making fire hand making a shelter. We also made raspberry tea using raspberry plants that were near us. I was very pleased that our group was able to make a fire using flint and steel. When everyone had made their shelters we did a Parade of Homes of sort to go around and look at how each group decided to make theirs. No group was the same.

Each of the two evenings there was an optional group class for the entire group. The first night the group class was on how to grow shiitake mushrooms which is something they do at Eagle Bluff. These are the places they buy their inoculated plugs from. I was thinking this might be something I might like to try up at our cabin. The other evening class was the star lab demonstration to learn about constellations up in the sky currently. I did the class last year so I opted to just hang out this year. But two of the ladies in our group were new to this program so they went to check it out and enjoyed it.

We also had an optional Saturday morning yoga class for the group that I did with my friends. It was before breakfast so not everyone is interested in getting up early to workout. But I was and am glad I did. Next year you should join me at the spring She Is weekend!