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Wisconsin Life: Kickapoo Valley Reserve


January 16, 2025

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In the season finale, Angela Fitzgerald visits the Kickapoo Valley Reserve in the heart of the Driftless Area to learn about dark sky conservation work. The 8,000-acre reserve — managed in partnership with the state of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation — offers learning opportunities about the land, flood management and diverse ecosystems found there.

We get behind the wheel for the annual Battle of the Buses at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond. Teams of local high school students and teachers transform donated school buses into racing machines. The event is an engineering challenge with the added bonus of destructive fun. For some of the students who compete, the series of two speed events capped off by a demolition derby even outranks prom night.

Belly up to the bar at Submariner’s Pub in Two Rivers. Opened by former Navy submarine cook Jeff Tess, the pub is situated near the USS Cobia at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Tess’s veteran-focused restaurant serves as a gathering place where military members can find community, share meals and memories, just as Tess once did aboard submarines.

For dessert, we head to Tomahawk’s Windmill Ice Cream Shoppe. Built in 1939 as a Sinclair gas station, the Dutch-style windmill building evolved into the Berg family’s ice cream shop in 1993. Now a Northwoods landmark, the shop offers over 100 rotating flavors while serving generations of families by boat and car.

And finally, in an animated segment, we find out if moms really do cry. Performing live in Madison, storyteller Takeyla Benton reckons with an unintended lesson she taught her children. Through humor and heartache, Benton reveals her habit of hiding emotions in the bathroom, her grandmother’s stoic influence and her growing awareness that showing strength might mean letting her children see her tears.

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2025-02-04T08:59:38-06:00Tags: , , , , , |

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