After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed to downtown Spooner to do some window shopping and check out the two blocks of shops. As we drove, we passed the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum and I immediately had a feeling of Déjà vu. No wonder - as our dear friend Tom MacKenzie was a founding member and after he passed away, his entire shop and several of his canoes were donated to the museum by his wife, Karen. Tom built two of the canoes that Mike had - the first was a birchbark and then he traded that one for a wood and canvas model, the first that was built in 1988. We attended the dedication of the museum and then I stopped again on my travels back in 2017.
We walked the streets of downtown Spooner, then headed out of town to the Spooner Outlet - a huge store that recently moved from downtown to a new location - they sell lots of outdoor clothing a sporting equipment.
We had reservations for the dinner train ride on the Great Northern train. We had a reserved table in the dining car, made up with white linen tablecloth and the works. We ordered cocktails from the cash bar and our server, Freedom, gave us some information about how the meal would be served and a little bit about the route we would be taking.
Each course was served and tables cleaned off before the next course came out. We started with cheesy biscuits, chicken wild rice soup, beef tender chateau with mushrooms, garlic mashed red potatoes, roasted carrots and then a dessert of blueberry cheesecake. Everything was delicious. Once the meal was finished, Freedom told us about the various train cars, the history behind each car (dating back to the 20's and 30's, and then we were free to roam around as we wanted. There were two additional dining cars and one was a western themed one with cowhide upholstered booths and stools (apparently Teddy Roosevelt rode on that one during one of his whistle stop campaigns). There also were three sleeper cars and we were able to see one of the sleepers - a queen sized bed and full bath, but not much else. At the rear of the train, a staff member monitored the tracks (we were now headed forward) for animals and obstructions, ready to radio the engineer or to stop the train if necessary. All in all, it was a lovely night, we were stuffed and ready for a walk when we got back to the hotel.
