Scenes from Lapham Peak

What better way to gain a little perspective than up on the highest peak of Waukesha county...then up

on top of a forty-five foot viewing tower?  As has been noted, while in Oconomowoc (all of midwest?), the weather was not particularly uplifting through most of our stay, but when the sun did start to burn through the seemingly permanent cloud cover, the city and some of its surroundings began to reveal its beauty.  Oconomowoc is named after the Native American (Potawatomi) term for waterfall, 'Coo-no-mo-wauk.'

In the dead of December – sunshine often accompanied by an Arctic plunge in temperature – jogging around the lake and waterfall, I thought I was breathing ice, but what beauty in the moving crystal water and the lone bench sunning itself.

Just outside of town, four miles east toward Delafield, the Kettle Moraine Forest was a pleasant find.   Cross country ski trails crisscrossed a number of well signed hiking trails, through deep oak forest and up through well-tended prairie hills,

Windmill at Homestead Trailhead, Lapham Peak

past a seasonal butterfly garden and up to the Lapham Peak Tower, where the broad and diverse power of nature reminds you of all things steady and just as they should be.