Driving the County Line: Exploring While Staying Safer at Home

This drive has been on my field trip list for a long time. Safer at Home gave us the time and opportunity to do it. Making lemonade, I guess you might say. I wanted to drive the entire border of Brown County. We spend almost all of our lives in Green Bay. It was time for us to get out of our silo to see who and what else is in our county, and to see how small our niche is relative to the rest of the county.

We’ve spent several recent evenings on scenic drives in southern Brown County during the quarantine, listening to loud music, having great conversations, spotting animals. It was like a warm up for the big county tour.

I thought we were ready but decided it was too much for one day so we decided to break it into two. We started in the Southeastern corner of Brown County and worked our way north and west along the county line to the Reforestation Camp in northern Brown County.

We started in farm country; barns farmhouses, bars, churches, and suburban developments scattered throughout. Then the landscape changed and we were driving along the bay heading west and north. Fewer farms but still plenty of bars and churches. And finally into wooded communities on the other side of greater Green Bay, with churches and bars, of course.

We spotted pelicans, geese, mallards, scaups, gulls, turkey vultures, hawks, cows, and horses. So many farmers working the fields. Beautiful old buildings in various stages of repair.

It was the perfect way to have zero contact with others but still get out in the sunshine on a beautiful day. The (half) tour took us about 1 1/2 hours, mostly on county roads. By the time we pulled up to the Reforestation Camp we were ready to stretch our legs.

I’m not sure if we’ll finish the other half tomorrow or wait until next weekend, but we are looking forward to finishing the tour.

Here are a few tips if you also want to tour the county.

//If you don’t think you can do this without stopping at a gas station for snacks or a bathroom break or stopping somewhere else public like a popular park or destination, DON’T GO! Save this field trip for another time//

•Map it out first. We used Google Maps.

•Pack snacks and drinks BUT not so many drinks that you have to stop to use the bathroom. Public bathrooms at parks are closed.

•Pull together some tunes for the road or download a new audiobook to listen to.

Happy driving!