FENCEROWS...Lost Arrow Road
By John Luthens
I’d driven past the road sign off of Interstate 41 hundreds of times. “Lost Arrow Road,” reads the sign, standing just south of Fond du Lac, down a sloping grade of asphalt and past the two wind turbine towers that have stood as monuments for as long as I can remember.
The two towers may have even spawned the sprawling wind turbine farms that stretch over the hills and fields for miles now along the east side of Lake Winnebago. It’s a surreal sight seeing the stretching concrete windmills slowly grinding their giant blades, catching the rising sun on a bright December morning.
There is no exit off the freeway next to the sign, only a ramshackle and abandoned motel off to the side in a brush covered hollow. Being so close to the freeway, the old motel looks as out of place in the early winter landscape as the giant wind towers.
It was just such a December morning, after driving by the sign and the turbines and the abandoned motel for many years that I decided to find out where exactly the Lost Arrow Road might lead. I hate to judge a book by its cover, but I had a morning to burn and something I was searching for. With a name like that, there was no telling where it might lead me.
I took the next exit and, with a bit of circling and backtracking, found myself on an the east-west through fare of an old road where I imagined some long-ago archer lost an arrow while attempting a tricky shot at a mighty buck. That’s a stretch of imagination that comes of a December morning without December weather. But I had to start somewhere.
I headed west. I always like the northbound roads best, where you can imagine yourself tolling all the way to the icy Canadian border. But it wasn’t an option on this fine morning. At least west has a ring of frontier wildness to it.
Lost Arrow Road got lost soon enough, leading to another called HighBridge. I hadn’t seen an arrow, and HighBridge didn’t lead to a summit overlooking a mighty river. Usually the names of roads are apt. If you are on River Road, you expect there to be a river somewhere. A Lake Road puts you under the same type of assumption.
This morning, no high bridges, no arrows, maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. I did finally find myself on the shores of Lake Allen, somewhere north of the town of Oakfield. There were indeed oaks dotting the surrounding fields. And it’s possible the lake might have once been on some form of an Allen’s property, but it was now owned by the Oakfield Conservation Club. It was more of a pond, really. By reading the club’s postings discouraging permanent blinds and trespassing, more of a private duck hunting marsh than anything.
There were tiny wedges of glass skimming the pond. A few geese were stepping lightly on the pond looking for the open water. I myself was more interested in the ice. The “No Trespassing” signs were bright red and numerous, and they made me too nervous to get out of the truck for a look. I left Lake Allen to the geese, the oak trees, and the sign makers and headed back the other way.
Lost Arrow Road was more fulfilling to the east. I passed another retention pond in a farm valley. This one held a more geese than I’d ever seen covering a watery surface. You could have hopped on their heads over the entire pond and never wet a foot.
Goose pond along Lost Arrow Road
Down the road from the geese sat Lost Arrow Court and the entrance to the abandoned motel. There was a falling sign buried in brush that said it was- in a dilapidated form- The Green Valley Motel. I noticed the sign was visible from the freeway, but it was so peeled, faded and buried in vines that I’d never noticed it before.
The valleys were bleak now. They were between the seasons of green summer and snow-blanketed winter. I’ve also seen too many low-budget horror films with an abandoned motel as a back drop. I quickly drove on, checking the back seat for hidden zombies as I went.
I navigated by whim, without the comfort of a map. I was in no hurry. I do own two copies of the Wisconsin Gazetteer Atlas and they both serve me honorably. They are well used, pen-marked, wrinkled and both missing front covers. I need two because one has a portion of Lake Superior torn out, and the other is missing the major portion of Door County. Like Yin and Yang, together they make a whole.
The roads I traveled were all intriguing: Brookside, Valley, and Marsh roads were duly explored. Cedar, Birch, Maple and Walnut were aptly, if unoriginally, named for their trees. There was even Mushroom road, which didn’t offer up any small morsels, but did shoot out to a high overlook where the wind turbines stretched into the horizon. It looked like an alien world landscape.
Wind farms across the Mushroom Road vista
Into the hamlet of Eden, I stopped at a truck-stop café for coffee and a doughnut. I searched the paper racks for any loose copies of the OWO paper. I didn’t find any that day, but I’m often surprised at the places I do find the paper.
I don’t know exactly how the papers get to where they end up. Maybe they are delivered by mail, but I like to think that publisher Dick Ellis travels the same roads, hand delivering and always a step ahead. I track him like a game animal, stealthily following his path by where he drops the papers. Look for yourself whenever you stop off at a gas station, bait shop, or anywhere else you find yourself on your own travels. You’ll see what I mean.
I eventually got myself into the Northern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. It’s a fairly familiar area to me, but vast enough that I still get confused. I drove past Long Lake (which of course was very long). It also wasn’t frozen over yet.
Down a dirt track and over a one lane bridge, I finally found what I was looking for. It wasn’t a lost arrow, but it pointed to a small lake that I’d never seen before, with unimproved walking trails winding around the edges. I skirted off a trail and crunched into the willows and cattails along the water’s edge.
There was ice along the marsh edges that was firm enough to hold my weight. I made it right up to the edge, and I finally found winter started in all its glory. The whole of the small lake was frozen over.
A frozen gem at road’s end
Ever since I was a kid, I haven’t been able to resist finding the small puddles that freeze over first, stomping on them to hear the ice crack. I didn’t yet stomp out onto the ice of this small lake, because I have got a little wiser with age. I’ve also got a little heavier, and I was more than certain my boots would punch through into cold December water.
It would be a little wetter than a mud puddle. I haven’t made the switch to carrying ice fishing gear with me in the truck on a constant basis yet either, so risking a shallow dunking would have really been pointless.
Then again, I’d just burned a half tank of gas by following a road for no real reason other than I liked the name of it. Pointless is as pointless does. If I can manage to find the lost arrow again, I’ll be back to that small lake soon enough with some tip-ups.