Adventure

When Books Come Alive: A Visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

May 3, 2016 by Abbigail Kriebs 6 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which fiction and real life become intertwined – especially fiction that finds us when we need it most. I can’t think of a place where fiction and life are closer than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I grew up as part of what I like to call “The Harry Potter Generation.” Millennial? No, thank you. I was 11 when the first book came out. Coincidentally, so were Harry and Ron and Hermione. When book two rolled around, all four of us were 12, and so on. I feel like I not only grew up with the Harry Potter Books, but with the characters themselves.

I didn’t live in a broom closet under the stairs quite like Harry, but I did feel rather like I was on the edge of things more often than not. I was a reader, a bookworm in a town where it wasn’t something to celebrate. I was (and still am) short, soft-spoken, and sometimes too kind for my own good. Reading Harry Potter at such an age and in such a place, I found I identified with Harry’s battle to fit in after being on the outskirts for so long. I found Hermione’s intelligence – another girl who reads! who excels in school! – refreshing. Was she ostracized for it? Only until Harry and Ron realized that she was a friend, not in spite of her intelligence, but that she came as a whole package, annoying traits and all.

A Visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

So how wonderful was it to return to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter that Universal Studios created? Pretty wonderful. We went back in 2011, just a year or two after the Hogsmeade half of the park opened at Islands of Adventure. Since then, Universal has more than doubled the Harry Potter portion of the park, adding Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida, and creating The Hogwarts Express that you can “ride” between the two parks, provided you have a Park-to-Park ticket (sneaky, Universal.).

A few of these photos are from our 2011 visit – since I’d already been once, I decided I didn’t need duplicate photos of everything (I’m getting smarter as I get older). All of these are iPhone or point-and-shoot camera photos, nothing fancy or technically wonderful, but good enough to give you a feel for the park and entice you to visit yourself (and no, Universal has not paid me in ANY way, shape, or form for this write up. I spent my money and was just floored at how awesome it was.).

Hogsmeade – Universal’s Islands of Adventure

Stunning. They recreated Hogwarts and it looks amazing.

One of the rides is inside Howarts, and the line winds you through the castle and gives you a glimpse of different classrooms as you wait. The ride makes you feel like you are flying on a broomstick behind Harry and Ron, and it’s AMAZING. Provided you don’t get motion sick and aren’t horribly terrified of spiders or snakes (I closed my eyes when the spiders appeared. Just can’t do it.). You do have to ditch bags, phones, etc. – but there are lockers at the beginning of the ride to do so.

You can watch Olivander help a wand choose a wizard, but it’s also just delightful to walk through Hogshead and check out all the “snow-capped” roofs and the little shops. They created Honeydukes, where you can buy Chocolate Frogs and Ton-Tongue Taffy.

I did not snag a photo of the other two rides, but the Dragon Challenge is the best roller coaster. If you like coasters, make sure to spend the extra time to wait in line to ride in front – it’s 1,000 times faster/more exhilarating that way. Note: you do have to get rid of all cell phones, wallets, etc. before riding most of the Wizarding World rides. They have lockers at the entrance you can rent for free for a certain amount of time, but it does take awhile to stand in line for one.

The third ride in Hogsmeade is the Flight of the Hippogriff – it’s a kid-sized roller coaster, so no loops or twists. Adults can totally ride, though. :) While in line, you get to walk past Hagrid’s hut (so well done!), and you can keep bags, phones, etc. on this coaster, no problem.

And the Butterbeer. The regular stuff is pretty sweet, and the frozen version is just perfect. I also hear there is a warm Butterbeer if you get to the park early, but we did not get the chance to try it.

We ate a late lunch at the Three Broomsticks – the line was long, but the park has it down to a science – we moved through quickly, got our food and table with out issue (one of our party has a Gluten Allergy, and they were super allergy-friendly and easy to work with). And the food was good. Between four of us, we had a GF Salad with Roast Chicken, Mac & Cheese and potato wedges, and Shepherd’s Pie (delicious).

After we’d drank and ate our fill, we decided to head to Diagon Alley via The Hogwarts Express.

The Hogwarts Express

If you have a Park-to-Park ticket, you can ride the Hogwart’s express from Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley. We recommend doing it at least once – otherwise, it’s just as fast to walk from park entrance to park entrance if the line is long. The line does move pretty quickly, and once you are in a train car there is a 3D screen out the one side of the train that shows the rolling English countryside and London, along with Harry Potter characters along the way. There are translucent screens on the other side of the car where more characters pop in and out throughout the ride.

You can see a video of The Hogwarts Express pulling into the station on Instagram.

And Platform 9 3/4 – brilliant! I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to run through a smokescreen wall or something to make it out to the streets of London, but still a fun experience.

Diagon Alley – Universal Studios Florida

Hogsmeade is cool, and the Hogwarts Express kind of a neat go between, but the true “WOW” part of the park is Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida. This is what you see when you walk through an opening in the brick wall:

The buildings are all built at angles and there are signs everywhere displaying wares for witches and wizards. The experience is almost exactly like Harry’s when he enters the alley with Hagrid the first time. And that dragon on top of Gringotts? He gets a little angry from time to time, as most dragons do.

There are all kinds of shops at Diagon Alley, appropriately so. The Magical Menagerie is the “pet store” where you can find stuffed animal replicas and t-shirts and such, but also cool details like these dragons that hold up the shelves.

They spared no detail: these are the tap handles for two of the Wizarding World brews. We tried the Dragon Scale Amber Lager and Wizards Brew American Stout and they were delicious. You can actually check out all of the park’s brews on UnTapped here.

One of our favorite shops was a little surprising, but Borgin & Burkes in Knockturn Alley was so cool. I picked up a Deathly Hallows pin there, and it’s spot-on compared to the movies, complete with the Vanishing Cabinet and jewelry inspired by the books.

Speaking of favorites: Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor. We went twice! The Butterbeer ice cream is my favorite version of Butterbeer: not as sweet as the drinks. They have soft serve and hand-scooped, and a two-flavor combo of the Earl Grey & Lavender PLUS a scoop of the slightly-sour Clotted Cream was amazing.

Butterbeer Ice Cream? Yes, please. I need to figure out how to make this at home.

Diagon Alley also has the Escape from Gringotts ride, another 3D experience where you get to pretend to follow Harry and the crew as they raid a vault and leave on the back of a dragon. You do have to get rid of cell phones, etc. into a locker near the entrance, but it’s worth it.

A True Experience

What I didn’t take pictures of? The costumes. Each store and ride has its own costumed employees, from train conductors to dragon wranglers. The soundtracks to the movies play in the background at every store and ride, creating a seamless atmosphere. And it never gets annoying, promise.

The employees use the word “muggle” quite frequently, like when you ask what brands of soda they are serving? “I’m sorry, we don’t serve Muggle sodas here at the Wizarding World.” They do, however, have Pumpkin Juice (interesting), Gilly Water, and English-style apple cider!

Would I go back? Probably. After I see the rest of the Muggle World, of course. :)

Love Harry Potter? Make sure the Wizarding World is on your Bucket List.

P.S. Have you read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? Make sure you do before the movie comes out this fall!

50 Hikes in Wisconsin: Hike #36 – Cherokee Marsh

March 29, 2016 by Abbigail Kriebs Leave a Comment

Guess what? It’s hiking season!

At least, it is supposed to be.

Few things are as nice as getting outside the first day of a Wisconsin spring and not wearing a jacket, hiking through a forest that you know if just about to burst into life. While we have had a couple of warm days this month, there have also been some spring setbacks.

Like an ice storm last Thursday.

Scott and I had made plans with ourselves to go hiking on Good Friday – what’s a good free day off of work in spring if you don’t spend it outside? We were unfazed by a little snow – I mean, we are the people who drove 6+ hours north in January just to get a little extra this winter – so even thought it was going to be a bit soggy, we decided to go anyway. We picked Madison’s Cherokee Marsh out of our 50 Hikes in Wisconsin book (we have an older edition), #36 in the book and our first of the year. You can see all the #50HikesWI treks that we do here.

This park gets a lot of love from Madison residents, and I can see why: it’s in the city, easy to get to, and really kid-friendly. The marsh is a natural sponge for the Madison area, cleaning up some of the water supply runoff from nearby fields and parking lots before it makes its way into the Yahara River and into Madison’s Lake Mendota, Lake Monona, and others.

Our early spring visit paired with a late-season snow meant that there wasn’t much green to see, but the park was quiet and mostly empty, and the fresh snow allowed us to see some critter tracks that we don’t normally. We think these must be from a martin, but we’re not 100% sure.

The plus side to an ice storm the night before? All the trees looked covered in a delicate layer of glass, sparkling in the bright sun.

It was nice to get outside and experience something you don’t often get to see.

This is 9/50 in our quest to hike all 50 hikes from 50 Hikes in Wisconsin. You can see photos from all our hikes here.

A Winter Weekend Away on Minnesota’s North Shore

March 1, 2016 by Abbigail Kriebs 4 Comments

Last weekend, Scott and I took a winter weekend away. I know going to where there is MORE snow in February in Wisconsin is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is ours. And besides, every now and again, you just have to get out of Dodge.

We’ve been underwhelmed by the winter Wisconsin has had this year. While the east coast has gotten snow day after snowy day, we’ve gotten tiny little nibbles of snow here and there, and none of it very good for skiing. Before the winter left us, we wanted to get out and roam some snow-covered trails, so we headed on up to Minnesota, to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Surely there would be snow 6 hours closer to the arctic!

There almost wasn’t.

A Saturday in Duluth, Minnesota

Friday and Saturday it was mild and drizzling, so we spent some time in Duluth, Minnesota. We wandered and ate and wondered some more.

Some suggestions for what to do in Duluth when it’s raining in February:

Walk the Lakefront Trail

First, wear layers. Warm clothes, comfy shoes, and a waterproof jacket. Get as close to nature as possible in the city by walking along Lake Superior on the Lake Walk. The trail will take you to the downtown waterfront area, with lots of shops and restaurants. Our favorites were Duluth Pack (kind of like an REI, but a little more north woods-specific) and Northwoods Confections (chocolate!). You will also be treated to views like this from the aerial lift bridge:

No one scolded us for loitering, so that’s good.

We stopped by the Lake Superior Maritime Center, partly for a break from the light drizzle, and partly because Scott is obsessed with all things ships. He routinely says that he should have gone to sea. Not sure if I should take that with a bit of rejection or not. The have some neat interactive exhibits and the chance to see the evolution of shipping on the Great Lakes via tiny model boats on up to 1,000 cargo ships. We enjoyed the short diversion. And bonus: it’s FREE.

We also enjoyed meandering down Superior Street in downtown Duluth. You can tell that this city is slowly recovering from the 2008 recession, with newer businesses and some very eclectic shops. Our favorites were Duluth Coffee Company (the perfect Dark Chocolate Mocha = not too sweet, not too bitter) and a hole in the wall antique shop called Port City Antiques. We spent at least an hour browsing through their collection, some of it very local to the area and some of it not. They had an impressive collection of maps, which is kind of vacation thing that we look for, and we came home with one depicting the railroad lines and cities of Wyoming in 1898. We’ve been to Wyoming a few times, and not seen anything like it there.

At the suggestion of a friend, we ate Saturday night at the Duluth Grill. It’s a little out of the way, on the south end of town set in a commercial district, but it was amazing. The food and service were so good that we actually went back on Monday morning for breakfast on our way out of town.

Snow! And The Actual North Shore

If Friday and Saturday were a little drizzly and dreary, Sunday made up for it. We awoke to cooler temperatures and lightly falling snow. This was the shoreline at Larsmont Cottages were we stayed:

After a couple hours of lazy reading and lots of coffee-drinking, we layered on the clothing, packed a lunch, grabbed a trail map, and headed out. A kind lady at the front desk pointed us inland for some better snow, so we drove to the Lake County Demonstration Forest. We started on snowshoes, and met another kind Minnesotan who pointed us on into a trail that we wouldn’t have seen without her and it was perfect. Trees surrounded us, the snow continued to fall gently around us, and we were the only two people on the trail the entire time.

After a good snowshoe, we decided to break out our cross country skies for the first time all year and ski the trail we’d seen some other people on. It was OK snow – the fresh powder on top helped, but the slick stuff underneath made for some rather unavoidable slips and falls, at least for us skiing newbies. After a short while, we turned back, happy to have at least skied a little. We devoured some ham and cheese sandwiches in the car, and then headed to Two Harbors, another port city on the lake. As we drove we passed a log yard with hundreds of piles of logs, all stacked as high as this. I had Scott slow down so I could snag a picture out the window, the stacks were so impressive.

The wind at Two Harbors was so fierce that we didn’t make it long at their harbor. I’m sure it’s lovely in the spring, but below freezing with a strong wind off the lake was a bit too much to handle. We decided to drive north to Split Rock Lighthouse, a place we’d been told we had to see if we went up this way.

And it was amazing, even if all the buildings were closed and we couldn’t see inside. We checked out the lighthouse, which is a much shorter walk than the map makes you think, and then wandered down the hill on another snow covered trail, wising we’d put our snow shoes back on. It was gorgeous and we cannot wait to go back when it’s a little warmer and we can do some more hiking.

We drove “home” and enjoyed a couple more hours of reading at the cottage, with the snow falling outside and the fireplace on. We had dinner at the resort restaurant, the Ledge Rock Grill, which was OK. If you need a convenient dinner while staying in the cottages, it’ll be fine, but don’t seek it out for any special reason.

And then on Sunday, we had to pack up and go home. I really miss this view:

Have you been to Minnesota’s North Shore? What activities would you add to this list?

P.S. Like snow? Check out Yellowstone National Park in the winter. It’s a dream!