Blue Mounds News

Edna M. Aavang, 90 of Mount Horeb, died Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010, at Meriter Hospital in Madison.

We left the flat urban landscapes and familiar industrial stretches of Northwest Indiana for a place without real BBQ ribs, where a fajita is pronounced with a hard J. My kids would soon return to college and my wife and I wanted to spend a few days with them in a beautiful place that was totally wire free, where cell phones were useless pocket ...

If there was a cheese-of-the-woods mushroom, this would be it. Bleu Mont Dairy's Bandaged Cheddar Reserve tastes like walking through a damp forest at the peak of fall color.

This past summer the family decided on a quick day trip from our Chicago suburban home to something fun and educational north of the Illinois border.

Smokers have only one more Friday night fish fry to enjoy with their Marlboro Lights at township bars and restaurants in Dane County, with the state's only county-wide smoking ban beginning on Saturday.

In the 70 years since quarry workers blew a gaping hole through this western Dane County hillside, unveiling rock formations of all sizes and shapes, millions of visitors have explored the limestone cavern known as Wisconsin's oldest classroom.

Aug. 4, 1939: A blast of 1,600 pounds of dynamite in a quarry east of Blue Mounds reveals the limestone cavern more than 20 feet high leading to other rooms all containing mineral formations.

A naturalist hike with Al Swain is more than just a walk in the park. It's an education.