4961. Walk the Fox Trot Trail in Appleton

 One day while at the farmer's market or something, Danielle and I noticed blue paw prints on the sidewalk in downtown Appleton. It turns out, they are there to guide on the Fox Trot Trail. I decided I wanted to to follow this trail. This was several years ago and I kept putting it off because I didn't want to deal with parking. Heather and I had time to kill while downtown and decided to go for it.

The Fox Trot Trail is a two mile loop through downtown and the riverfront that highlights the area history. You can pick up a guide at Paper Valley Hotel or just go to the Fox Trot Trail website to download one. Since I forgot my guide at home, I just googled Fox Trot Trail and downloaded the guide to my phone.

There are 16 points of interest that the guide talks about. It starts at Houdini Plaza and continues east on College Ave. Stops along College Ave include The Zuelke Building, History Museum at the Castle, Lawrence University Main Hall, and Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

Then the route has you head south on Lawe Street. This is the start of the river are. Stops along Lawe Street include

The Vulcan Plant Replica -- the first hydroelectric plant and the industrials flats.

Once you cross the river and train tracks, the trail heads down the Newberry Trail where you can see the Lock Tender's House, Lock #2, and between the locks building.

Then you head up Olde Oneida Street to Trolley Square, The Dam Tender's House, and the Fox River Mills Apartments.

From there you go past Rocky Blair Run and end in Jones Park.

We only lost the paw prints once when it crossed the street on Lawe Street since there was sidewalk ony only on one side.

I did talk about some of the places at first but by the time we got to Olde Oneida Street, it wasn't that interesting anymore.

The walk was fun. I would suggest doing it when you have an hour or so to kill downtown. There are hills but it was not as bad as I thought it would be. There is a ramp or stairs to get you from Jones Park on the river back to Lawrence Street. Going down isn't bad, it's always going back up.