Seeing Milwaukee

Milwaukee was a beautiful city—a bit like a miniature Chicago. It was an interesting combination of ethnic neighborhoods and lively city. We drove the historic districts and had a brat- teaming with sauerkraut and hot mustard- at the sausage cart downtown.

On Tuesday, we had our first rainy day in ages.....it wouldn't be so bad, but rain affects the satellite- so we couldn’t even watch the BBC News. Oh well, the news has been so awful these days, maybe we're better off…. So, with rain forecast for the rest of the day, we headed for the Harley Davidson factory tour. We topped off the factory tour with a huge German lunch- sauerbraten and weiner schnitzel. The lunch portions carried us clear through dinner. We grabbed a bowl of soup at the bar across from our campgrounds- Liquid Johnny’s. (Where the motto is: Let’s get drunk, naked and wreck stuff”)

The next day, we did a trial run to Illinois State Beach Park where we were planning to spend the next few days. Not knowing what to expect from a State Park, we thought it best to take the car rather than driving blindly in with the motorhome. It was a good choice- we not only got to scope out the spaces, but got a reservation in the “parking lot” section. Who wants trees and grass when you can have concrete and clear satellite reception! We stopped by Tom Christenson’s motorcycle shop on the way home. We got a chance to see his latest creation and John got to talk about Nortons.

We stopped for dinner on the way home at the “African Hut” restaurant and had a sampling of East African dishes and a wickedly good dessert called the Mindimindi.

The Potato Gun

John’s old stomping grounds- the University of Wisconsin. We got to see his old house, the campus of UW and walked down State Street, filled with sidewalk restaurants. We had a wonderful Indian dinner and did some people watching. It was the first back to school weekend, so the streets were filled with college kids and their parents.

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon with Horton and Kathy. We got the tour of the house that they built- literally. And, of course, Horton and John had to get out the potato gun. We had lunch at a local restaurant, right on the lake- beer, wine and burgers and some good political conversations (a very rare event these days- finding someone that you can talk openly with)

Chilling in Minneapolis

After all the driving, Minneapolis gave us a chance to relax a bit and get caught up on things like laundry, email, haircuts, dog grooming, etc. I got the chance to catch up with my high school friends, Kathy and Jane, and hear the latest on high school friends.

We drove up to Mom’s house on Tuesday and spent the day at the lake, taking time for a pontoon ride around the lake and an early dinner before heading back to the Cities.

We had a great evening with Jack and Walker and a wonderful meal at Kabul, an Afghani restaurant on Grand Avenue. The following day, Mom and E.D. came down to visit us and see the new motorhome.

Sturgis Bike Week

We finally reached South Dakota - and the Sturgis Bike Rally. This rally is bigger than Bike Week in Daytona Beach--about 500,000 Harley riders in a tiny South Dakota town. The roads were jammed with bikers-an amazing number of them women. The percentage of women riding huge bikes has risen dramatically in the last few years.

We took the "Wildlife Loop" through the Black Hills on Monday (along with 1000's of bikers). We counted 1 buffalo, a zillion prairie dogs and two miniature dobermans (OK- they were just being walked by their owner- but after an hour of driving, we were going to count anything on all 4's). We saw tons of "buffalo chips" on the road and John was beginning to think that the park workers drove around and dropped it on the road so that people would think that there were herd of buffalos around.

We had lunch in Custer, SD at a local restaurant- known for their rhubarb pie. We waddled out of that lunch back to the car and took the Needles Highway back to the campground.

For the next few days, we spent time in the town of Sturgis along with all of our new biker friends. We spent one day at Thunder Road, just outside of town. It was the home of the super-custom bikes and they were quite a site. On Wednesday, we headed into town early in the morning. We stopped by Orange County Choppers and caught a glimpse of Paul Sr. The line waiting for autographs was already forming an hour before their scheduled appearance. In town, we grabbed breakfast at the Road Kill Café and wandered the streets checking out the vendors.

On Thursday, we stopped at the Broken Spoke Saloon and saw the Biker Build Off Bikes. We followed that with a visit to the Full Throttle Saloon. The Full Throttle was a bit like the raunchy bars outside Daytona….waitresses in lingerie, burn-out pits, and the Wall of Death.

Middle of Nowhere, Idaho

In the middle of friggin' nowhere! John had us following the Oregon/Mormon Trail across Idaho and Wyoming. Last night we stayed outside of a little Idaho town called Soda Springs. We had to drive down a long farm, gravel road to get to this "RV Park/Golf Course". We were the only RV there- and there was absolutely nothing around us but farm fields with mountains in the background. I had visions of strange men driven crazy by the miles of nothing - turning into serial killers and attacking us in the middle of the night. John even had the mace by the bed! This is, after all, the home of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Well, we made it through the night... We went to bed with temperatures of 100 degrees --so we naturally left all our windows open and the fan running. We got up to temperatures of 50 degrees! It was freezing. John tried to convince me that it was a good way to imagine what the pioneers crossing the country must have faced. Except, of course, that we just turned on the heat and were toasty in just minutes.

Following the Mormon Trail

It took two long days of driving---we’d averaged about 6 hours every day for the past two days- and we had one more day left to get to some kind of civilization (if you can call 500,000 bikers "civilization). On the road from Idaho through Wyoming, we tracked the Mormon Trail. We stopped at the site of the Martin Handcart Company and the LDS Visitor Center. Given the direct history of John’s Spencer relatives in the debaucle, it was particularly interesting to take the tour of the visitors center and hear the story of the handcart companies. And, it did help to break up a long day of driving. When we finally pulled into our campground, we were still in the middle of nowhere Wyoming.

Sunny in Seattle

After Portland, we couldn’t imagine finding yet another city in the Pacific NW that we loved. But, Seattle, was the Boston of the NW. The city itself was beautiful and the weather was spectacular- warm, but not too hot, clear and sunny. We did talk with the locals who assured us that winter weather was nothing short of awful- drizzly, cloudy days.

We took a City Tour that picked us up directly from the campground and we had a great tour of the city. The guide was a Jim Belushi wanna-be and really brought the city to life. We got to see all the highlights of the city- Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, the Space Needle, the Queen Anne District, the Freemont District (and the famous Freemont under the bridge Troll). We also stopped at the Hiram M Chittenden Locks and saw another fish ladder.
After getting the city overview, we spent the next few days going back to visit the city- spending time in Pikes Place Market (John had a few beers and chatted with the locals while I bought fresh produce), the International District (where we found the most wonderful Korean food court restaurant), seeing The Eruption of St Helens at the Omnidome and having a spectacular fish lunch at the Chinook Restaurant near the Fisherman’s Terminal. We had heard that the best place to buy fresh salmon was under bridge heading south from the city. A local Indian (they have salmon fishing rights) supposedly catches them daily and sells them from the back of his trunk. We tried several times, but never caught the Chief.
As home of Boeing, we had to visit the Boeing factory and take the tour. What an eye-opener. Our premier aircraft manufacturer had a largest factory building in the world- and only one 747 being built. The Europeans have taken the lead in large scale aircraft manufacturing with the AirBus. We spent another day at the Museum of Flight- with over 50 historic aircraft on display. Retired Boeing employees give 1 or 2 hour tours of the museum.