A drive to Wisconsin

We celebrated John’s birthday a day early—dinner at the Havana House, with Chloe at her appointed seat. On his birthday, it was packing day. In hot, humid Florida, packing is a real chore, but we finally finished up and made it an early bedtime—with a 6:30 planned start the next morning. Right on time, we were off with clear skies. The weather forecast for the entire drive wasn’t great- lots of rain forecast, but we lucked out on day one and got into Athens, AL at 4:30. We had a little happy hour in the motel then found a local restaurant for dinner. I was out by 9:00 while Mom stayed up to watch the finale of Grey’s Anatomy.
Up the next morning at 5:30, breakfast at 6:00 and we were on the road again. We had great weather for most of the trip- until the last hour. With 60 miles to go, the skies poured on us. We made a brief stop, thought about calling it quits for the day—then the rain let up and we decided to give it a shot. We finally made it to Mendota, IL and it was freezing! Cold, damp and chilly. The hotel clerk told us to give the truckstop/restaurant across the road a try for dinner. They had a buffet and menu option. What she didn’t tell us about was the side-show we’d have watching the largest people in the world gorging themselves on the buffet. We were amazed at the never ending parade of really big people. We were truly in mid-America.
Our last day- a shorter drive – and we made it to Lake Viola at 1:30. We got the car unpacked and thought we were ahead of the game…until, we found that the furnace wasn’t turning on. With a forecast of freezing weather for the night, we were depressed. It was Saturday night and we had to try to find a repairman. We finally found someone willing to come out – it was a process of bleeding the air out of the lines. While he worked, we stopped at the hamburger bar and picked up some burgers for dinner.
With 3 days to go, we attacked the boxes room by room and by Tuesday afternoon, we were all done and it was feeling like “home” again. On Wednesday- it was a nuclear start—we had to be in Rice Lake by 6:45 am for me to catch the shuttle to the MSP airport. It was an uneventful trip—just lots of spare time in the airport. We arrived at the airport at 8:30 and the flight didn’t take off until 12;55. Memories of those awful travel days when we were working….unending hours at the airport. We finally took off, had a minor maintenance issue keeping us on the runway for 20 minutes, and had a nice flight- until we hit Florida. The thunderstorms bounced the plane like an amusement park ride and it was a white-knuckled ride all the way into Orlando. Then, I still had 2 hours of drive time to get home. Rock Crusher never looked so good.

Encounter with Granite in Stoughton, Wisconsin

We had some hesitations about the campground- Kamp Kegonsa. They were a bit hesitant about a 45 footer getting into the driveway.We arrived and were faced with a dilemma of which drive to take in- the “entry” or “exit”. I ran up to try to find the camp owner/manager for some advice. Finding no one around, I headed back to the motorhome, now parked on a two lane road with a blind turn in the road. I had seen several cars carefully go around so when I heard some yahoo honking his horn, I turned and gave him the finger. I saw John’s face in sheer horror- then saw the error of my action. I had just given the finger to the local sheriff. He screeched on his brakes and started to scream at me. Visions of being arrested were flashing through my mind. Fortunately, he must have been on his way home so he just told us to “get this thing off the road NOW”. Well, that left us both a bit flustered so when we pulled quickly into the driveway, we weren’t paying attention to the granite wall on the right side. The Essex had an up close and personal meeting with the granite boulder. The TV bay door was scraped and scrunched. What an entry! We finally found the campground owner who showed us the site (the “pull-through” was accomplished by using the main road as a campsite). Quite clever, actually, and with no one at the campground, it worked quite well.
We called Jeff and over a few beers, showed him the scope of our door problem. Over dinner at the local lakeside tavern, John and Jeff decided that they would try to straighten the door enough to ensure a tight seal (critical since this was the TV bay). On Monday, they took off the door and managed to somehow get it to close solidly. The paint will have to wait until our October factory visit.

Ouside of the scrunched door, it was great to have some time to hang out with Jeff and Kathy. Afer a few beers, stories of this two-some in their younger days could entertain even the toughest crowd.

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)

Viola Lake

More rural Wisconsin time- we headed for Mom’s house on Viola Lake. We had limited electrical power, but a great lake view out of our front window. We had happy hour on the pontoon with Mom and ED and Denny and Sharon. It was a complete tour of the lake complete with commentary.

We drove to Duluth for the afternoon and explored the new developments by Lake Superior, Park Point and saw my childhood house. We topped off our evening with a “Fish Boil” at the local lodge. Evidently a Scandinavian tradition, it was a process of boiling water in a huge kettle, adding onions and potatoes and finally adding the fish. The finale was a dousing with kerosene and a huge whoosh of flames as it was lit. Then, it was time for a taste test. The fish was actually fairly good- quite bony and not much in the spice department, but worth a one-time try. We had dinner at the “Sip n Suds” – taking advantage of the $1.00 hamburger night. Since Mom was in the middle of her “porch project”, John signed me up for a painting day. Mom and I attacked the trim priming and painting. It took us all day, but it looked great at the end.

Eccentric Wisconsin

On the road again. We headed off from Indiana, leaving the land of motorhomes, to southwestern Wisconsin. Jane’s nephew, George, and his wife just opened a campground on the bluff of the Mississippi River just outside Cassville. The campsite was still pretty rough; they just opened on Memorial Day this year. With a bit of landscaping and some leveling, it should be a good site. His real business was the tavern/restaurant- filled with locals every night. They made a great cheese burger and it was a pleasure not to have to cook dinner every night.

We spent the first day on the bike- the roads in this corner of Wisconsin were heaven made for motorcycling. The terrain was unaffected by the glaciers that flattened the rest of the Midwest and the pavement is baby-butt smooth. We drove into Dickeyville and saw Holy Ghost Park. The park was created by Father Mathias Wernerus in the 1920’s from material collected from all over the world. It was filled with altars and shrines made of concrete encrusted with glass, pottery shards and fossils – with commands like “Faith, Peace, Chastity, Mildness, Long Suffering, Fortitude. We drove by the world’s largest “M”. It was the work of students from the Wisconsin Mining School in the late 1930’s.

Wisconsin may be the capital of Eccentric America. Nothing, however, comes close to “The House on the Rock. It was built by an eccentric, wannabee architect back in the 1940's. It is perched on the pinnacle of a huge rock. He built the original studio by carrying stones and mortar up to the site in a basket strapped to his back. Eventually, he built a ramp through the treetops to make the site more accessible. He built a 14 room "hump-a-rama" house- low ceilings, dim lighting, carpeted surfaces instead of furniture. He built the "Infinity Room"- a 218 foot, glass walled, cantilevered room with 3000 windows that juts out over the valley - fifteen stories straight down. Over time, he kept adding on to the house- expanding to include rooms for his collections- doll houses, suits of armor, a one million piece miniature circus, giant pipe organs. He even has a carousel with 240 animals and room filled with the old European mechanical orchestras.

While not much could come close to that bizarre site- we visited the St John’s Mine- which must hold the title of “worst place to work”. It was an old lead mine and we got to see the original mine and imagine life for these Welch miners…picking for lead veins in tiny caves and hand-carrying out the heavy metal in buckets.

We spent an afternoon in Dubuque-saw the old Victorian homes overlooking the Mississippi and the horrifying casino on the river. George introduced us to his friends who own a custom bike shop. They do a spectacular job of both building and converting bikes. John got to re-connect with his old buddy, Horton. He met us for lunch and joined us for another highlight- the AMA Amateur Hill Climbing Championship. What a show! 500 feet at an amazing incline- and quite a few of the bikers made it up the hill. After a few hours at the Hill Climb, Horton brought his potato gun back to the campgrounds and shot a few potatoes into the corn fields.

Billboard: “You drink, you drive; You crash, you die; your brother-in-law gets your bike …Bummer”