Good Friends that you have never met before

Quick catch up first: we took the Kohler factory tour while in the Sheboygan area. For my New Zealand friends, Kohler is one of the top producers of bathroom fixtures in the country. The tour was three hours long and we walked over three miles. It was quite interesting, and an excellent reminder of what working in a real factory is like. We toured the pottery/ceramics plant, the iron plant and the brass plant. Although the work does not look extremely hard, the work floors were loud, hot, and dusty. I don't think I would have been a very happy worker doing one of these jobs over and over for years on end. Conditions in the Kohler plants were as good as they can be, but I wondered what conditions in overseas plant must be like. Kids today can learn about production of the the things around them from programs like "How It Is Made" on the Discovery or Learning channels, but these shows do not teach them what it really feels like to be a factory worker. 

We also were able to buy and enjoy some real Sheboygan bratwurst from Miesfeld's. 

We have six pounds of them stashed in the freezer. After eating them for two dinners, I have decided the big difference between the "real" Sheboygan brats and the mass marketed grocery store brats, (Johnsonville brand) is in the seasoning. The real brats have more salt, more pepper, and more of whatever other spices they put into them. The flavor is great, and very satisfying.

We left the Sheboygan area on Thursday afternoon and drove just about 65 miles to our next stop, a 19-acre county park located on Lake Winnebago called Columbia Park. On Thursday and Friday it was not very full, but on Saturday and Sunday almost every site was occupied by weekenders. We really don't mind lots of people around. We enjoyed visiting with our neighbor and watching the kids ride bikes. 

The park has a nice boat dock and launching areas. Since we don't really need water and sewer hook ups for short stays, $23 per night for a 50Amp level spot is OK. 

Once again the weather was mild, the humidity low, and almost no mosquitoes!

Thursday night we drove over to Chilton to meet fellow bloggers Karen and Steve at a local park band concert.
Karen is also known as Karen In The woods. 

Last year Karen bought this sweatshirt jacket online from a company that contributed a bit from each sale for food for rescue animals. I like it so much I bought one too. We agreed to both wear them so we could find each other. No prior mention was made about the blue shirts we wore underneath. "Sisters" in the love of RVing and fiber arts. Creative minds think alike.


Unlike the huge crowd at the Madison concert, there were only a few hundred people in attendance. Almost everyone seemed to know each other. If you mentally dressed the crowd in period garb, you could imagine the same gathering on a pleasant Thursday night in small town America, fifty or a hundred years ago.

One fun element was the drawing for door prizes provided by local business. Before the concert everyone put their name on a slip of paper and it was put into a hopper for the draw. The draw was free, but there was also a 50/50 raffle for which the tickets were $1 each. We bought 5.

After every few songs the band played names were drawn for door prizes. Craig won one. It was a $5.00 certificate redeemable at the local bank for cash. So we came out even!

Friday we went over to our friend's home and got to see their Safari, motorhome, and all the neat stuff they found to furnish the house they bought last year. 

Steve is not yet retired, and after they sold their larger home in Northern Wisconsin, they bought a smaller place near the park that will eventually be just their summer home. 

Karen is a weaver and sock maker. Her work is pretty and practical and can be found on her ETSY shop. 

Small town/rural America loves to have "feeds" and "frys" as fund raisers. 

We have seen many signs promoting this or that "festival" on our travels. This week was the Quinney Fishing Club Annual Perch Fish Fry. The club sure did a great job, and we enjoyed yet another Wisconsin tradition: community eating to raise money.

The dinner cost $12 each, with $1.00 beer and $1.00 deserts. It was hard to decide which of the homemade cakes to choose.

Steve works for the state of Wisconsin at High Cliff Park. On Saturday they were having a 50 year anniversary celebration, and Steve became Smokey the Bear. 

Karen was his "Friend" and helped him get his head together. 

We had some cake and ice cream and enjoyed watching the kids, big and small, hugging Smokey.

At the end of the afternoon a very hot bear was escorted back to the woods.

On Sunday Karen and Steve came down to our park for a BBQ. Most of the weekend campers left early in the day and we pretty much had the park to ourselves. We had a campfire and the camp host came by to say hello because we had the only fire going.

When it was time to say goodnight it felt like we were leaving family. Part of our RV family. There is something very special about meeting old friends that you have never seen in person. We are sure we will meet up with Karen and Steve again someday. They have promised to lead us on a boondocking adventure one day.

Who have you met lately?

It's the Little Adventures that Add Up

Tuesday was a day of small scale adventures.

Craig had spent most of the morning trying to get a few basic prescriptions called into a Walmart in Sheboygan. He had sent in an email request on Sunday evening, and we had expected them to be at the pharmacy by Tuesday. They were not. It seems his doctor is on vacation, and the doctor who is covering for him was "working his/her way through the messages". For what it's worth we have had delays every time we have requested renewals. I thought we had set things up with our doctors, but their offices do not seem to be able to comprehend the fact that we need things called into different pharmacies each time.

Neither of us has any serious health problems. I take a thyroid medication and something for arthritis  and Craig takes a blood pressure medication.  Nothing fancy, but necessary.

Anyway, by the time he worked things out, most of the day was gone, so we decided to just take a short walk along a trail marked in the open prairie grass area of the park. It was very interesting because there were informative signs for the many different flowers, shrubs, and grasses growing there. Birds too, but the sign about four kinds of birds was the only one covered with bird droppings! The signs gave information about what Native Americans had used the plants for. 

Once again I was taken back to childhood memories by the many native wildflowers. I fondly remember them all: goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace, cornflowers, milkweed and many more. 

Our second small adventure came in the evening.

Late in the afternoon there had been an unexpected knock on the door of the Alfa. It was the camp host. He had two messages for us. The first was a "Hello" from his wife, who although not a blogger herself, knew my blog and noted that we were at Harrington Beach. She is not here this week because she is still working in Florida, but likes to read the blogs because they want to full time too, when she retires.

The second message was that an amateur astronomy club member would be opening their observatory, which is in the park, and allowing visitors to look thru their large telescope that evening. The host was going around to all the campers to tell them about it.

So at about 8PM we walked over and joined a fairly large group of other campers at the observatory, to see what we could see.

It was not yet fully dark, but the moon was very bright and the club member had the telescope trained on it.

This picture is from the web, but it is just about as detailed as what we saw thru the telescope.

As the sky darkened the club member talked about telescopes and what you could see with them.  

When it got dark enough to start seeing some of the brightest stars he zeroed in on the planet Saturn. 

Again, this is an image from the web, but it is just about the same as what we were able to see.

I have never seen Saturn thru a telescope before this. It was amazing!

So, what started as a low key day, yielded a couple of good experiences.

RV life is good!

Zebra Mussels and a Big Bird

On Monday, after getting settled in our spot at Harrington Beach State Park, and taking a few hours to rest and do some internet things, we decide to take a walk. We drove to the Welcome center and then took a trail down to the beach. 

The afternoon was cool and a bit overcast.

I remember taking many walks on the shores of Lake Michigan in years past. The beaches were always either sandy or stoney. Parts of this beach were covered with a thick layer of broken shells where the waves had washed them ashore. 

Millions of little mussel shells. 

The Great Lakes have been invaded by at least two kinds of mussels. The first to arrive were the Zebra mussels. They have done a lot of damage to the ecosystem because they filter out so much of the plankton that is the food of the smaller fish. The larger fish are starving because there are fewer and fewer small fish for them to eat. 

The second and even more damaging mussel species are the Quagga. They can live in colder and deeper waters. 

They both came to the Lakes in the bilge waters of foreign freighters.

There is still talk of closing the Lakes to ocean going ships. 

As we walked down the beach we came to a small point. On one side the sand and rocks were somewhat clear. On the other a lot of algae had washed up and the smell was quite foul. We decided to turn inland along a short side trail. 

Quite near the shore there is an old, abandon limestone quarry that has filled with water to form a small lake.  The map indicated it was about a mile around. Just about right for us on this travel day afternoon.

Parts of the rather level trail were right along the edge of the quarry wall. You could see many small fish in the clear water.

I like to take walks that are not so challenging that all I can do is keep up.  This was that kind of walk. At one stop I noticed this beautiful overlapping pattern of the leaves. The light was just right.

As we came around one bend in the water side trail there was a young couple, with a nice golden retriever, stopped on the path, looking carefully into the trees. "Do you know what kind of bird that is?" they asked. He was quite large, and seemed to be hiding. He knew we were there, but since we didn't make any sudden moves or approach him he stayed put.  From his legs, beak, and size I guessed he was some sort of heron. From his plumage, I thought he was a juvenile. The couple with the dog moved on. I was able to slowly move a bit closer to him and get the picture above.  When we got back to the Alfa I consulted my Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds and concluded he was an immature Black-Crowned Night Heron. We are going to keep our eyes open for his mom or dad.  They are really neat birds.

Speaking of birds, while in the Milwaukee area, I was thrilled to spot three cranes in a field.  We were just driving down a country road in Racine, and there they were, quite close to the shoulder!  We didn't stop, and I didn't get a picture, but I know they were cranes!  Wow!

As a young person in Wisconsin I was always very interested in wildlife. I seem to remember the sad decline in the crane population, and am heartened that they are slowly coming back.

Maybe we can share the planet if we are more careful.

What have you seen recently that was a surprise? 

Catch Up

I think this is the longest I have gone without posting since I started my blog. At first it was because I felt I didn't have much to write about, and then it was because I had too much!

Over the ten days we were in the Milwaukee area, we got together with friends and relatives on eight days. We have not lived close to any of them for many years, and our visits have been far and few between, but like most families we were gladdened by the physical meetings that went beyond the usual emails or rare phone conversations. We will hold these days as precious memories as we go on with our adventure, and hope we will be able to swing back this way again in the future.

All in all it was a good week. 

For other RVers, I recommend Racine county Cliffside Park.  Spaces are generous, 50 amp and water with a dump station on-site.  Reservations can be made thru Reserve America, but they do have numerous walk-on spaces. The park was pretty full on the July/Aug weekends, but wide open during the week.

We didn't have time for exploring very much, but did take one short walk along a beach on Lake Michigan. 

We are now settled in for a few days a bit to the north at the Harrington State Park and will be able to take a nice hike or two. The park is 20 miles south of Sheboygan. We have some prescriptions to pick up at a Walmart there and we want to get some real Sheboygan Bratwurst.  We remember them fondly from our past as being the best in the world.  We will see if there are still other Sheboygan brats, besides Johnsonville.

Milwaukee Memories Day One

Our first day back to Milwaukee in many years was full of memories. 

Our first stop, this beautiful Saturday, was to the Brady Street Festival. Why? Because it was at this street show that I tried to sell any of my handicraft for the first time. I had no idea of how to get a booth at an art show or street festival, but I had been making some wire and plastic dip earrings and had enough to set up a small table display.  At the time the Brady Street show was a Hippie gathering and I figured I could just find someone to give me a space.  As it turned out, just about the time people were setting up, the sky opened in a gully washer of a rain storm and most of the vendors and organizers left.

Not being able to find someone in charge, I set up my table in a doorway that had an overhang and managed to make some sales. I was actually filmed and was on the nightly news as an example of a determined young artist!

I can still remember the thrill of going home with some cash, and being very excited that people had been willing to give me real money for something I had made. By the next summer I had learned how to find out about the shows in advance, who to contact and how to apply for a booth.  But Brady Street was my first.

This Festival was not big in the 70's and is even smaller now. There were no original artists there. The closet thing was a few selling some cheep hand strung bead jewelry and candles. Most of the vendors had T-shirts, imported clothes and food.

I did talk with a guy named Todd that had this very tame beaded lizard named Simon. For a small tip, he let me hold it and have Craig take my picture. 

Brady Street took up an hour or so of our day.

What next?

One of the places from our past, that we drove by, was the Wisconsin Club. It is an old mansion that has been a landmark for many years.  

It is a gated semi private venue. On this day there were several large limos in the lot. Ordinary people like us were not allowed onto the grounds, but we did drive by.

The Wisconsin Club is significant to us because that is where we met fifty-one years ago. I was sixteen and Craig was eighteen. I had been nominated for a college scholarship by my art teacher. The bank that gave the scholarship did so every two years for a different  field of study, and had a dinner for all of the nominees. Two years before, Craig had won the scholarship in "Space Science", and was seated at the head table and introduced as such.

I had just broken up with my boy friend of several years, not because he was bad, or because I didn't care for him, but because I was determined to go to college and I knew that was not his path. Had we continued to date through our senior year, we probably would have gotten married right out of high school and I would have had a pretty Italian baby by the end of a year.

My father, who had died that year,  always told me to get more education and to seek an intelligent partner. What better proof of intelligence than winning a four year college scholarship? Craig was going to be the first of many bright young men I would date.  Little did I know he would be the only one, and we would be married a few years later.

The story I have told many times over the years goes something like this:

As we were walking out of the dinner, Craig passed me and I said "Congratulations on your scholarship." I guess we liked what we saw, because walked out together, and not wanting the evening to end, went down the street for coffee.  It must have been one of those magical late autumn nights when the air isn't hot, but is still warm enough to enjoy a walk.

As we drank our coffee, he discovered he did not have any money to pay for it! 

So I bought him a cup of coffee, and he followed me home. That is to say, he took the bus home with me and walked me to my door. 

His home was several miles from mine, but fortunately it was on the same side of the city, so he was able to walk there. If he had lived on the other side of town, we may never have seen each other again.

The house that Craig grew up in on 46th street

The house I grew up in on 69th street a couple of miles northwest of his

To finish the story of that time, Craig sent me a check for twenty one cents to pay for the coffee, and we started to date.

We visited a number of places in the rest of the day. I will write about some of them in another post.

Catching Up again - Madison

It seems I'm always catching up on what we are up to.  That's OK as far as I'm concerned, because this blog is meant to be a log of things we have done and places we visit. Our family members usually know where we are, or if they need to get in touch can give us a call. I usually don't post on busy days, because when I come home and get dinner made and the dishes cleaned up, I want nothing more challenging then a TV program or a few pages of a good book before I sink happily into La-La Land.

Our next planned stop after the Dells and Baraboo was Madison Wisconsin. Although we both received our degrees from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Craig attended UW in Madison for one semester. He had an academic scholarship, but did not have enough money to live on campus and had to live at home in Milwaukee, as I did. But he loved the Madison campus and on our return, wanted to walk around and see the growth and changes.

He also has a cousin that lives in the Madison area. We got together with him and his grown kids for dinner one evening, and a couple of other short visits in the days that followed.  We have kept in touch with Cousin John over the years, and it was so good to be able to spend some time with him in person.  He is a very intelligent man, was an investment banker before he retired,  and I enjoyed hearing his stories and insights on some of the events in the financial world in recent history. Yes, I listened to a Conservative! Because he knew what he was talking about and agreed the current situations did not pop up from a perfect world when the current president was elected.

John suggested we tour the Capitol building that has been restored to some of its past glory, and to stay for the Wednesday night concert on the square.  We did both.

We enjoyed listening to a very well spoken guide who took us on a public tour of the capitol building. Although I had been born and raised in Wisconsin, I learned new things about the state. When the area was a territory one of the industries in the southern area of what would become the state was lead mining. The miners dug tunnels and often lived underground. They became know as "badgers." 

A badger is a fierce creature that also digs, tunnels and live underground. Wisconsin became known as the "Badger State" and took the animal as its symbol. There are many badgers in the capitol building. The one pictured above is one of four that are on the lintels above the four wings off the rotunda. 

We enjoyed the view from the balcony that goes around the outside of the dome. Although there were the usual afternoon storm clouds, the weather was quite nice.

Looking down over the grass of the square we could see a vast collection of blankets that people put down during the afternoon to stake out their places for the 7:30 PM concert. We knew we wanted to come back after dinner!

Fifty years ago, on one of our first few dates Craig drove us up to Madison from Milwaukee (about 80 miles) for pizza. I should have known he was what we now call a "foodie". He claimed a small off-campus pizza parlor named Paisan's had the best pizza in the world! At the time I agreed.  My world was small, but my previous boyfriend was Italian and we ate a lot of pizza in Milwaukee. 

image from web

We were delighted to find that Paisan's was still in business. They had moved from the small old place to a large new restaurant overlooking the lake several years ago.  It is in easy walking distance from the campus and the capitol building. 

We were delighted to find the pizza was just as good as we remembered it to be.  Wonderful thin crust, and yummy toppings. 











After dinner we walked back to the Square and found a stone wall to sit on for the concert. We had not brought either a blanket or folding chairs.

This is our view of the large crowd of people who were there! 

It was a beautiful evening, and I guess it is quite a social event.  There are a lot of food vendors, people bring picnics, and there is no ban on sharing bottles of wine or coolers full of beer. No check points or fences, and only a small indication of police presence. I guess the educated population of this university town are quite civilized and don't require protection from themselves. 

We did not stay for the entire concert because our seats were not very comfortable, we were tired, we dreaded the traffic when everyone went home at the same time, and to be honest the marimba music wasn't to our liking.

But we have good memories of the nature of the people of Madison Wisconsin, and were encouraged in our view of this country.

Tick Bite and Circus World Museum, Baraboo Wisconsin

Sunday night Craig noticed a round raised area around where he had removed a tick from the back of my leg a few days before.

I couldn't see it, so he took a picture of it for me.

We had heard the term "bullseye" used in reference to Lyme's Disease, and although this did not really look like the pictures I had seen on the web, I thought I should have it checked out anyway.

Monday morning at an urgent care center in a resort area is a bit of a zoo in itself!  A lady with a sprained ankle, a couple of kids looking like they had a flu, a girl with an ear ache, a teen age boy with an ice pack on his arm, and several others, including me.

I appreciate the urgent care system, it being a lot better than waiting for hours in an ER if you don't have a local doctor, but I feel sorry for people who either do not have insurance or who are out of the area for their HMO.  I was sitting close enough to the clerk taking check-in information to overhear her telling the lady with the sprained or broken ankle she needed to pay a minimum of $200 to be seen, and that the bill would go much higher if she needed x-rays or a cast.

I am quite glad we have a supplemental insurance that we can take anywhere.  The monthly premium costs more than an HMO, but I had no co-pay, and will get no bill for my visit. 

The good news was that because we had seen the tick, and knew it was a big one, thus a dog tick and not a deer tick, there was no possibility for it to have transmitted Lyme's.  The Physician's Assistant said it looked like a bit of the tick head might still be there, but it was not a good idea to try to remove it at this point. The raised red are was an allergic reaction, and suggested taking some Benadryl that evening if the itching bothered me.  He did give me a written antibiotic prescription  but said I should only fill and use it if I thought the area was becoming infected.  Hot or pus-filled. It has not, and after one dose of Benadryl it doesn't itch anymore either.  

I'm glad I had it looked at, and very glad it was not a typical Lyme's bullseye.  

Our afternoon was much more fun.  We went to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo Wisconsin.  

We both went to the circus several times as kids, and in Milwaukee there was a fabulous circus parade every year in July from the 60's thru 2006. They would bring down many of the fancy wagons on the train. By then the actual circus was a separate business.

I remember going down to watch the unloading which was done with horses. We learned the parade just became too expensive to continue as a free public event, and was discontinued after '06.   What a loss!

The Circus World Museum is owned and run by the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is on land that was the original home of the Ringling Brothers circus, which was started there in 1884.

The museum is both indoors and outdoors. We wandered through it and read some very interesting exhibits about the Ringling Brothers and the circus business as it evolved in the late 1800's through the mid 1900's. I guess as kids we were just catching the end of the good years!  Although, when my grandson was little I went with him and his mother to the circus in San Diego, and I know the circus still comes to the big cities every year.

On the museum grounds there was an exhibit of original railroad cars used by the circus.

One of them was the horse car used in the movie "Water for Elephants".

Speaking of elephants, there were two on the grounds. For $10 per person you could ride this one slowly around a large circle. She did not seem abused or unhappy and we were able to see the large shaded area where she and the her companion spent their time when not working. No chains.

As part of our admission there was a schedule of small shows to see. We saw a  clown act, a side show (with statues of past characters such as Tom Thumb, a fat lady, and Siamese Twins), a magic show, and an abbreviated version of a one ring big top with several acts.

Pretty ladies on the rings, riding horses, trained dogs and ponies.

And of course the elephants doing typical elephant tricks. 

After the shows we really enjoyed walking among the large collection of fully restored wagons from European and American circuses. I remembered many of them from the Milwaukee parades when they were pulled by beautiful teams of horses.

This was one of the more elaborate wagons. The top section was lowered down inside for travel, and raised for parades. Can you imagine how exciting and magical it would appear to the farm country children of the early 1900's?

As an RVer I found this one particularly interesting.  It was the living wagon for an owner or manager. It was on a wagon base, but could also be loaded on a train. Weight must not have been an issue, because it had a big cast iron  stove, a heavy wood bunk bed and a very sturdy table and chairs. I was amused by the overhead light oak cabinets that you can see thru the door.  They look just about the same size and shape as in many modern rigs, including ours!

I also noted it is white, just like our Alfa.

I enjoyed our time there because it was looking back into a past I understood. There were some families with children there. They seemed to be enjoying themselves even if it was not a "hands on, push all the buttons, and watch the video" kind of museum that seem to be what children's museums are like now.

Am I old or what?