Wisconsin!

We're having a great time in Wisconsin. Here's an update on the past few days:

Camping: Lake Farm Park in Madison, WI

Highlights:

-- Taping of "Whad'ya Know" today in the Monona Terrace designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Show as good and it was fun to see everybody in person.

-- Visit to Milwaukee, yesterday, included a visit to the Domes indoor gardens and a Miller/Coors Brewery Tour, a stroll on the River Walk to see the Fonzie statue and lunch in a historic German restaurant.

-- Friday, we drove about an hour to Taliesin which was the home of Frank Lloyd Wright. Very interesting tour of the home and the school included a lot about Wright's life.

-- Nice campfires, last night and tonight, with campground neighbors. Very interesting couple with a new pop-up camper.

Tomorrow, we're heading north to Appleton where we'll see Bill Maher perform.

Wisconsin - Madison and Milwaukee

We came into Wisconsin with some wet weather trailing us. They were doing a lot of construction from Appleton to Madison. Just as we got onto a long stretch where their did not seem to be any exits, An alarm sounded: Jacks Down. Apparently, with all the bouncing and jarring we had been experiencing, one of the leveling jacks had dropped down from its "up" position. The alarm is quite high pitched and cannot be stopped, so I pulled off into an emergency area to see if I could get it back into position. It is one that I have had trouble with before and I guess we will have to get it fixed. I ran the jacks down and then back up but that one would not move off the ground. So I had to get the axe out to use as a pry bar and push it back into place. A Highway Patrol officer pulled off to see what the problem was and helped out with his lights and a stern look at the traffic until we were able to get going again.

In Madison, we set up in the campground, and a pretty consent drizzle kept us there for the night.

The next day wasn't much better but we had to get out and do some site-seeing. Off to Taliesin, the summer home of Frank Lloyd Wright near Spring Green, WI. We took a tour that lasted about 3 hours and covered a studio building where he had "apprentices" doing a lot of his drawings for projects and learning from him, but for no diploma. They would also perform tasks of upkeep on the farm lands he owned. Now it is a fully accredited school with the appropriately high tuition.

Then on to his home, Taliesin, where we had to wear booties over our shoes. Very impressive but very low ceilings. It seems he was quite a short man.

On the way to Spring Green we spotted a Costco and went there to replenish some of our supplies. We also stopped off at a small Farm Market building which had various goats, birds, and bunnies in pens for people to look at. We did. We also bought some veggies and a snack.

The next day was still cloudy but less threatening, and we headed over to Milwaukee to take a brewery tour at the MillerCoors plant there. Beer in mass quantities flows forth from there. Geoff got one of three possible samples but decided not to imbibe in more.

We also went to see The Domes, some environmental enclosures where they have some exotic plants and birds. One is a desert climate, one tropical, and one that changes from time to time.

One day three, we went into Madison to see the taping of the "What D'ya Know" program on NPR. It was very funny, the music was wonderful, the quizzes were fun, but the 2 hours went by very quickly. We took seats right down in the front row but did not get picked for anything.

After the show we went to Capitol Square, just a walk from Monona Terrace where the show was, and walked around the farmers market they hold there every Saturday during the summer. We went into a restaurant to eat lunch and then went back to the Terrace to enjoy the view of Lake Menona for a while. The sun was actually out on this day and the temperature got up to what you might expect for summer in the Midwest.

Tomorrow we leave Madison and back-track to Appleton to see Bill Mahr do some stand-up comedy. Then it will be off to Rochester, Minnesota.

Almost Out of Michigan

Today was a slow day as we took our time getting ready, this morning, and drove for several hours to Menominee, MI which is on the shore of Lake Michigan and right across the river from Wisconsin. Tomorrow, we drive to Madison, WI.

Food - Had lunch in the remote Jolly Inn in the tiny tiny town of Germfask, MI. My highlight was the homemade Cream of Mushroom soup. The other food highlight was a trip to the really nice Menominee grocery store. Items that were plentiful in the store included herring, sausages, pickles, liverwurst, and cheese product (i.e. various cheese curds). We did buy some samples of all those (except the liverwurst). Oh yes, and got some chicken soup with homemade dumplings which seems to be the soup-of-the-day in nearly every place we stop.

No sightseeing today...except that we did stop for a photo as we entered the tiny town of Ingalls, Mich.

Another feature I'm adding to the blog is to point out some of the details of life-on-the-road...

The RV Life - The question we are asked most often is: What do we do about our mail? We handle a lot of our business online so that minimizes the mail we receive. The mail we do receive goes to a mail forwarding service in Florida. They post, online, the return addresses of mail we receive. Every couple weeks or when we see something we want immediately, we tell the service where to send our mail. The service we use is very good.

New Blog Strategy

Okay... I know that I didn't get off to a good start with my plan to make frequent blog updates. So now, I'm going to give a "bulleting" strategy to see if that makes the updates easier. Here goes:

Camping at: Woodland Park, Grand Marais, Mich - on the shore of Lake Superior

Food Highlight: Pasties (Michigan Upper Peninsula specialty) for dinner at Mariner Restaurant in Munising, Mich

Memorable moments: Toured Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore with short hikes to view a sand dune, a waterfall (very mosquitoey), and view of the picture rocks which are eroded cliffs with mineral stains. Walked the beach and collected a variety of stones including a handful of the pea sized gravel. The lake had small waves lapping on shore. Unlike an ocean beach, there was no sign of shells, seaweed, or any smell. After returning to the RV, we sat around a campfire with campground neighbors..married 69 years and who have been camping since '61! In true Michigan style, he blames the drop in NASCAR attendance to the inclusion of Toyota cars.

Tomorrow, we head towards Wisconsin.

Yay! Made it to Detroit on schedule!

YAY!! We made it to Michigan. Had a nice uneventful ride across part of Ontario, Canada then had a bit of a stall getting back into the US. We were the only RV around and they sent us to wait in a closed RV line and told us it could be about 15minutes wait til that line was opened. Then it didn't look good when we saw three INS guys walking towards us with gloves on. Without even asking us a question, they came right into the RV to look around - even though we had only been in Canada for 5 hours. They even commented on the smell in our fridge - thanks to the rotten orange that has been gone 3 days but the smell lingers. And asked if our RV is always that cluttered. Didn't know how to answer that - well, it's not unusual for our RV to be cluttered but the reason it looked cluttered, then, was that the sides were pulled in, there was a pile of the "keep Ellyn occupied" stuff behind my seat and some stuff from the counters was nestled in the sofa so they wouldn't slide off the counter. Anyway, after 10 minutes of them poking around and asking us questions, we were off again. Made it here in plenty of sunshine due to Michigan's westerly location. Tomorrow, we have the day to relax and maybe do laundry and then dinner with Geoff's college friend, Ken and his wife, Josie.

Border Crossing Day

The first day of our huge trip went very well. We are very thankful that we got through Springfield, MA before the tornadoes. We found a picturesque little campground for the night. We woke up to a sunny chilly (55F) and very breezy morning. Geoff is having a handful driving us through the wind.

Today's plans are to cut through Ontario, Canada on our way to the Detroit area. Sure hope we don't have a repeat of the thorough border inspection that we had, last year, when we went into New Brunswick, Canada. While we are driving through Canada, we'll have the phones and internet link turned off. Guess I'll get some crocheting and reading done.

My goal is to include photos in each of these posts. Still need to work out that system.

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Westward Ho - On the Road Big Time

We're on our way on our 2nd round the country RV trip. This time, we're taking a very northerly path to get to Seattle. Our first segment is driving through from Boston to arriving in The Western Michigan by tomorrow. Today, we're driving towards Buffallo and then, tomorrow we'll be driving through Ontario. It pretty easy driving. Lots of green trees and grass the the highway. The weather is very warm and we've had a few very small rain showers. No storms...Yet?

My goal is to make frequent updates to our blog as we travel along. Be sure to nag me if you don't see one for a couple days.