Wisconsin Capitol

I must say that this capitol compares to PA.'s capitol. It was started (after a fire burned the first one down) in 1906,finished in 1917 at a cost of 7 million dollars. Today it is worth 12 billion. But all the gold, French and Italian marble one can see why.

When it was built, electricity was available and the disigner realized that it would use a lot, so put a lot of windows and glass floors in it. In this picture notice along the edges that have gold on them.

Notice all the windows and the gold edging

This is the Senate and I put this in because they use no pc's. Only state that we've so far that doesn't use them. They don't even have a electric board that shows how they vote. The house does. Also unusual that the state supreme court is in the capitol. Very beautiul building and the tour guide was great.

Sand Crane Preserve cont....

This blog should be AFTER the next blog, but as you all know sometimes this blog has a mind of its own. Anyway we went to the preserve after the boat tour. They have 35 types of cranes here at this preserve. Our favorite was the hooping crane. The preserve is very nice and they are expanding the crane paddocks, or whatever you call them, I guess pens would be better suited.

This was a beautiful one from Africa a black crested crane. I had lots more pictures, but didn't want to bore you. If you are ever this way, be sure and stop.

It has been several years since we have been to the dells. Reminds me a lot of Branson and Pigeon Ford.
They have a LOT of water parks and pizza places, of course it is a big family vacation spot. Next is circus museum, that may mean all day! more later

Wisconsin Dells/Sand Crane Preserve

Wellllll ....here is our happy little group awaiting the start of our Dell riverboat tour. The little girl and her sister (yes I said sister) acted ugly, so kind of put my little group out of sorts. But soon got over it, as the dells were so pretty. Just for y-i dell means layered rock. The following pictures really shows what that means. The day was just beautiful for boating , kind of cool, altho the tour guide talked about how hot it was. We just kind of snickered.

The tour guide said that this rock has had more pictures taken of it than any other rock. Now she didn't go to say in the world, the states, Wisconsin, or this river, but it is pretty cool.

I don't know if you can tell about this rock, it is called the pancake. Very unusual formation.

Most of you may not know it, but I love rocks, all types, shapes, colors ....... well you get the picture. John always supports my search for THAT rock, but deep down his motto is: when you've seen one rock, you've seen them all.

Harley Factory and Museum

This the Harley factory where they make the engines for the bikes. It is in Wauwautosa, WI a suburb of Milwaukee. It lasts about an hour and is free! Of course you pay for it when you go into the souvenir shop.

This is the front of the museum. It has only been open since July and is it beautiful. The cost is 16 dollars to get in, or 12 if over 65. Some of the bikes like below, we thought had been restored, repainted etc. but come to find out they are in original shape: color, paint etc. Some belonged to the owners and some were acquired from individuals.

I hope you can read the year of these two bikes, there were so many I had a hard time picking one to show.

This was one of my favorites, the side car. One of the displays they had was a pc moniter. It had a list and a picture of each engine that Harley has made. You touch the picture of the engine and it comes up with a description of that engine and then a tab that says touch here to hear the engine. Well I had a feel day with that one. My favorite was made in 57, but I don't remember what it was.
Well worth you time if you are ever in this area. The museum is about 8 miles from the factory almost right down town. No telling how much the land cost. Ample free parking and easy to get to. (It wasn't for us but that is another story)

Training Camp Ordeal

Here is the famous stadium and is it gorgeous! Very clean and everyone that worked there acted as if they were glad you were there. You can't imagine the amount of Packer stuff that was selling in the store. 2 cashiers going as fast as they could and 2 long lines of people patiently waiting .

Marilyn and I looking refreshed and rarin to go, not knowing we had a mile hike in front of us to get to the practice field.

I don't know what John and Bill was looking at (I'll have to tell Bill to wear a hat as his head causes to much reflection), but it was not at the football players.

I had it in mind that they would practice at like a high school football stadium, that's what happens with preconcived notions. Between the fence and the street is some bleachers that are about 4 seats high and they are scattered up and down the street. I have no idea how early you would have to get there to get a seat by the offense. John found us some down by the far side of the defense. Thank goodness people were still buying souvenir stuff. Of course it was one of the hottest and most humid days we'd had. But was well worth the trip. I really enjoyed it and it was fun to see the stadium in person.
To add more pleasure to the trip, went to Sam's.
We will have moved close to Milwaukee (these names are killing me) by the time you read this. Our next tour will be the Harley factory and museum.
By the way will have to correct something, in a past post (acouple ago) I said it was a picture of Lake Superior, but was Michigan. Figured I would have several comments on that, come on you people get the maps out and see where we are!

Leaving MI - Into Wisconsin

Yes we just couldn't resist stopping. With a picture like this how could we? That is Bill and John, by the way. It was an interesting tour by the way. Took about 45 minutes and we got to wear raincoats and hard hats. That made a pretty picture, but I got paid off not to publish them.
It was a pretty drive from the "Soo" to Iron Mt. across the U.P.

We are staying in a PP campground here in Two Rivers. It is a very nice area and close to the pennisula. We drove the pennisula one day and it was very touristy, but the cherry season was on and Bill, Marilyn and John all got sick tasting cherries. I had no idea there was so many ways to fix them.
On the way home we spotted a lady selling corn and tomatoes! Had to make a u-turn and was it worth it. She said her grandfather had grown the tomatoes $1.50 lb (worth every bite). As it turned out the corn was very good, also.


This is Lake Superior, in the distance is the town of Manitowoc about 5 miles from 2 rivers. They (whoever they are) have made a wonderful sidewalk that follows the coast of the lake and also made beach access.
This is John enjoying the view of the lake.

My planning on this part of the trip hasn"t been successful. We were going to watch the Packers practice today and didn't discover until yesterday that they have MOnday off!. A bakery that had tours, quit them in Jan. Kholer faucet factroy has a tour, but is 3 miles long! Didn't mention that in the book.
But the park we are in is right by the West River and it is very inviting to just sit by it and enjoy the sunsets.
We try the Packers tomorrow (Tuesday), but Brett Fauve is suppose to be there, so we might not get w/in 3 miles of the place. Then Wednesday we move to Milwaukee for 3 days.
Will let you know about the Packer odyssey(had to ask John to spell that one).

2nd Part of Tour of the Lighthouses

This is Whitefish Point lite house and the least attractive. There was a museum here that showed a lot of wrecked ships. This point saw more wrecks than any other place in the 5 lakes. Congestion, storms, smoke were 3 of the causes.










This lite house is Crisp Point. VERY remote. I had already warned John there might be some dirt or gravel roads. But this far exceeded dirt. More like mud (we all know how he feels about mud) holes. Of course it had stormed the night before. But was that my fault?

Anyway they have volunteers that man this litehouse and I must say I admire them. This week-end was a family in a pop-up tent. One of the boys said there was to be a wedding there next week-end.



Can you imagine going on this road for (it seemed like 40) 8 miles and then parking for maybe 4 cars at the likehouse?








We really laughed when we came to this, as the tracks you see are 4 wheelers. We did see boxes for telephones, but didn't see electric poles. Maybe all underground.
That is the fun in these trips, never know what you will see and if you will get out alive.
Will probably watch the cargo ships the next couple of days, that is how long it will take John to get all the mud off the suv

Lighthouse Tour

I have had more trouble with this darn blog. If you see pictures w/o descriptions, I don't know why. It seems to have a mind of its own

Anyway we went lighthouse touring Saturday. Very interesting places and remote. I have no idea what pictures you will seeing. I tried to delete these that you see, as I was experimenting. So you may see every picture I took! Hopefully not, but the way this day has been going, there are lots of gremlins in here. (That is what I get for not going to church ... instead did TV)



Our first stop was Point Iroquois, it had a display of living quarters of the 50's, it was fun remembering that we had some of those things in our house also.
These are our friends Bill and Marilyn traveling with us. Of course they may not anymore after this day. I said it would be about 140 miles to see 3 lighthouses roundtrip and it turned out to be 230 .





This litehouse was very well kept and in good shape. There is a society nonprofit that keeps these litehouses up.






There should be pictures of Whitefish Point and Crisp Point, but I don't see them. There are 2 pictures of a sailing brig and its crew. We were eating at a HB place (curb service!) and it went sailing by. It is owned by the commonwealth of Penn. It is a sailing school and ages 14 and above can sign on for 2-4 weeks. The time is 1800's and the info says the working of the shop under sail and the spartan living conditions onboard are authentic. The brig (not ship) is named the US Brig Niagara. I'm going to publish this and see what comes up. Hope it makes sense. If not, what else is new!

Our View of the "Soo" Ships

This is what we see on the St Marys river.

This shows how close we are when the ships go by
It is pretty awsome to sit behind the coach, drink coffee and wonder how on earth man can build a cargo ship 1000 ft long and then guide the thing down a river less than a mile wide. The locks are about 2 miles from here, we will go tomorrow and watch them go thru. Really I could sit and watch them all day.
There are about 6 or so every day. No time schedule, just all of a sudden you see them coming. That is another thing, they are very quiet.

More later

Satellite Fixed: Parked in 4 Sites in 2 Days

Here is John killing time waiting on the verdict for the satellite. After
2 hours came and told us found the problem and it would cost 150
dollars to fix it. Don't those people know us: that we will pay anything
to get our satellites up and going! ' Anyway it was repaired and was

heading home about 4. It worked perfectly on the way to the park, but
after we got into the park and all the trees we lost it. Parked in the
our friend told us he ALWAYS got it and we couldn"t. So stayed there for the night and tried another site, that looked promising, but to no avail. So finally went out in a field and it was good. After we got set up again, I went swimming. When I came back and went in the coach, the air conditioner sounded funny. So called John in and he looked at the meter and was in the red. So now we discovered we have a priority over the satellite ..... electricity.

So after the 4th try, here we are. We got really good (not that we weren't already) at getting ready to roll. It was almost as if we were practicing for a competition.
Also forgot to mention there is pickleball! We played yesterday and yes sored up. Took 2 aspirin for breakfast and was good to go. Sure have missed it.
Oh yes, finally got the awnings sewed. That is another story.
Later

Michigan Travels (or travails)

We left the CC rally Saturday morning early. Eight new coaches were sold and 26,ooo dollars was raised for the Cedar Rapids flood. I was surprised about the coaches, figured everyone was tightening up the purse strings because of high fuel. Wehad a good time at the rally especially seeing old friends.

When we left headed for Kalamazoo, MI. Michigan is a beautiful state, but getting there was a nightmare. Interstate 80 was horrible thru Iowa, Ill, Ind and Mi. There was a crash and when I checked it one of the bathroom lamps had (I guess) vibrated off and fell in the sink. When we got to the campground finished cleaning up the glass. Saturday night I went to bed at 9:00 (John kept telling me it was only 8). I didn't care if it was 6, I was so tired and sleepy. Rallys just wear me out ... I enjoy them, but all the sitting and going from seminar to home to seminar ....
Did I mention that we have no awing covers on the drivers side windows? They came apart while we were in Pigeon Forge. So have been looking for a repair place since then. Thought we had found one in Tx, John dropped them off one day, then a week later went by to pick them up and the guy hadn't even looked at them. So you can imagine how happy John was. I could tell whem he came out with them under his arm that something was unsatisfactory.
We are in a TT campground St Clair and it is pretty nice. Right off I=94, I thought it would be noisey, but not the case. Our friends Bill and Marilyn are here, we are going to travel up to Saulte St Marie (in futher posts that will THE SOO) together.
Oh yes forgot to mention that our satellite didn't work when we got to the TT campground and now we are sitting at a repair place getting it looked at. It costs 15o dollars up front to look at it and diagnose the problem. So far (from the way it looks) they have started the generator, turned on the air, left the front door open and left. So John went to check on THAT and was told that a gage that was needed to check the satellite is missing and they are looking for it. So John asked (politely I'm sure) if they could shut the gen and air off until they were working on it. They said "Oh sure!"
Will keep you posted on how THIS turns out.