Wisconsin - Days 2 - 10 - Southern Wisconsin

Friday, 2 August through Saturday, 10 August 2019

Because I'm 2 weeks behind in posting for this blog, I've decided to adopt a different style for this month.  I'll do one general post describing the campgrounds and observations and general activities, and then I'll do specific posts for some of the places I visited.

Saturday the 3rd and Friday the 9th

Friday the 2nd

Sunday the 4th to Thursday the 8th

Campgrounds
I'd made reservations at the Council Grounds State Park I mentioned for August 1st, and at Richard Bong State Park for the 2nd and 3rd.  (Richard Bong was a WI native and the US's top flying ace in WWII.)  I saw 2 female Cardinals fighting at this campground.  I didn't know the females fought, and I can't imagine what about at this time of year.  Oddball signs at the campground:

Pet Picnic Area
(Pets must remain on leash - some picnic)

this says dissing is allowed

I'd set up the campgrounds this way because I was planning to go to the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee, in operation August 1st to the 11th.  I'm afraid I didn't give much thought to the wifi problem because I knew I'd be fairly close to towns and figured I'd pick something up.  I was wrong about that and was left with no way to even find out where the fairgrounds are located or where I could park or when it'd be open or how much a ticket would cost - any information at all.

Not only couldn't I find out how to get to the state fair, but also I didn't have camping reservations beyond those nights.  I started feeling very disoriented and insecure and decided to postpone the fair idea and spend Saturday the 3rd at a Visitor Center that I wanted to go to on Friday but didn't have the energy for when I got near the area.   This time I guessed correctly that they had a wifi signal, and I spent most of the day parked in their lot trying to locate campgrounds that could take me in the next few days and things I wanted to see in the vicinity.

I knew I wanted to visit with a friend from back in the early '70s in Austin who's been living in Madison for many years.  But no wifi signal meant no communication with him either (I didn't have a phone number), so I made a reservation at the Milton KOA a half-hour from Madison for a couple of nights and hoped those dates would be good.  They weren't, as it turned out, but I also did some sightseeing in Madison.  (I'll do separate posts for the state capitol, the National Mustard Museum, and a creamery.)

This is definitely one of the good KOAs, and I was lucky to get a great camping spot where I could walk the dogs in several directions and avoid meeting other dogs.

My friend Jim is an artist who was getting ready for a several-day painting event at Mineral Point, a little over an hour from the KOA, so I decided to move to another campground near there.  Unfortunately, my brain had apparently gotten completely scrambled by the intermittent nature of my wifi contacts (2 days out of the first 6), and by then being already nearly a week behind in my blog which I'd intended to be much more conscientious about this month, after doing so poorly on it in Michigan.  So I made the campground reservations on the wrong days.

I went over to the Fireside Campground in Lone Rock for 2 nights, beginning Tuesday the 6th, despite knowing that Jim wouldn't be available until the next day.  And I was kicking myself out of the campground too soon to have much chance to connect with either Jim or his wife Kris - I'd already made a reservation to come back to the Milton KOA for the following 2 nights and couldn't afford to lose my deposit by cancelling.  Like I said, my brain was scrambled.

The Fireside Campground is an oddball place that looks completely rustic - roads mostly of sand, trees everywhere, old buildings - but every amenity people expect to find in a campground was there and I was very comfortable.  Owned by an older couple who traveled in Alaska before buying this campground which was apparently very run down, and they've spent the last 10 years renovating it.  The owner was very helpful, loaning me an extra water hose when we found mine wasn't long enough.

Not only had I gotten the campground reservations messed up, I also made a vet appointment for Lily in Madison on Wednesday morning, which compounded the campground problem because I was no longer camped in nearby Milton by then.  So we all had to drive the hour back from Lone Rock to northeast Madison, then drive another hour southwest to Mineral Point so I could meet Jim for lunch, also on Wednesday.  I'll do a separate post about Mineral Point.

By this time, I was getting completely off-kilter because the state fair would only last through the upcoming weekend, and I didn't want to go on a weekend because of having to fight massive crowds.  That left Friday, because I didn't want to drive 2+ hours from Lone Rock on Thursday to get there.  Can you see how these various complications were nearly driving me to distraction?  I could barely think straight any more, and I pretty much reserved that section of my brain for driving safely.

And beyond that, my Milton reservation ran out on Saturday, which is the busiest camping night of the week, so I knew I'd have trouble finding another place.  And further beyond that, I wanted to stay in the Madison area because Jim and Kris and I were going to try to meet on Sunday afternoon.  And even more beyond that, I was starting to feel the pressure of time moving on and all I'd seen of Wisconsin - besides the cross-state drive of the first 2 days - was Madison and environs.  Really nice area but not a plan likely to let me cover a large state like Wisconsin.  I could feel the pressure mounting, which made thinking harder.  What a mess.

And it all turned out fine.  I did get to go to the WI State Fair (separate post to follow), and to a Culver's (separate post to follow), and I did visit Jim and Kris at their house on Sunday (more info later).  But all the uncertainty and moving around to the wrong places at the wrong times was all very disorienting and I started to feel a bit frantic, with the campgrounds being the tail that wagged the dog.  Turns out Wisconsinites are just as outdoors-minded as Michiganders, and the campgrounds are full of WI license plates, "full" being the operative word on almost any day of the week.

To be close enough to visit my friends Sunday, I stayed at the DeForest/Madison KOA who miraculously had a vacancy for Saturday and Sunday nights in just the best location for me.  Really lucky.

So those are the campgrounds and the reasons for them during the first 10 days.

Other errands
During these first 10 days, I also learned that Piggly-Wiggly is the dominant grocery store chain in this state (I don't think I've seen a Kroger yet, which is all I saw in Michigan).  And I've learned that WI grocery stores sell hard liquor too, just like they do in Michigan (I still haven't adjusted to the shock of having a wide selection of bourbons to choose from at the Piggly-Wiggly).

When I was making the early camping reservations, I'd forgotten to get Lily's claws clipped, and they really needed it by her appointment on the 7th.  Plus, I get them to dose her with flea medicine while they're holding her down so she was behind the dogs on that.  Plus plus, August is the month she gets her annual shots, so I was serious about keeping that appointment, inconvenient as I'd made it.  And I was really lucky because both the vet and the assistant were really good at their jobs and they managed to get all that done in 15 minutes, despite Lily's utter lack of cooperation.  I was very impressed.

It'd been more than 5,000 miles since my last oil change so finding a Jiffy Lube was also a high priority.  My extra time in Madison turned out to be productive.

It was also time to refill one of my prescriptions, so I sandwiched a trip to a CVS between a Madison laundromat and an Ace Hardware.  The nozzle on my kitchen sink seems to be clogged up, because I can get really good water pressure and volume from the spray part of it, but not much of either from the regular water flow part.  I hoped the Ace folks could help me, but they were stumped and suggested I go to an RV place.

A very energetic and helpful young woman at the Camping World near Madison managed to open up the nozzle without breaking it and replaced the aerator screen, which we both thought was clogged up.  But afterwards I found that hadn't solved the problem, and I'm afraid now that I've got junk somewhere in the lines themselves.  She thought it might be the water pump, but I have this same situation when I'm hooked up to a campground's water supply, and that doesn't go through the water pump.  Sounds expensive and time-consuming, if I'm right.  Maybe I'll wait until next winter if I get stuck in frozen-road weather.

Comments along the drives
There's a Dr. Piffl who's an optometrist in WI - I think in Merrill where I camped the first night.

Speaking of Merrill, they've got a great-looking courthouse.  Actually, it's their old courthouse: 1889-1977.  Their new courthouse is probably far more practical and functional, but architecturally speaking, it's boring to tears.

The radio reminded me that Wisconsin is the state where the lame duck session of the Legislature after the last election found the legislative Republicans passing laws, signed by the outgoing Republican governor, to restrict the powers of the new (Democratic) governor and attorney general.  I heard a news item that both sides have now filed lawsuits about them - Democrats because they don't like the laws and Republicans because they think the Democrats are ignoring the laws.  In a way, I'm impressed: even the Texas Legislature hasn't come up with this trick yet, and they're usually on the front lines of such things.

Welcome to the State of Cheese, a billboard said.  As the time has gone by, I've found Wisconsinites are very serious about this America's Dairyland slogan of theirs.  Cheese shops all over and creameries here and there.

Corn is being harvested.  Lots of it.  All along the roads I see pickup trucks parked and piled high with fresh corn ears for sale.

There's a Tomorrow River in Wisconsin.  It's pretty, but I'd have called more of a creek.

County roads in Wisconsin aren't numbered, they're lettered.  So far I've been on County Roads N, V, L, and K.  But I've seen the signs for County Roads QQ and DD and VVV.  There are lots of these roads, so I'm surprised at such a system.

I was the only one on the interstate sticking to the speed limit.  I think Wisconsin and Texas have a lot in common.  I also learned fairly quickly that these folks are only ordinarily polite about letting people merge in front of them.  Too bad.  It was really nice while it lasted.

I passed an odd billboard for Garbage Fyre Fest that read: "Guess who's coming to Milwaukee? Anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, anti-immigrants extremists."  Curious, I checked their website.  www.garbagefyrefest.com  Made me sort of sorry I came in August instead of July.

There's a Harley-Davidson Museum in WI.  Not sure if I'll be able to go though, considering the way I've been frittering away my time with befuddlement.

I saw a horse rolling around on his back, just as enthusiastically as Dexter does.

soybeans

Everywhere I drive, I see enormous fields of corn, at least some of which is hybrid, according to a sign I saw.  I'm also seeing huge fields of a lower-growing solid green plant here, just as I was in Michigan, though here they seem to be taller.  So is the corn, for that matter.  I thought they might be sugarbeets, which was my guess in Michigan, but I've seen too many of them for me to be so sure.  Jim's wife Kris said WI grows a lot of soybeans, and the internet says they can grow to 6' tall.  So I'll wait a bit and see what height the plants are towards the end of the month.

Edgerton, on the west side of Madison, calls itself Tobacco City USA.  Apparently it's the center of the tobacco industry in this area (I thought it was a southern plant, not a southern Wisconsin plant) and celebrates Tobacco Heritage Days every July.  But the leaves of the plants I've been seeing aren't near long enough to be tobacco leaves.  Edgerton also has Chilimania in September, fun for a fundraiser for charity and local businesses.

Did I mention when I was on Mackinac Island in MI that I saw a kid wearing a Hufflepuff t-shirt? 

I saw a pair of cranes flying - pretty neat sight.

The town of Waunakee, west of Madison, has a greeting sign that says, "Welcome to the only Waunakee in the World."

I saw an ad for a moving company that said they were "movers, not shakers."

I've seen several stables and a dressage center.  Once again, I thought raising horses was a Kentucky or Tennessee (or California) thing, not Wisconsin.

WI has a Frank Lloyd Wright (driving) Trail, presumably because he lived here for much of his life.  Taliesin, his own home, is near Mineral Point.  www.taliesinpreservation.org  I didn't go see it because the house tour costs $51 for a senior ticket.  Absolutely not worth it to me.  But you might want to check the link for some photos.j

Nearby is House on the Rock, which I decided I didn't have the time for.  Another trip maybe.  www.thehouseontherock.com

Lone Rock, population 888, has a sign saying, "We are the Coldest in the Nation with the Warmest Heart."  Since they don't even hold the record for the coldest temperature in WI, I'm not sure where this slogan came from, but that's what they say.  Lone Rock is the town nearest to the Fireside Campground where I stayed.

I've been crossing and recrossing the Wisconsin River ever since I first got to the state.  And I've been watching it grow wider and wider as I go.  It empties into the Mississippi River and I hope to see the mouth next week.

One morning the fog was so thick when I got on the road that headlights were necessary - not for seeing, because they don't help in fog, but for being seen.  I saw several cars without them and think that must be an idiot behind the wheel to think that just because he can see where he's going means everybody else can see him as well.  Especially when their vehicle is silver or white, as several were this morning.

You've probably heard about this Area 51 storming that's been planned for September.  I heard on the radio that a bunch of Vegas strippers are planning to go in a mobile unit to entertain the aliens when they're released.  I also heard that the stormers think the government is already moving the aliens and spaceships to Area 52 in advance of the storming because "they ain't dumb."  Can't wait to see what's next.

In Wisconsin, what's known as a DUI or DWI in other states is called OWI here.

Dodgeville has a sign that says it's "twinned with Oakham, Great Britain."

There are hills in this southwestern part of WI that are high enough that once I saw only the top of a silo showing that looked like it was sitting on the ground, and I thought it must be another oddball building.  But when I got closer I saw that it was a full-sized silo that was sitting in a valley between hills, deep enough that all I could see was the very top of it.  In fact, I saw one hill with a 10% grade warning sign on it.  Made me feel more at home (after West Virginia) than I'd felt in much flatter Ohio, Indiana and Michigan.

At one point I passed a 4-car accident - traffic had been backed up for many miles.  I didn't see anyone injured, but then I'd been passed by an ambulance, too, so anyone hurt was probably already transported.  Many many cop cars, several people standing around, a car being loaded on a tow truck, and a young woman sitting on the shoulder of the road, a brown lab-type dog between her knees, and she was crying.  I felt so sorry for her and so glad she had the dog.

State police here have their flashing lights built inside the cars.  I haven't seen any except local cops with the lights on top of the roof.

I passed a fancy golf resort and saw an entire wedding party being transported on golf carts.