Back to Wisconsin, My Boyhood Home

Welcome back friends. Our last chapter concluded on Tuesday, July 7^th, with our arrival in Osseo, Wisconsin, a small town just south of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and our first stop in Wisconsin in over seven years. We are staying in a very nice RV resort called Stoney Creek. After we got set up we spent the rest of the day with the coach. On Wednesday we went out for lunch at a local Norwegian cafe called The Norsk Nook. It was in downtown Osseo, a very small downtown since the town only has 1,700 residents. Nonetheless, the place was packed for lunch, clearly the most popular place in town for lunch. It also had very good Yelp reviews. We had to wait a few minutes for a table, but we thought it worth the wait.

Jackie had a steak and egg breakfast lefse, which is basically a Norwegian burrito. It was steak, eggs, hash browns and cheese all wrapped in what looked like a tortilla, but was actually what they call a “lefse round” made with three parts mashed potatoes and one part flour. It was quite tasty. I had a more traditional hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. The food was excellent. I also had a bowl of chicken noodle soup that was great and we split a piece of apple pie. We had to have the pie since the place's claim to fame was their pies. We left very satisfied.

After lunch we drove the 20 miles back north to Eau Claire for some exploring and geocaching. Eau Claire was founded in the mid 1800's as a center for the logging industry. This part of Wisconsin was the center of the lumber economy at the time. It was built on the confluence of the Chippawa and Eau Claire rivers for the convenience of transporting logs to the mills. The name is French for “clear water” and was given to the area by the early French trappers who were the first whites in the area. The population today is about 66,000, but the metro area, which includes Chippawa Falls and several other communities, is about 115,000. The economy today, since the demise of lumbering in the area, is driven by high tech industries involved in electronics and data processing.

We spent about three hours driving around Eau Claire, caching and sight seeing. We had a good caching day, getting fourteen new finds without any DNFs. After our tour of town and caching we stopped at the Eau Claire Elks Lodge. This is Lodge 402, which makes it one of the older Elks Lodges, probably chartered in 1890's. They are now in a nice newer building in the suburbs. We had drink and picked up a lodge pin for our banner, another new lodge for our collection. We chatted with the bartender and a couple of patrons for a half hour or so before leaving and heading back down south to the RV park. We got back to the coach and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Thursday, July 9^th, we left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching. We did a bunch of rural geocaches in a big, 50 mile or so loop, from the RV park east, then south, west and north back to the RV park. We were able to get eleven new finds, and three DNFs for the afternoon. We also spent most of the time driving on small, country roads so we saw a lot of farms and back country. It was a fun afternoon. We got back to the coach around six and spent the rest of the night watching TV.

Friday, July 10^th, a travel day. We were originally planning on staying in Osseo for five days, but I waited too long to get reservations and they were not able to accommodate us for Friday and Saturday. Therefore, we have to move on down the road to Oakdale, Wisconsin. We left the park about 10:30 and headed south about 65 miles to a KOA campground in a little, tiny town called Oakdale. Oakdale only has about 600 population, but it has two truck stops and a KOA. We got fuel and then checked into the RV park for a two day stay.

After we got setup I helped Jackie with coloring her hair. She had gotten into doing highlighting, and she can't do that herself, so I have to help. I tell her that it is my alter ego, “Ronnie” who does the hairdressing. After we got her hair finished we took a drive to the town of Tomah, about eight miles north of Oakdale. We needed some stuff at Walmart, and that was the closest one. We did some caching when we got there, getting two new finds and two new DNFs. We then drove around town for a bit just to look before heading to Walmart. After Walmart we went back to the RV park and put away our stuff. We had a cocktail and then drove to the Hardie's hamburger place up by the freeway for a burger. We then spent the rest of the evening in.

Saturday, July 11^th, we left the coach after lunch to do some caching and exploring. Our first destination was the little town of Mauston, about 20 miles south of Oakdale. I was born in Milwaukee and lived there until late 1960 when we moved to Arizona. My mother was part of a family of 13 brothers and sisters, so my early life was full of aunts, uncles and cousins. Aunt Betty was my mom's sister and she and her husband Paul bought an old farm about six miles south of Mauston, just as a place to live, not to farm. I remember visiting their house back in the late 50's and early 60's. Last year the last surviving daughter, my cousin Arleen, and I connected on Facebook. She told me that after my aunt and uncle died they bought the house, not to live in but just to keep for future use.

Since it was close, I wanted to go to see if I could find the house. After my mother died I was able to get all of the family photo albums, going back to the late 20's, and I scanned all of the pictures and stored them digitally. I have a bunch of pictures from June 1960 of the wedding of my cousin Claudia, the middle daughter of Betty and Paul, and the reception was at the Mauston farmhouse. A couple of the pictures showed parts of the house and barn in the background, and I thought that between the pictures and my memories, I would be able to find the house. Fortunately, being in touch with Arleen, she was able to tell me that the house was on County Road G, otherwise I would not have known which country road to explore. I was only 13 at the time and not driving, so I had no memories regarding which road to take out of town.

We got on Route G and started south checking out the farms along the way. We got to one farm that looked somewhat familiar, but when we stopped and really looked, it was not the right place. We went another mile or so and I told Jackie, that's it, that's the place. The barn is gone now, but the house still looks the same. Arleen's husband Bob happened to be at the farm mowing the grass, so we got to talk to him for a bit. I had never met him, but now I know I have a cousin Bob. We took some photos of the property and headed back into town. June of 1960 was the last time I was at that house, but I did come back to Mauston in the late 70's when I worked for the Sheriff's Office in Phoenix. I was a detective in the Warrants and Fugitives Division and part of our duties was going out and picking up people who had been arrested in other places around the country and were being extradited back to Arizona to face charges. I learned that we had a prisoner being held at the Juneau County Jail in Mauson, Wisconsin, so I volunteered for the trip. I flew into Milwaukee, rented a car and drove to Mauston to get the prisoner. My aunt and uncle, and cousin Arleen, met me at the courthouse and we had lunch before I picked up the prisoner and headed back to Milwaukee.

The two black and white snapshots are of the wedding in 1960.  I am the older kid in the picture with the bride, along with my mom and brother Dennis.  The other picture shows the house in the background.  After our trip down Roy's Memory Lane, we drove around Mauston and did some caching. We then drove north to the town of New Lisbon and cached. We had a decent afternoon, getting eleven new finds and one DNF. We then headed back to the RV park and relaxed in the coach the rest of the night.

Sunday, July 12^th, we packed up and headed out about 10:30 again. Because our plans to stay in Osseo for five days got muddled, we had a very short trip, less than 50 miles, this morning to our next stop, Baraboo, Wisconsin. We arrived at the Fox Hill RV Resort about 11:30 and were on our site getting setup by noon. We were all setup for our week long stay here by 2:00, so we decided to go out and do some exploring of the town of Baraboo.

Baraboo is a small city of about 12,000 located on the Baraboo River, just upstream from it's confluence with the Wisconsin River. It is most well known as the “Circus City” since it was where the five brothers Ringling grew up and started the famous Ringling Brothers Circus in the late 1800's. They later bought the Barnum and Bailey Circus and the company still tours the country as an operating circus. Baraboo served as the headquarters and winter home for the Ringling Brothers Circus until 1919 when the newly merged company relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut, home of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Today the company operates year around and no longer has a true winter home. Baraboo has the Circus World Museum which operates on the old winter grounds and maintains many of the original buildings. We spent a couple of hours driving around town, just looking at stuff and getting a few geocaches. We got three caches for the afternoon. After our touring we headed back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Monday, July 13^th, we awoke after a bit of a rough night. There were thunderstorms rolling through the area most of the night and the weather radio was going off every 20 minutes. We had some rain, but no storms passed directly over us. We went out after lunch to drive around Wisconsin Dells and kind of get the lay of the land. Wisconsin Dells was originally founded in 1857 as Kilbourn City and was a lumbering town. The town is built along a section of the Wisconsin River that was called the Dalles, French for rapids or narrows. The river runs through a gorge cut into the native sandstone by glaciers during the ice age. As more people came to the upper Midwest the area became well known for it's interesting geography. In the late 1800's local entrepreneurs began to offer boat tours of what was now known as the Dells. In 1931 the town changed it's name to Wisconsin Dells to further promote the area. The town is not very large, less than 3,000 population, but it is a tourist mecca for the entire northern Midwest area.

In the central part of town there are scores of motels and resorts, many featuring water parks. There are dozens of water parks, and the town calls itself the water park capital of the country. There are also dozens of cheesy tourist and entertainment venues, like theme parks, laser tag, miniature golf, and haunted houses. In one stretch of a few blocks there is a huge replica of the white house, but turned upside down after some unknown calamity, a temple of doom similar to that in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a Trojan Hours, and a haunted mansion. The place was crawling with people, so I guess they are doing the right things. The only thing we did today was drive around and look, and get a couple of geocaches. We found two and had two DNFs. We also stopped and bought tickets for the Dells boat rides. The Dells are split by a hydroelectric dam into the upper and lower Dells. We are going to take a tour boat ride of the upper dells, and a duck ride on the lower dells. The ducks, old WW-II amphibious trucks, were first brought to the Dells after the war and used for tours. Today there are dozens of the old trucks all over town. After our tour we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the night.

Tuesday, July 14^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove into Baraboo to have lunch at a restaurant that we had seen on Sunday and that looked interesting and had good reviews. It was called the Driftless Glen Distillery, but when we got there it turns out they are closed on Monday and Tuesday. We were also meeting our friends Jim and Pat Goetzinger there for lunch. Jim and Pat arrived late yesterday afternoon at the same campground we are in and are parked just a few spots down from us. Jim and Pat are also full timers and we cross paths several times a year. We last saw them a couple months ago in Colorado Springs. They are also in Wisconsin for the big FMCA rally in Madison in a couple of weeks, however, they are going to a different pre-rally. They are going to the Full Timers Chapter rally and we are going to the Monaco International Rally. We normally would go to Full Timers too, but this year the scheduling had them overlapping, so we chose Monaco.

After consultation with the Goetzingers, we settled on another local cafe with good reviews, the Little Village Cafe, which was located on the downtown square in Baraboo. Although they had great reviews, I would only classify them as fair. Jackie had a jerk chicken burrito that she said was good, but no outstanding, and I had a cheesesteak with good filling, but the bread was stale and hard. We probably would not go back. After lunch the Goetzingers went off to do some shopping and we drove back up to Wisconsin Dells to walk around downtown for a bit. It didn't take as long as we thought as most of the stores were cheesy souvenir places with the same crap. After an hour we were done and did a few geocaches in the area. We were able to get four new finds before we decided to head back to the coach. We had happy hour outside with the Goetzingers and talked until about 6:30 when we all went back inside for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 15^th, we left the coach a little after 10:00 and went up into Wisconsin Dells for a day of cruising. We got the car parked and went to the docks for the Upper Dells Boat Tour and were fortunate enough to catch a boat that was just getting ready to leave. The Upper Dells Boat Tour boats are your basic 40 foot diesel boats with cabin seating as well as seats on the roof of the cabin. They hold about a hundred people. This trip is a two hour tour that takes you a couple of miles up the Wisconsin River, through the narrow gorges and twists and turns of the river. It makes two stops, one at Witches Gulch, a very narrow canyon through which a creek runs into the river. You get off the boat and work your way up this narrow canyon, which is very pretty, to....wait for it..... a snack bar and concession stand!

You then go back to the boat and cross over a wide bay to another landing where you see some rock formations and climb up a mild grade to a bluff that overlooks the river. There too is a concession stand. This is where the famous “stand rock” is found. Stand rock was first made famous in the late 1800's by nature photographer H. H. Bennett. Bennett's year's of photography in the Dells area was greatly responsible for the area becoming famous and a tourist destination. Bennett also invented the first practical fast shutter for the camera, eliminating the need for subjects to be absolutely still for some period of time when having their picture taken. He proved the concept of his invention by having his 15 year old son jump back and forth between stand rock and the adjacent bluff and taking the first “action” pictures.

After we got back on the boat they cruised back down the river to the docks and the trip was over. We went to a place right in downtown Wisconsin Dells for lunch. It was called Monk's Bar and Grill and we had some really great hamburgers, some of the best I have had in a while. After lunch we went for our second boat ride of the day, a ride on the Wisconsin Dells Ducks. The ducks are WW-II amphibious trucks that have six wheels for driving on land, as well as a large propeller in the back for use on the water. The ducks used in the Dells were all built in the early 1940's for the military and were first brought to the Dells in 1946. They are still using and maintaining these 70 plus year old vehicles on a daily basis. The duck tour is an hour long and takes you to the lower dells, south of dam. You go on the river for a ways, then climb out and drive over to Lake Delton and cruise the lake for a bit. Most of the trip is on land, driving on what they call “duck trails” in the forest around the Dells area.

After we got off the duck tour we headed back to the coach. We had been very surprised to get a phone call from our good friends Gary and Ramona Wilson telling us that they were staying at a campground only a mile or so from ours and asking if they could come over to visit. We met Gary and Ramona in 2007 when we went to our first Full Timers Chapter rally in Joshua Tree, California. That was the same rally where we first met Ray and Suzie Babcock. At that time Gary and Ramona were not full timers, but they did have a Monaco coach, so we became very good friends and went to a lot of rallies together. They did go full time for about five or six years, but about two years ago they decided to sell their coach and move back into their house. After less than two years they decided that was a mistake, they bought another coach very similar to their old one, and hit the road again as full timers. We had last seen them earlier in the year when we went to the FMCA rally in Pomona. At that time they were still shopping for a coach, which they bought a month later. The last we heard from them they were work-camping at a campground in the mountains of Colorado.

They came over for cocktails and happy hour and we had a chance to talk to them. It turns out that the campground changed management and they didn't like some of the changes they put into place, so they quit and decided to come back to Wisconsin for the Monaco rally and the FMCA rally. This means we will get to travel with them for a couple of weeks. Yea! We talked for a couple of hours before they left to go back to their coach down the road. We watched TV the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 16^th, we left the coach after lunch to take care of some chores. We went into Baraboo and did our laundry first, after almost three weeks. Once the big batch of laundry was done we drove to Walmart for some supplies. After our Walmart run we stopped at a nail salon so Jackie could get a pedi. We then headed back to the coach, getting there about 4:30. A little after 5:00 Gary and Ramona Wilson came over again for cocktails. We sat and talked with them until about 7:00 when they left and went back to their RV park. We then relaxed with the TV the rest of the evening.

Friday, July 17^th, we left the coach about 11:30 and drove into town to take another shot at having lunch at the Driftless Glen Distillery restaurant. We had wanted to go there on Tuesday, only to find that it was closed Mondays and Tuesdays. When we went on Tuesday Jim and Pat Goetzinger were with us, but they were moving today from Fox Hill up to Lake Delton for the FMCA Tri-Chapter rally, for the Elks International, Military Veterans and Full Timers Chapters. We would have been going to this rally too, except that the timing was wrong and it conflicted with the Monaco International Chapter Rally that we are going to. We did meet Gary and Ramona at the restaurant and we had a great lunch.

This is a new place, less than a year old, and it has a very pretty, contemporary look inside. It has a nice patio overlooking the Baraboo River, but we sat inside since it was hot and humid today. They have a smallish menu but it has some very unique items. I had a steak sandwich that was outstanding. It was a modern take on the Philly Cheese, with brie, steak, and grilled onions on a french roll. Jackie, Gary and Ramona all had the brie and duck paninni, which they said was outstanding as well. After lunch we all went on the tour of the distillery and got to sample some of their spirits. We had two gins, which Jackie and I don't care for, and their versions didn't change those feelings. They had two vodkas, neither of which I thought were especially good. They gave us some brandy that I didn't like. The only thing they had that was really good was a 100 proof s'mores flavored drink they called moonshine. I wanted to buy some of it, but they hadn't started bottling it yet. All in all, I give the restaurant high marks for food, not so much for spirits.

After our lunch and tour we went down the street to visit the Circus World Museum. As I said early in this chapter, Baraboo was home to the five Ringling brothers who started their circus right here in this town, and also used Baraboo as the winter home for the circus until 1919. Even after the move to Connecticut, they kept the Baraboo property and used it various purposes. The original property was over 100 acres on both sides of the Baraboo River, and in 1959 the corporation deeded 64 acres and the eight of the remaining ten buildings from what was known locally as “Ringlingville,” to the Wisconsin State Historical Society
, which now operates the museum. Over the years they have built several new buildings, the main headquarters building which holds exhibits about the Ringling Brothers and the history of the circus, a showroom which is used for various seasonal acts, and a huge warehouse full of restored circus wagons. The showroom currently has a magic show, which we caught the last couple minutes of. The wagon barn has over 50 huge, beautifully restored circus wagons from dozens of different circuses that have played around the U.S. The rest of the grounds are brimming with old hardware, train cars, circus wagons, cages and the like. They maintain a couple of retired performing elephants and camels and offer rides on both to kids. They also have a small tent with a one ring, one hour circus performance including aerial acts, jugglers, clowns, camels, elephants and dogs. The circus was the most fun of the whole adventure. It was a good stop, not one I would need to repeat, but fun.

We spent about three hours at the museum before leaving and heading over to Baraboo Elks Lodge for cocktails and to meet some friends. About 20 of the people who were going to the Tri Chapter rally in Lake Delton had come over to the lodge for dinner. We knew all except one couple from our time on the road. Among those there were the Neighbours', the Bates', the Goetzinger's, the Cantarinni's, the Matthews', the Sweeny's, the Lee's, the Wilson's, and us. They were all ordering dinner when we and the Wilson's came in, and we didn't want to eat early, so we just had cocktails. We did end up getting a light dinner before we left and had a great time visiting with all our old acquaintances. We also got a lodge pin since this was a new lodge to us.

We finally left about 7:00 and went outside with the Wilson's to give Peggy Bullock a call. Regular readers of this blog will remember that in July 2013 the Bullock's had a party at their house in Mineral, California, for their 50^th wedding anniversary. We, along with a half dozen of our other RVing friends, were at the party, which went on all week. In 2014 they did it again, and again we were there for the week long party. This year they are doing it for a third time, but, of course, we are not there since we decided to go east this summer. The Wilson's had been there the first year too, so we decided we needed to call and say hi, since tonight was the first day of this year's party. We talked to Peggy for a bit and then we and the Wilson's went back to our RV parks and stayed in the rest of the evening.

Saturday, July 18^th, we had a stay at home day and did some chores. I also got things ready for our travel day tomorrow. About 4:30 we drove up to Lake Delton to the Country Roads RV park to visit with the rally group from the tri-chapter rally, most of the same people we saw at the Elks yesterday. We spent about an hour with the group before they started eating supper. They had invited us, but I didn't feel right about eating their food when we hadn't paid for the rally, so we left and went back to our park. We stayed in for the rest of the night.

Sunday, July 19^th, another travel day. We got an early start today, leaving the park about 9:30. We are heading to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, north and east of Baraboo, on the shores of Lake Michigan. We are going there for the Monaco International Chapter rally. The trip is only about 135 miles, but it is all on state and county roads, no interstate, so we knew it would take longer because you have to slow down for all the little towns. We met up with the Wilson's, who are also going to the rally, at the casino down the road from our RV park. We then had a mini caravan across central Wisconsin, arriving at the rally about 12:30. We were quickly parked, and even though the Wilson's are in handicap parking and we aren't, they are right in front of us, across the street. Very convenient.

About 4:00 we went over to the events center for a meeting with the bartender committee. This year Jackie and I volunteered to help with the bar. In most Monaco rallies, there is an open bar every night before dinner, using volunteer bartenders. The last two rallies, the one in Coos Bay, Oregon, and the one in Pahrump, Nevada, were at casinos, so the casinos had to handle the bars and there were no Monaco bartenders. We were also going to have a volunteer appreciation dinner tonight at 5:30 and we were going to set up the bar for that and have a sort of “trial run” for the new bartenders. The cocktail hour went well and everyone worked great together.

The volunteer dinner was a catered event and was very nice. There are about 100 volunteers, including parking, bartenders, security, trams, and others. The dinner went on until about 7:30 when everyone headed back to their own coaches. We stopped briefly to visit with the Wilson's and see the inside of their new coach. It is new to them, an 05 model, the same us ours, but one step up in the model lineup. They have a Diplomat. The inside is very similar to ours, same wood color and carpet, but they still have the original old TVs and there are a few other little upgrades. All in all, a very nice used coach. After our brief visit we went back to our place for the rest of the night.

Our arrival here in Manitowoc for the first of several summer motor coach rallies makes a good place to close out this chapter and get it published. We will be week at this rally, then another week in Madison for the big FMCA rally, and then a final short, two day rally, back at Lake Delton. We will publish again after the rallies are over. Until next time, remember to love. I love everyone. I love to be around some people, I love to stay away from others, and some I'd just love to punch right in the face! See ya soon.