Friday 8-30 Sculpture and Dancing

Having fun with friends

Today we didn't have far to drive, West Bend was about 30 miles away but we ended up going further so we could stop at a sculpture park. On our way we stopped at Hardware Hank to get propane for the Minnie. The gentleman that helped us was very friendly and did a super job.

Getting ready to put propane in the Minnie

Connecting the propane hose to the the Minnie

Hardware Hank

After getting propane we were back on the road. The roads here in Wisconsin are pretty rough. We were in route to the sculpture Park when we had to take a detour because the road we were on was closed. The new route wasn't that bad until we got on a Rustic Road which was very rough. The sculpture park is a 6 acre park at the artists home. The artist is Paul Bobrowitz. The sculptures were made out of different types of metal. We walked around for about a half hour looking at the sculptures. We saw Paul working on a new sculpture. Most of the sculptures were a little crude for my taste. But I still felt that the artist had a lot of talent and creativity. The sculptures were of all shapes and sizes and displayed very well. We had a very nice time walking through the sculpture park. You can see more of the sculptures at Paul's website https://www.bobrowitzsculpture.com/

Some of the more colorful sculptures

A face sculpture made with faces

One of the sheds with small sculptures on it 

A group of sculptures on the grounds

 We got to Washington County Fairgrounds at noon. We checked in and got a site for two nights. We spent the afternoon reading and studying Taminations. Between 2:30 and 4:00 people started to show up. The RV park is in a hugh field and the ladies in the office put us all on top of each other, we thought this was weird. After dinner we walked around the grounds of the facility. Washington County Fairgrounds is a great facility and very well kept up. The RV park is walking distance to the dancing. There are a couple of ponds with a bridge that goes between them, some 4H buildings, a cute slide and drinking fountain. 

Camping at Washington County Fairgrounds

One of the building on the ground to show animals

A cute bird house

The drinking fountain at the fairgrounds

The opening dance for the WIPAC Festival was at 7:00 so we went back to the Minnie and read. The festival is in four halls: A2 hall, C1 hall, Plus hall/Round Dancing and DBD hall. We were in the C1 hall for two hours, we had six and a half squares. We danced to Jerry Story, Johnny Preston and Tom Miller. The C1 hall closed at 9:00 so we went to the A2 hall where we danced to Jerry Story and Mike Hogan.

We know lots of the dancers in both halls. We had a super evening dancing with friends and good callers.     

Thursday 8-29 Horicon Marsh

We woke up to another cool morning. The wind was down but in a couple of hours it was back.

We started the day off by going for a motorcycle ride. We took the bike off the carrier and got it ready. We had to be careful leaving the park because the children from the local school were running on the road of the park. We rode the bike to Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area, about 10 miles from Wild Goose Park.

In order to get to Horicon Marsh we had to drive through Horicon, which is another quaint little town. It had more shops and places to eat than Juneau. Horicon Marsh is 33,000 acres and 2/3 of it is the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge. It was establish to protect migratory birds. The area we visited was run by the state. The lady that greeted us was very friendly and helpful. Part of the visitor center was free, if you wanted to visit the hands on interactive area (The Explorium) it cost $6.00. The Explorium was very nice. Part of the display was following a spearhead from the time it was created by man in the marsh during the Mastodon era to today. Some of the displays you can touch and smell. One display you can drive an air boat through the marsh, very cool. Another display had nine big cubes, each side was a puzzle piece of an animal. Once you solved the puzzle it told you what it was. The displays on smells was interesting, one display was what a Mammoth smelled like and another you had to decide if the smell was from a sawmill or gristmill. The things you touched were pelts from beaver and muskrat. We walked around about a half hour. There are hiking trails around the marsh. There is an area where they feed birds. We had a very nice visit.

Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area

Native American hunting a Mammoth

Mammoth made out of rebar

Larry starting the tour of the Horicon Marsh

The cube puzzle to make animals with

Beaver and muskrat pelts

Muskrat cave

Larry driving the air boat in the marsh

A view of the Horicon Marsh

On the way back to the Minnie we drove around Juneau and went by their other city park. It wasn't as big as the one we're staying in but it had tennis courts, playground and basket ball hoops. We had a great ride.

In the afternoon we watched a couple of city workers mowing the edges of the walking trail. They used a bobcat with a big mower on the front. It cut through big weeds and small trees. After the stuff was cut they used a small street sweeper to clean the trimming off the trail. Late in the day a group of kids showed up to play soccer. We had a super day at Wild Goose Park.

Trimming the edge of the hiking trail

  
 

Wednesday 8-28 The House on the Rock

We woke up with the temperature in the 50s, it felt great. Today the high temperature was in the 70s. We had a great day of sunshine and wind.

We started the day off by say good-bye to Muscoda City Park. We drove about 30 miles to The House on the Rock, it's a quirky tourist attraction. This was our third time visiting here and each time we see things that we either missed or forgot we had seen. There are three self-guided tours but you don't have to do all three. We always do all three that way we see everything. The brochure says to give yourself three and a half hours to cover the whole thing. The first tour takes you through an Asian garden, Alex Jordon Center, gate house, the original house and infinity room. The Alex Jordon Center tells you the history of the House on the Rock and it's owner Alex Jordon. The infinity room looks over the mountainside and gives beautiful views of the area. The second tour takes you through the mill house, streets of yesterday, heritage of the sea, tribute to Nostolgia, music of yesterday, spirit of aviation and the huge carousel room. The third tour takes you through the organ room, inspiration room, doll house room, circus room, doll carousel building and the Japanese garden. As you walk through each tour there are a lot of amazing exhibits, there is so much to see that you will miss many things. There were musical displays throughout the house. They give you four tokens per person to play the musical displays. If you run out of tokens there are machines where you can buy more. The whole house was full of things that Alex Jordon collected. He designed the house as a tourist attraction. The tours take you through rooms with gun collections, dolls, doll houses, organs, ships, carousels and many more items. You walked through city streets, different circus displays, knights fighting with dragons, items from England and other places around the world. There is a giant carousel in the middle of the house, it is the largest carousel in the world . Some interesting facts about the carousel are it has 269 different carousel animals, 182 chandeliers, and is lit with over 20,000 lights. It’s amazing to watch it going around and there so much to see on it. As we were leaving we walked through the gift shop and bought some fudge. The fudge is made fresh every day on location. It took us a bit over three hours to complete the tours. We got there when it opened and had the place almost to ourselves, I have no idea how long it would take if the place was busy. We had a great time.

Entrance to House on the Rock

One of the giant pots that are located throughout the facility

A hugh whale sculpture located in the heritage of the sea

Testing yourself, the machine said I was out of control

One of the musical instrument display that plays when you insert a token

The giant carousel

One of the organs in the organ room

One of the circuses in the circus room

Fudge from the gift shop 

After completing the tours we went back to the Minnie and had lunch. Then we headed 90 miles miles down the road to Juneau Wisconsin. We camped at the city park called Wild Goose Park. It's a beautiful park with restrooms and showers, soccerfields, playground, a community garden and a walking trail that takes you to town and around the park. The RV sites have no power or water, we don't need either, the temperature was perfect. You park your RV on the grass and it cost $10 per night. We walked the trail to town and walked around the park. As we walked we went by the community garden, it was very nice. From our RV we were able to watch the local high school play a soccer game. I don't know much about the sport.

Welcome sign for Wild Goose Park

 

Camping at Wild Goose Park in Juneau

The playground at Wild Goose Park

Kids having fun playing soccer

One of the community gardens with flowers and vegetables

  

Tuesday 8-27 Hello Wisconsin

Beautiful Sunny Day

Today was beautiful, it got into the high 70s with sunshine. It was very comfortable.

We drove another 300 miles today. We started from Mark Twain Lake in Missouri and ended up at the Village of Muscoda in Wisconsin. Our drive through Iowa was on four lane highways and two lane highways. We saw a lot of farmfields and drove through some small towns. We had driven a small part of the same route a couple of years ago when we followed the Mississippi river from Louisiana to it's beginning in Minnesota. I slept most of the drive. I'm like a little kid you put me in a vehicle and start driving I'll be asleep in minutes.

We stopped a few times. Twice to fill up the Minnie, once to have lunch and we stopped at a couple visitor centers in Wisconsin. The first visitor center only had a few local items, we have an old Wisconsin map but wanted a new one, they were out. The second visitor center was in Platteville, it's a small university town. A gentleman was manning it and was very helpful and recommended places to go. It had a lot of information except it didn't have any state maps. According to the guy working there Wisconsin elected a new governor and something to do with that had delayed the state on printing new maps. While we were there he recommended we walk around the grounds, they have a beautiful garden called Katie's Garden in remembrance of a young girl who died. Larry went back to the Minnie and read some of the information we picked up and I walked around Katie's Garden. It has a paved trail that goes along a small river and I think it goes into town I only walked it until it went under the main road. It was a bike trail. The garden had a lot of different types of flowers and birdhouses. Some of the flowers had butterflies on them. One of the birdhouses had a cute sign that said Wrent Free. I had a very nice walk.

Platteville Visitor Center

Katie's Garden entrance

Some of the flowers in the garden

The river that runs by the visitor center

The Wrent Free birdhouse

We were driving down a narrow two lane highway through farmfields and got stuck behind some farm equipment. The vehicles were going very slow so Larry passed them, there were four hugh tractors. When he did this we missed our turn so we had to go three miles up and turn around and come back to the turn. We arrived at the Village of Muscoda Park about 4:00.

Village of Muscoda Park is a very nice park. It has electric sites for $25 dollars a night and tent sites for $10. Some of the sites looked over the river. After setting up the Minnie for the night we walked around the park to figure out where to pay. Larry flagged down a gentleman and he said that a lady comes around to collect the fee. We went back to the Minnie and relaxed. After dinner we walked around the park and through the neighborhood for about 45 minutes. It was a very nice walk, there was a little breeze. We walked the path by the river and then around the high school and elementary school. Larry spent the rest of the evening reading and I did my Solitaire Challenges. We had another great day. 

The tent campground

A covered ramada that looks over the river

The river at the Village of Muscoda Park

             

Monday 8-26 Happy Birthday Larry

Happy Birthday Larry

We woke to a beautiful day. We stayed overnight in the Downstream Casino RV and truck parking area. The RV parking was separate from the 18 wheelers but not by much, we were pleasantly surprised that we didn't hear the trucks running their refrigeration units. They had to run them all night. As we were getting the Minnie ready to get back on the road Larry noticed we had some neighbors in the field across from the casino, what a surprise, they were bison.

Our neighbors at the casino

After getting the Minnie ready we walked over to the coffee shop in the casino. We figured we might as well use the $10 voucher I earned gambling. We got a pineapple cupcake, a big cinnamon roll and chocolate milk. Then we walked around and checked out the hotel lobby area. It was very nice. It had a fireplace with a sitting area. The entrance was pretty with tile flooring. When we got back to the Minnie we shared the cupcake and cinnamon roll. The cupcake was made a little different than normal cupcakes, it tasted more like the flavored pound cakes you buy in the bakery. Larry cut the cinnamon roll in quarters and we ate half of it. We saved the other half for a snack down the road.

Free breakfast at the coffee house

We were on the road by 8:00. Today Larry drove about 300 miles. We drove four lanes highways and two lanes highway. We took a bridge over the Lake of the Ozark. It's a hugh lake and very popular. It had homes all over its shores, I can't imagine how busy the lake gets on the weekend. While we drove over the lake we saw a few boats driving down the lake. It's a gorgeous lake. We drove through Jefferson City, which is the capitol of Missouri. I was going to take a picture of the capitol building but it was a under construction. The drive was nice and the ditches and hillsides were very green.

Boating on the Lake of the Ozark

I slept part of the way because I didn't go to bed until 3:00 in the morning. Initially I got back to the Minnie from the casino a bit after 9:00 but then decided to go back and stayed until a bit after midnight. A while back Louise introduced me to another Solitaire Challenge event, it occurs every other day and occasionally a mini Solitaire event appears. Yesterday was a World Tour Event which had 30 challenges. After getting back I started on the challenge, I only did 28 and still came in 28th in my group of 100 people.

We arrived at Mark Twain Lake about 3PM, it is a Corps of Engineers property. On the way to the campground we stopped at an overview of Mark Twain Lake. There was a tower that gave you a great view of the lake. I climbed the stairs and took a few pictures. After I got back on the ground we walked on the dam. There are a couple of campgrounds on the lake, we decided to stay at Frank Russell, it has 60 campsites. Because I have a Senior America The Beautiful pass we got the site for half price, which was $9. The site has power and water. There is a dump station free of charge for campers. The couple at the gate were very friendly and set us up on a great site across from the bathroom. After setting up the Minnie for the night we walked around the campground. It has an equestrian area with seven campsites and a big corral for horses. There is a fishing lake with a path that goes around part of it. They have gorgeous archery area with figures of turkeys, deer, bear and wolves for the archers to hit with their arrow. There are hiking trails, bathrooms with showers, playground, amphitheater which has a weekly show during the summer and you can get to the lake from the campground. We walked for 45 minutes. The walk started out cool because of a breeze but by the time we got back to the Minnie it was muggy. Frank Russell is a great campground to camp in and have fun. 

The tower at the overview point

Larry waving at me when I was in the tower

The archery stand to shoot from

The figures to aim at

The corrals at the equestrian area

The fishing lake

We had another great day.