2017.07.01-Milwaukee,
WI
We arrived
in Spring Green in southwestern Wisconsin this past Monday around noonish. As we were pulling into our assigned site we
got stuck in sand up to the rear wheel rims; heck of a start to a new camping
adventure. We had to get the owner to
use heavy equipment to pull us out.
The RV park
is a spot without the slightest AT&T coverage. We could not access the internet or make phone
calls. Fortunately three towns over we found 4 bars LTE, yea!
Shortly
after were set up our friends Mark and Kathy arrived. After they were situated we headed out for
exploration. They used to live in the
area and were PERFECT tour guides! We first
drove to the American Players Theater.
This place has two theaters, one outdoor and one indoor. The outdoor theater was up a fairly steep
hill and, of course, you had to walk to get there. What a lovely setting for a play! Unfortunately we did not attend any
performances. Their web site is http://www.americanplayers.org/. I forgot to mention it was a little buggy while walking to the outdoor theater.
Then we
drove by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin headquarters; just going through the
visitor center was interesting. Next we
drove to a scenic highway over-look for the House on the Rock, but the over-look
was so overgrown it was hard to see the house.
What we could barely see looked like the tip of an arrow shooting out
over the edge of the rock. This turned
out to be the Infinity Room, a cantilever design stretching out over 200 feet with
walls made of glass panes that tilted away from you and hanging over a
cliff.
While still driving
around, just outside Dodgeville we found this 1950’s vintage plane sitting in
the front yard of the Don Q Inn. The plane
was actually open so we walked around inside.
It was pretty messy, there was evidence of birds and trash, but still a
fun stop.
Tuesday we
drove to Mazomanie. This is a small town
and walking around the downtown only took about 15 minutes. The point of interest though was an interesting
woodworker. We walked in through his rear
work shop door to peek in, everything was in its place and the tools he had
were numerous. His craftsmanship was
fabulous; his web site is http://www.wildwoodwoodworks.com/.
I’m sure you
are wondering where the troll capital of the world is ….we found it in Mount
Horeb. This is a charming place partly because
we could actually use our phones! This
little town with a Norwegian background which includes trolls in their history. Hand carved trolls were strewn about the town
and they even had a troll map so you could drive around and catch them all. This building is a Norweigian stabbur, designed
for storage in the snow. It was next
door to one of these trolls.
The
highlight of the day was visiting New Glarus, the headquarters for New Glarus
beer. We took a self-guided tour of this
huge brewery, but before we started the tour we HAD to sample their product. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but they had a
refreshing brew called Serendipity which tasted like a fruity cider to me. Anyway, we carried our beer around with us as
we walked through the entire plant.
After we had
tasted and been educated about the beer we walked around downtown New Glarus
for a bit and ended up purchasing some cheese fudge, which tastes just like chocolate
fudge just not quiet as sweet. Oh, and
of course we tried some ice cream.
Whew! What a delightful day!
Wednesday we
headed out to House on the Rock. This
was owned and the house was hand built by Alex Jackson starting in 1945. He died in 1989 still working on this house
and his numerous collections. It isn’t
the house itself that is so amazing but how he incorporated the huge rock formation
into it and what he has put IN the house.
There were 3 sections to visit; we visited all three and it took us 4
hours. This place is jaw dropping. There are several carousels and lots of musical
instruments that he modified to play automatically. The place is hard to describe. There are dolls, huge engines, miniatures of all
kinds, huge pipe organs, and a whimsical toothed blue whale fighting an octopus
which is three stories high. Just
WOW! I could go on, but you probably
wouldn’t believe me. If it sounds
interesting check out their web site http://www.thehouseontherock.com/.
This is just one of the organ consoles.
An outdoor planters.
A stained glass coffee table, with a stained glass lamp.
One of the many musical instrument displays.
After that long
and very tiring walk we headed for lunch at nice local brew pub in the old
Cornish mining town of Mineral Point.
The food was good and very welcomed as we were very hungry and thirsty. We walked around the small downtown for a
little while then headed back to the coach.
The next
day, Thursday we drove back to Mount Horeb and followed the troll map. Some were interesting, some not. There were several Free Library boxes about
town including this one in front of a middle school. Look for the yellow box with the heart, in the center of the picture.
Friday, we
drove to Middleton to find a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. Yum! While
there Jerry found the National Mustard Museum.
So off we go. It was interesting
plus you could taste any of thousands of different mustards from around the
world. We even bought the Poupon U(niv)
t-shirt to memorialize our visit. 😉
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