Saturday, July 1, 2017

2017.07.01-Milwaukee, WI

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 building below is a Norweigian stabbur, designed for storage.  The plaque above has more information.  These were 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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