Madeline Island

Monday August 30

A ferry leaves the pier of Bayfield every half hour and carries cars, trucks, RV’s, walkers and bikers.  We took our bikes onto the island with the intention of riding from end to end but that did not happen.  Instead we rode out to the Big Bay State Park, looked briefly at the beach then turned around and rode to the other side of the park, ate lunch and headed back to La Pointe, the small village where the ferry docked.  And even that turned into a 25 mile bike ride.  I swear it was up hill both directions!

I was disappointed with our experience on the island.  Other than trees, and trees, and a beach, and trees there wasn’t a lot to see or to do.  Even the small town was pretty much closed since it was Monday, and everything around here closes on Monday.  But it was a beautiful day, not hot but sunny with a light breeze.

We have really enjoyed our campground with its lake front vista, visiting geese and seagulls, and very nice neighbors.  Our evenings have been spent around a campfire, listening to the waves lapping the shore and taking in the amazing starlit skies.  Time to move on. 

Exploring Bayfield County

Friday August 27

Even though we are staying in Washburn, we are still in Bayfield County and just a few short miles from Bayfield to the North and Ashland to the East.

One day we spent exploring the town of Bayfield, checking out restaurants, ferry schedules, souvineer shops and we found a Museum cataloguing the fishing industry on Lake Superior.  In Washburn is the Bayfield County Courthouse make from brownstone.  It’s quite an impressive building.

Another day we rode our bikes out in the county, making a big loop that encompassed the Chequamegon National Forest and Chequamegon Lake (pronounced: Chah-kaw-mah-gone).  Since the Ojibwa Native Americans inhabited this area, they use their Indian Names along with the English on all their signs.  We also hiked near the ski area and enjoyed the quiet forest before coming back to Washburn and buying fresh food at the Farmer’s Market.

We also hiked out from Meyer’s Beach up and on top of the Sea Caves.  Half of the hike was on a board walk then we climbed over roots and rocks to reach the top and look down into a 50 foot deep crevasse where the water rushed in.  From there we could look out on points of land and see the caves below us.  We ate lunch while enjoying the vista of The Bowl, a long point with sea caves its full length.

Apostle Islands

Wednesday August 24

The cruises around the 21 islands that make up the Apostle Islands National Seashore depart daily, several times a day and into the evenings from a pier in Bayfield.  But there are actually 22 islands.  Madeline Island is not part of the National Seashore since it was already inhabited when the National Park was created.  It was easier to leave it separate than to either move the inhabitants or buy them out.  In fact, some of the other islands had folks living on them so the park service bought those places and leased them back to the people.  When their lease expires the park will take over the properties.

Although the cruise supposedly passed near all 21 islands, we did not get close enough to most of them to distinguish one from another. Brownstone rock was harvested from several islands and used on the mainland to build sturdy structures such as the Bayfield County Courthouse. 

As we passed Hermit Island the captain pointed out a sea stack on the north end called Lookout Point.  Stockton Island is the largest in the National Park but Madeline Island is the largest of the 22 Apostles.  Eagle Island is the smallest.

The parks department refurbished an old fish camp located on Manitou Island.  No one lives there but park rangers will stay on the island to maintain it and wave at the boats that pass.  

We saw 3 of the 9 lighthouses located on the islands - Devils Island, Raspberry Island, and Michigan Island.

The most popular Island is Devil’s Island with its Ice Caves.  These indentations, arches, pillars and windows were created by wave action, wind and wintry ice eroding the soft sandstone.  The best ones are on Devil’s Island but some really good ones can be found on the mainland and on Sand Island.

Camping on Lake Superior

It was an six hour drive to Washburn, a small town on Lake Superior about 20 minutes from the Apostle Islands National Lake Shore.  We pulled into a first come, first served campground and lucked into a beautiful waterfront site on Sunday.  Monday we explored the town, then drove up to Bayfield to look around and book our boat tour of the Apostle Islands

We happened onto a small museum about the fishing trade on the lake and enjoyed visiting with the volunteer. 

Today it rained.  But during the afternoon, it cleared up enough for us to ride the bikes along some dirt paths and gravel roads.  

Sparta Trail Tunnels

Several people told us that we should ride the section of trail that has railroad tunnels, one that was about 1/2 mile long and another that was almost a mile long.  So we loaded the bikes onto the car and drove to Norwalk where we got on the Elroy-Sparta Trail and headed east to Tunnels #1 and #2.  

Tunnel #2 was about 1/2 mile long with signage that suggest we walk our bikes in the tunnel.  It was dark, wet, and muddy with a very rounded road bed.  At the end of this tunnel we found ourselves in Wilton and were ready to continue on to Tunnel #1 until we saw that the trail was closed due to flooding back in 2016.  Nice of them to tell us that!  A man and women came from the trail and we asked if it was difficult to travel and they indicated we should not try it.  We turned around!

Back in Norwalk we ate our picnic lunch and then decided to go the other direction and check out Tunnel #3 - the really long tunnel.  At the mouth of the tunnel we met several people coming out and they were wet from dripping water and they said it was very cold.  We could feel the cold at the entrance without going in.  One lady suggested that we could go in just a short way and turn around but we decided to not go through it at all. It was one of those moments where we said “Let’s say we did, then don’t!”

These tunnels were built circa 1873.  Flumes were constructed a few years later to divert flood waters away from the tunnels.  Some of the flumes are still visible.  An unusual feature of both tunnels were huge doors at both entrances.  Not sure why but a sign said that in the winter a man was posted at each end of the tunnel to open and close the doors to let the trains through, sometimes up to 50 times a day.  I think it had to do with snow.

We made a short stop in Sparta to photograph Ben Bikin’, the largest bicycle in the world.

Riding the Trails

We had determined early on in this trip that we wanted to find and ride bike trails.  Near La Crosse in the town of West Salem we found a campground right on the La Crosse River and a 101 mile long State Trail that consists of four named trails.  We rode on parts of three of the trails and on an extension that took us into town.

When we arrived on Wednesday it was early enough for us to take a short ride from the campground into West Salem, a quaint suburb of La Crosse.  Today we rode on the LaCrosse River Trail that connected to the Great River Trail with a connecting trail into La Crosse and down to the Mississippi Riverfront Park/greenway.  By the time we got back to our RV we had ridden 26 miles.

We celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary by dining our at a nice Italian restaurant.  I splurged and ate a bowl of spumoni all by myself!!  Yummy!!

Taliesin

This estate was inherited by Frank Lloyd Wright from his two aunts who started a school on the property. Frank, at the age of 20, designed the building for the school when it expanded and eventually located his school for architectural students in the building.  Some additions to the building were designed and built by his students, and a portion of the place did burn because of their inexperience.

The Wright house was built up the hill above the school and barn and overlooked the whole valley.  Taliesin (pronounced Tally-eh-sin) is a Welsh word meaning ‘shining-brow’ since it was built on the brow of the hill. It was completed in 1911.  In 1914 a disgruntled employee set fire to the living quarters and murdered Wright’s mistress and six others.  Another fire in1925 was the because of electrical problems.   Wright lived here until his death in1959.  He left the house and the 600 acre estate to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.  

The tour started at the Architectural school, then we rode up the hill past The Romeo and Juliet Windmill, across the small dam and past the Midway barns to the house.  In most of Wright’s homes, he designed all the furniture but his wife wanted more comfortable seating and she won out.  One piece that I found interesting was the wooden music stand that was created for a quartet of stringed instrumentalist.

House on the Rocks

Although we have been to the House on the Rocks at least twice before this it was fun going through and seeing everything again. We are camped in Spring Green Wisconsin so it was a short ride to this museum.

The house itself is built into and on top of natural rock formations and then encompasses that rock into the walls in features of the house. The outstanding feature of the house is called an infinity room and it’s built out over the valley, seeming to disappear at the end. 

The museum next to the house seems to go on forever as it took us close to five hours to walk through the whole thing. Some of the amazing features of the museum:  One room with a model of a full size whale battling a giant octopus; a fully reconstructed Victorian town with homes, stores and offices furnished for that era; Musical mechanical orchestras; a carousel with 269 animals (none are horses), 20,000 lights and weighs 36 tons;  two other doll carousels; circus and doll house exhibits and an organ room that has not just organs and pipes but numerous other pieces of “stuff”.   This man was a master collector!

USAF Thunderbirds

We spent part of our morning watching people get stuck in the muddy roads.  One guy pulling a 5th-wheel seemed to think that all he had to do was back up and take a run at the same spot to get through, then he would get stuck, spin his wheels, back up and do it again.  Two other RV’s  got stuck in other spots, one figured a way out with help from a jeep and the other had to have a tow truck and a huge green tractor pull him out.  We’re hoping that it will not rain today and dry out before we are ready to leave.

We braved the mud holes and rode our bikes to the AirVenture Museum and looked at all kinds of airplanes from Wright Brothers and Lindberg to Rutan and Gee Bees Stunt team. As we were leaving we noted that a lot of people were streaming onto the grounds. We think it is because of the USAF Thunderbirds show this afternoon.  I noted that I have put over 20 miles on my bike just riding inside the campgrounds for the past 5 days.

The daily air show starts at 2:30 so we pick our spot and wait for the show to start, then it rains!  It is a short rain and the show goes on.  The War Birds show off their stuff, a couple of aerobatics, the stunt copter, a comedy show, more threatening clouds and then what we have been waiting for all afternoon!

The United States Air Force Thunderbirds are a fast, loud and precise team of six F-16 Fighter Jets.  By fast I’m talking 500 mph fly-by.  By loud I’m talking cover your ears loud.  And precision in every grouping or solo flight.  It was awesome!!

Sea Plane Base

This morning we took the bus out to the Sea Plane Base on Lake Winnebago.  A large inlet or lagoon like area was filled with tethered sea planes.  There were five docks where they could refuel or take on passengers.  There was also a beach where the amphibious sea planes that land on there belly as opposed to floating on pontoons could float into shore and also take on passengers.  It was interesting to listen to the control point volunteers radioing with the pilots with instructions for take off or landings.

Right at 2:30 this afternoon we heard the screaming jets of the Thunderbirds fly overhead!  They had arrived and were putting on a bit of a show for the whole area!  They are such magnificent machines!  And they are very noisy!!

The afternoon air show and the Thunderbird demo was cut short due to bad weather.  At least 3 thunderstorms, one with hail, rolled through the area this afternoon & evening making for a muddy mess.  I feel sorry for the folks across the way whose awning was blown over the top of their RV.  John just barely got the steaks cooked before another storm came through and it is raining again as I’m writing this blog.  It wouldn’t be the EAA AirAdventure if it didn’t rain.

Our new Mascot.

Sky on Fire

Oh, my goodness!  We had such a great day and night!  Yesterday morning we finished looking at all the exhibits and walking through the hangers where more exhibitors are housed then we walked over to the War Birds arena.  This is where the old military planes, jets, and helicopters can be viewed and where their pilots stand around sharing old war stories or flying adventures. Many of these planes fly during the afternoon air shows.  I’m not sure why, but I find them to be fascinating to look at.

Fifteen some years ago when we last attended the EAA Fly-In, they did not have a night show but they did put on a spectacular display of the War Birds along with lots of pyrotechnics simulating bombing runs and strafing targets.  They did that today too, which we watched from the campground while resting up for the evening show.  

Last night starting at dusk they had an awesome light show with air planes doing aerobatic maneuvers while lit with colored lights all along their wings, in the cowling and on the tail.  One run was a group of four airplanes with all the lights.  I think the picture John got was cool.

They had a comedy show with an airplane flown by a very talented pilot who made it look like someone who had never flown before trying to land on the runway, almost hitting another plane and chasing runway personnel.  Along with the radio chatter, they had the crowd in stitches.  There was also a contest for bush pilots from Alaska.  Six pilots tried to take off in the shortest distance and then land the shortest distance.  Most took 160 - 190 feet to take off but one was in the air after only 62 feet on the runway.  They stopped very quickly too and the same pilot who took off in 62 feet, landed in 72 feet from the time his wheel touched down until completely stopped.  

As it got darker, two different planes and one helicopter flew their aerobatic maneuvers with fireworks shooting flames like fountains into their smoke stream. The helicopter dropped a US flag from its tail while shooting Roman Candles, bottle rockets and fountains while patriotic music is played on the loud speakers.  

The evening ended with a full blown fireworks display choreographed to music.  This lasted a good 30 minutes with no break.  It was AWESOME!

The finale was the Wall Of Fire!!  On the count of ten a huge wall of hot flames ran along the runway for over 100 yards and shot up into the air a good 100 feet!  It happened so fast we didn’t get a picture but we did feel the heat and the reverberation of the explosion!

The ride on our bikes back to the RV was more walking than riding due to a crowd of 50-60 thousand people!

Demonstrations and Exhibitions and Junk

I took advantage of the unscheduled morning to go to the grocery store while John started looking at airplanes on the show grounds.  After I caught up with him he had to show me the cutest plane (that is obviously NOT how he would describe it) but it will take off and land on land or on water.  It only holds two people, has one propeller, folding wings, and lots of other ‘stuff’.

We walked through lots of aircraft exhibits, the hangers with all kinds of aircraft ‘stuff’ ( radios, propellers, head sets, batteries, etc.)  for sale, and then the vendors that are selling all the junk easily found at shows of this size.  I swear some of these people are selling the same thing here that they sell in Quartzite, AZ!  There are a few RV dealers here (Born Free is one), and car dealers (Ford Motor Co.), EAA has numerous stores and all the various aircraft companies have their own promotional products (Cessna, ICON, Bonanza).

During today’s air show we got to see the US Marine Corps’ Osprey.  This aircraft has two propellers that rotate so the plane can hover and move like a helicopter then as it takes off, the propellers rotate forward so that it flies like an airplane.  It can go as fast as 280 knots (over 300 mph) and travel up to 900 miles before refueling.  It is used to place and pick up troops, and can fly in supplies as needed.  It can land on aircraft carriers or at the airport.  We were really fascinated by this aircraft.

Just as John put the chops on the grill, a storm rolled through Oshkosh.  It wouldn’t be an EAA event without at least one thunderstorm!

Oshkosh, B'Gosh!

We arrived at the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) Fly-In around noon and found a spot among the other 36,000 campers.  This is the largest campground in the US during this air show.  It is mostly just fields marked off in road and rows with porta-potties and trash bins marking the ends.

John was so excited to be here that he didn’t even complete all our set-up routine before we jumped on our bikes to get to the entrance gate.  We are only 1 mile from there.  We walked all around, getting our bearings and checking out the different aircraft areas, some displays, and watched the afternoon air-show that runs from 2:30 - 6:30 every day.  Several times we would stop to watch a particular aerobatic performance and then continue our explorations.

We were so entranced with the surroundings that we forgot to take any pictures! And we didn’t get done eating dinner until almost 8:30.

Boredom Sets In

I got up early enough to attend a lovely, friendly rural Methodist Church.  Shortly after I got home from church we headed over to the beach but the skies started clouding up so we went to Egg Harbor to a BBQ joint for lunch.  Just as we were seated the skies opened up and it poured down rain!  And it rained, and it rained.  We even had to dodge raindrops after lunch as we ran to the car, although when we returned to the RV it was dry in the campground.  That could be because of all the trees protecting the RV.  It did try to rain most of the afternoon, but I found a dry hour in which to take a 1.5 mile walk.

We risked using up all our batteries and watched TV this evening.  We both agree that we stayed one day too long.  It is time to move on.

Down Day

I had to think really hard about what we did today as we really didn’t do much.  I washed and waxed the floor while John went to the hardware store to get parts to fix the toilet seat.  That sounds like an easy project except that in the RV the toilet is so close to the wall that John can’t get his hands behind the seat to work on the screws.  To be able to fix the lid, he has to totally unseat the toilet, set it in the on the floor outside the bathroom, put new screws in the lid and then reseat the toilet. Turned out to be pretty easy but he approached the project with much trepidation having never done anything like this before. Unfortunately, he didn't get it back on straight.  It is about 1/4” off center. Ha Ha!

We rode bikes for about 12 miles, had a root beer float and sat around the campfire most of the evening.  Not a bad life!

Sister's Bay

This mornings 12.6 mile, invigorating bike ride to Ephraim and back took us past an old tower that was built in 1903 and rebuilt in 1934.  The tower itself is only  75 feet tall but it sits on a bluff that is 175 feet above the water’s edge.  The view from 250 feet high was pretty.  John did comment, though, that if he went down to his knees, there might be a problem. We could see Ephraim Harbor with its many sailboats and Fish Creek Harbor, several islands and lots of blue, blue water. 

View from the tower you can see in the post 2 days ago.

After lunch we drove north to Sister’s Bay, another small art community in Door County.  The tourist draw in Sister’s Bay is Al Johnson’s Restaurant with has a grass roof where Billy goats like to graze.  John swears that the only goat on the roof today was a statue but I thought I saw it wiggle its ears.

We checked out several other restaurants and shops before crossing the peninsula to check out Bailey’s Harbor on the east side facing Lake Michigan.  The temperature dropped 10 degrees with the wind off of the lake.  We spotted two commercial campgrounds near here, three interesting restaurants and a couple of shops but there wasn’t much else to see.

Golfing Fools

We spent almost all day golfing.  We got to the driving range about 10:30 and had a noon tee time.  We were paired with a father and son, Ken and Tommie. Ken is an educator from the Chicago suburbs and Tommie is a 5th grader who could out-drive me on most holes.  Ken loves this course as he was here last weekend with some buddies and played 90 holes over 2 days!

We had okay games but it is very noticeable that we don’t play often enough.  This course was pretty was some very interesting holes.  One was a 69 yard Par 3 with the green at the bottom of a cliff! Another was a Par 4 with the tee box and green at the same elevation and the fairway in a hole.

Ephraim and Egg Harbor, Door County

It turned cold!  Well, not real cold but highs only in the upper 60’s today.  We rode our bikes over to the golf course and made a tee time for tomorrow then rode on into Ephraim.  Lots of hills!

We rode our bikes up over that big hill twice!

Ephraim is an artist community with lots of galleries and shops in old historic homes.  It is also a Moravian community which we find interesting as the only Moravians we knew about until now were in North Carolina.  As are most of the towns in Door County, Ephraim is right on the water with a fairly good sized marina.  One of the galleries is inside an old harbor building.  This week is Plein Aire Arts Week.  Plein Aire is an event where artists are invited to come into a community and paint outdoors. There were 6 painters set up around and near the harbor.

We rode back to the RV and then got in the Jeep and drove to Fish Creek for lunch and then to Egg Harbor to shop!  You know how much John loves to shop! Ha Ha!  But we did find a really nice Wisconsin Cheese shop with some very fine cheeses at some very fine prices.

Tonight I am going to the Folk Theatre to take in an outdoor comedy/musical.  John will keep the fire burning at the RV.