Saturday- We left the park with Paul driving the pick-up and two coolers with ice packs in the bed. Our first stop was in West Bend at the weekly Farmers Market.
Our destination was Milwaukee, about 40 miles away. Jacque purchased some cheese. We left and continued on our way to the city. We arrived and parked. Here are Paul and Bob heading towards sausages!
We went to Usingers, Americans Finest Sausage since 1880. Here are Paul and Bob contemplating their purchases.
The building was old, but pretty,
Below are the windows. They sort of reminded me of Selfridges, if you watched the PBS show.
The bottom one was of the Unsinger’s Elves!
After much discussion, we went to the Milwaukee Brat House for lunch. The menu that they had posted was not the weekend menu. Bob and Paul had brats, Jacque had a hot dog, and I had a Wisconsin cheese grilled cheese sandwich. All were happy with our meals.
Here are some scenes of Milwaukee.
We decided to go check out a Frank Lloyd Wright house. We arrived to find that they were doing tours today. How cool was that!
These are the American System-Built Homes, this is the Model B1. FLW designed six of these for American System-Built Homes . The series of houses resulted from Wright’s desire to design appealing housing for every American. There are two small homes and four duplexes. They were built in 1916.
The tour was conducted by Ken, our Docent. The home had been mostly restored and is owned by the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Inc., organization. It is a historic site. What does not show up very well, but you will notice it if you look closely, The walls have three colors. The bottom is darker, then the next higher area is slightly lighter, then the top is lighter still, to make the room feel bigger.
Note in all the pictures, the straight wood bars on the furniture. All the furniture is FLW and came with the house.
All of the windows open out. The wood between the glass is also the stud which holds up the roof.
The brick in the fireplace is original, but not what FLW would have used. He used a different brick in him homes. Below is the breakfast nook.
The sink is not yet installed. Kohler, which is a Wisconsin company, is supposed to be designing a period sink to place into the kitchen, but has not yet done so. The design is not exactly according to FLW’s plans.
Above is across from the sink area. Behind me was the ice box, but my picture did not come out. In front of the ice box were steps, which were not on FLW’s plan. The original plan had the steps outside, but there is no back yard to this house, so the steps were built inside.
Note that the sink is not yet installed. They do the tours for the money to do the repairs. Below is a model of the house, done by the University Architecture students.
Note how the pictures are hanging above the bed in the second bedroom. This a a FLW design, to hang pictures from a board. Here you can see the difference in the paint colors, which was a FLW design.
Above is Ken, and behind is the C3 model. It is the next one to be renovated when they finish the ones that they are working on. Someone is currently renting this home and he does tours, but he was not home today.
Above is the duplex that they are currently renovating. We were able to tour this house. It is a mirror image of the ones above, that the organization does not own. The one next to this one is owned by some Canadians and is rented. It is also falling apart!
The steps are steep, and we toured the upper level. Below is what the closet doors looked like before repair. Paul and Bob were impressed that the walls were tongue and groove. These houses where cut and partially pre-assembled at the factory, then brought to the site a in the 2700 Block of West Burnham Street in Milwaukee, and assembled on site. Early, pre-fab homes! When they were assembled, FLW was in Japan working on a hotel.
Above, they think that the cabinets are original.
Below, Ken is pointing out the trash chute, with a very small opening. The trash drops to the basement. No one knows who then emptied the trash. In the back of the kitchen area there are steps, so that there is a second exit to the building. Also, there is a sleeping porch in the back. The other homes on the block have them built in by the owners and air conditioned.
Big THANK YOU! to Jacque who treated us to this tour($15 each)! This is the first FLW that we have been at the right place, right time, to tour.
We headed back to the RV park, stopping at a very nice, new Costco, on the way. Paul purchased diesel for $2.15. Sorry we did not have the MH with us! LOL.
We returned, walked all the dogs, then went to dinner at The Braising Pan restaurant in West Bend. It was a very nice little restaurant. Paul, Bob and I all had German food. Jacque had liver and onions. We were very happy with the food, the wine and the beer!
We returned and sat out with all the dogs, talking. We also took the ‘pack’ for a nice walk around the park.
Sunday- Paul and Jacque cooked a really nice breakfast of bacon, potatoes, omelets, fruit and toast. Yummy, thank you cousin!
We sat talking for awhile, then Paul and Jacque packed up to leave. We took pictures and said a sad farewell. We hope to ‘camp’ with them again!
Below is the pretty lake at Lake Lenwood RV Park. It’s a great place for kids!
We had a quiet day. We updated our budget, I worked on the blog, we took a nice nap and did laundry. This might be the last 50 amp FHU for awhile. We ate leftovers for dinner.
Monday-(Memorial Day) I have been walking every morning that we have been here. It is warmer today, so I went through shorts to wear. I have more donations because most were too big! I thought I was done for this round….
We started packing up to leave, and I worked on the blog. We did some more laundry.
We ate lunch, then pulled in the slides and took off. We did not bother to connect the car, as we were only going 29 miles. We drove north on Hwy. 144, to Hwy. 23, then through Plymouth WI to Lake Elkhart WI, although the address is Plymouth WI. We registered at Plymouth Rock RV Park, an Encore resort, so we paid, with tax, $20 per night. Not bad!
We were placed in the overnight parking, so we were at the back of the resort. They had a gal in a golf cart escort us to the site. Glad that they did, as the road was very narrow and the place is confusing. We might have been driving around looking for the site.
We parked in the site and set up. It is 50 amp W/E. We put out the awnings, pulled out the recliners and settled in. Bob tried to go wash the towels, but the change machine was out of change and so was the office. So we just relaxed.
It was high 70’s, sunny with minimal humidity and a slight breeze. Perfect! We decided to eat dinner on the picnic table, so we took out our table and seat covers and the grill. Bob grilled salmon.
We must be on a golf cart parade route, as about 30 golf carts went by. We are not on a main road, so the folks were just cruising, waving at us as they passed by! After dinner, we walked the dogs, then sat out reading some more until it became chilly and we settled in for the night.
Tuesday- Bob walked the dogs and I walked in our area, then we left and went to Sheboygan Falls, a small town just east of us. The town is cute, but they are not dog friendly. There were 2 houses, a hotel, and a mill that are listed as historic. We were not impressed. Here is the town, which has buildings that have been renovated.
We stopped at the Falls park.
Then we left and went on the back roads to the Kohler Innovative Center, in the town of Kohler. We easily found the center and a parking place.
They do tours of the factory, but advance reservations are required. Unfortunately, we did not know that in advance, so we did not make reservations.
The Innovative Center has a self guided tour. The building is on 3 levels. The top level consists of set up rooms with Kohler products. Great if you are building a house for Bill Gates. Wow was this stuff pricey! It was nice, but not for a motor home! LOL!
The main level is fixtures and products. We skipped that. But here is a picture from above.
I thought this toilet was interesting. It opened by itself.
if you want your own massage room…
I really liked some of the tiles on the various walls. There were a lot of rooms to view, these were only a few.
The basement is the history center, which was pretty interesting.
The company was founded by John Michael Kohler,
From their website:
“The Roots of Kohler
As a 10-year-old boy, John Michael Kohler was brought to America from Austria by his father in 1854. With the purchase of a majority interest in the Union Iron and Steel Foundry in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 19 years later, he founded Kohler Co. The United States was in the midst of a financial panic that year, which left 68 railroads bankrupt, but John Michael persisted. He made cast-iron implements for area farmers, small castings for local furniture factories and ornamental hitching posts, urns, benches and cemetery crosses.
In 1883, Kohler developed some enamel powder, then took a large rectangular basin from his product line, heated it to 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, sprinkled on the powder and was so enamored with his invention he made it the centerpiece of his one-page catalog. Beneath the picture it read; "Horse Trough/Hog Scalder – when furnished with four legs will serve as a bathtub."
In addition to his work in the business, John Michael was elected Mayor of Sheboygan and built the city’s first opera house. But in 1899, he felt the city, population 15,000, was too congested for his growing business, so he moved 4 miles into the country to the intersection of a river and two Indian trails, 4 long miles from any labor force or utilities. The Sheboygan Press hailed it “Kohler’s Folly.” Within days of the factory completion, John Michael died; and three months later, the factory burned to the ground. Three of his sons were able to resurrect the place, but within five years, the oldest two had died.
Fortunately, one of his four sons, Walter, who had left school after the 8th grade to work with his father, was a person of unusual capability. He was elected President of the company in 1905, added ceramic fixtures and brass faucets to complement his growing bathroom product line and developed “the automatic power and light” – a diesel engine coupled to an alternator to free the farmer from expensive batteries. “
What is not mentioned in this article, was that John Michael married the daughter of the owner of the company he originally purchased. She died, and he married the sister a few years later. In addition, many family members still work for the company and the foundation.
In the basement, there was a very interesting movie about the company. It is now worldwide and they also have purchased various companies along the way, diversifying their products to include generators, engines, and golf courses. They also have purchased tile companies and a furniture company.
Above is original equipment that they made.
The original bath tub.
Kohler was the first to bring out color kitchen and bathroom fixtures. This is an original Kohler washing machine.
The immediate future of the company is secure, in the 4th generation of the family with a son as CEO and a daughter as VP of HR.
We left there and continued on to Sheboygan. The city was very quiet. It is located directly on Lake Michigan. We stopped at the Visitor Center and when I asked the young man what there was to see and do in Sheboygan he said enthusiastically, there’s many things! Unfortunately, he could not name them!
We stopped to see the light house, which was more of a directional buoy
. The beach:
The shipwreck of the Lottie Cooper, but nothing about the wreck. 
They do have a sign about it , but it is not well maintained. We drove north along the coast,
We then gave up and went to Petsmart to get Karlie some food.
We stopped at Goodwill and dropped off some donations, then went to the bank to get change for the laundry. We stopped at Perkins for lunch and continued on to Walmart and Kohl’s, where I found that I needed to purchase clothes TWO sizes smaller. Yippee! .
We bought gas, $2.33/gal. We drove through Plymouth on the way back and took pictures of these murals. Plymouth is the mural capital of Wisconsin.
We returned home, took the dogs for a quick walk as it started to rain. Bob went to do laundry and I worked on the blog.
Wednesday- Moving day! It was pouring rain when we woke up. By the time we took a shower, ate and got ready, it had stopped raining. We drove out of the park, very slowly, due to the narrow roads, and hooked up at the entrance.
We drove south to Hwy 23 which we followed to Fond du Lac,. We turned south on Hwy 151. We eventually turned SW on Hwy 68 which was awful for about 4 miles. It was very bumpy. so we had to go very slow.
The road improved when the counties switched. We turned south and finally drove onto I-90/94. We exited at Lyndon Station and turned into Yukon Trails RV park. We stopped and dumped, then backed into our site. By this time it was 1, so we ate lunch before we set up.
We were just getting settled, when Dr. Bob and Jackie Hoell arrived. They stopped and dumped on their way in also and got settled in.We sat out talking and having social time. We all ran over to the Walmart, returned, and we ate dinner at the picnic table.
We had picked up some firewood at Walmart, so we had a nice campfire. We all went to bed around 10.
Thursday- We left at 8:45 to go to Madison. Our first stop was at Monona Terrace, the Community and Convention Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Below is the last picture of FLW, he died 3 weeks later.
We walked through the exhibits and went up onto the upper terrace/ rooftop. The view was spectacular of the lake and the city.
From the rooftop we could easily see the pretty Wisconsin State Capitol building. Also we could see the state building, which is on the Register of Historic places. The artwork on the building is majestic.
On the terrace, past the restaurant, was this memorial to Otis Redding. He died in the lake from a plane crash.
We left and went back towards the interstate. Below is looking back at the city.
I had just put my camera away when, we saw the Oskar Myer Weinermoblie go past. We had seen it the day before also!
Our next destination was Mt. Horeb, where we were going to the National Mustard Museum and lunch at The Grumpy Troll. The brewpub has been there for 150 years!
We arrived and easily found a parking space. We entered and were seated quickly. We ordered the beer and food, both of which were very good! Here is the Dr. Bob troll!
We looked for the Mustard Museum and found that it had moved in 2009. So we re-routed to Middleton and went to the Museum.
The gift shop/mustard store is on the entrance level, and the museum is in the basement.
They are very smart, as they had free samples of many of the mustards, including the ones that have won the 2016 awards.
Did you know that most of the worlds mustard comes from Saskatchewan and Alberta?
Above is the world’s first and only mustard vending machine.
We sampled mustards of every variety that you can think of, and went downstairs to view the museum. We wandered around, then went back upstairs. Bob and Jackie bought some different varieties of mustards.
We left and returned to the RV’s. We walked the dogs and changed into warmer clothing. We set off to the Wisconsin Dells and the Dells boat tour. We had decided on the upper Dells tour, at 4:30.
We arrived, bought our tickets, and boarded the boat. The tour was supposed to be 2 hours, but was closer to 3. It was fun. Our tour guide and the Captain were both young women. Below is a picture of Tower Rock, which they describe as a pile of pancakes, as it is so layered.
Below is a rock which resembled an Indian Head.
Note above that the trees are growing out of the rock. The rock is ‘potsdam’, like our address ( LOL).
‘The Potsdam Sandstone lies unconformably on a surface of Precambrian metamorphic rock. It is the earliest unit in the marine-transgressive sedimentary rock sequence deposited during the early Paleozoic as sea level rose to gradually inundate the craton of the paleocontinent of Laurentia.[10][11][12] The rock, which is formed from sediments eroded off unvegetated terrestrial landscapes and deposited in near-shore coastal environments,[13] consists almost entirely of sand-size quartz grains held together by quartz cement.[8][11] It ranges in color from gray to tan, yellow, and red, with the colors imparted by small amounts of the red iron oxide mineral hematite, Fe2O3, and the yellow iron oxide mineral goethite, FeO(OH).[8]
As sea level rose in the depositional environment, increasing amounts of carbonate minerals were deposited in the sediment, with the result that the unit grades upward into dolomitic sandstone in the upper Potsdam and then to sandy dolostone at the base of the overlying Theresa Formation.[8][12][14]” From Wikipedia.
The rock is porous, so the roots of the trees are able to burrow through the rock.
Our first stop on the tour was at Witch’s Gulch. We got off the boat and walked through the formation.
And surprise, at the end of the walk was a concession stand and rest rooms. A lot of folks purchased ice cream there. Here is the boat.
We all re-boarded after about 20 minutes, and went across the river to our second stop. Below, we landed on the right and left from the left side.
Bob’s heart rate was very low from his medication, so he stayed on the boat. This walk was more strenuous, so that was a very good idea! I walked with Jackie and Dr. Bob up to the viewing place. We stood there so that we could watch a German Shepard lump from one side of the rocks to the other. There is a net in case he did not make it. Here is the dog, waiting to be told to jump.
Unfortunately, the dog jumped so fast, I missed the picture of the jump. We walked back through the rock formations.
We returned to the dock, then went to Moose Jaw Brewpub for dinner.
It was Bob Hoell’s birthday, so he got to choose everything today! They enjoyed the beers, and dinner was good. We left and returned home for all of us to collapse from such a busy day!
Friday- We were all tired from yesterday, so we had a quiet day today. The weather was actually nice all day. We had anticipated some rain during the day, but the weather forecast changed.
On my walk I saw these cranes standing in the landing strip in the park.
We hung out at the RV’s, then went to a late lunch in town at the Mac’s, a Mac and Cheese restaurant. Different!
This restaurant was seen on some of the TV shows. The food was soooo, good! Jackie, who has a milk intolerance, had a very nice salad. Dr. Bob had a meal with sausages, Bob had the hamburger and I had the pulled pork, all were on a bed of mac and cheese. They were delicious!
We wandered around town for about an hour, then stopped at Walmart to drop off one of Bob’s prescriptions.
We returned and sat out enjoying the nice weather. We went to dinner at about 6:30 at the office/lodge in the RV park, for the Wisconsin Fish Fry. There are Fish Fry’s everywhere on Friday nights in Wisconsin! Dr. Bob had the cod, Jackie, Bob and I all had the shrimp. The meals came with either waffle fries or potato salad, a roll, and coleslaw. The food was very good, but fried.
We had a campfire until the weather changed. Thunderstorms rolled in and we had rain most of the night.
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