We have arrived at our destination...

As you can see from the photos, we’ve arrived in Wisconsin!

It has been a soggy, humid trip north but apparently nothing like what has been happening back home in Texas; or even in the areas around us as we’ve traveled along.  

The first two days out were mostly spent driving to Missouri where we took a break to meet up with Dave’s cousins at the cemetery where their respective parents and one set of collective grandparents are buried. Afterward, in the time-honored tradition of the Pasley clan, we went to lunch.

Then it was on to the Iowa City area where we had a relaxing evening at the home of a seldom-seen cousin and got to know a bit more about her and her lovely family. We also stopped by the nearby Herbert Hoover National Historic Site before moving on to northern Illinois where we had a great visit to the incredibly well-preserved town of Galena.

The daughters of my 1st cousin's daughter - 3rd cousins? Whatever Lexi and Caia are cutie pies and (naurally given their family heritage) extremely bight kids!

On our stop in North Liberty, Iowa one thing was made absolutely clear; Lexi's favorite animal is the unicorn.

The purpose for going to Galena was to visit the place that Ulysses Grant called home. Unbeknownst to us it turns out there is a lot more to Galena than the Grant house and we spent a wonderful, sunny day walking the streets of this well-preserved 19^th century time capsule.

The mighty Mississippi as seen from Mississippi Palisades State Park south of Galena.

After the war Grant's adopted hometown presented him with this house, fully furnished, as a gift for his service.

It also turned out to be a great segue to Wisconsin because Galena’s heyday in the mid-1800s was fueled by the shipment of lead (via steamboat down the Galena River to the Mississippi) from surrounding mines, and some of the earliest European settlers in southern Wisconsin were lead miners. Those miners were said to be so hardy that, for shelter, they would simply burrow a hole in the ground with their hands – much like a badger. And now you know how Wisconsin came to be known as the Badger State.

One of the many badgers that lurk in the shadows of the Wisconsin Capitol.

The schedule called for us to spend five days in the state capital of Madison but the coincidental attraction of our alma mater Trinity University playing in the finals of the NCAA Division III baseball championship 100 miles away in Appleton was too much to resist. So we broke with the schedule and took a 24-hour detour to Appleton and then caught a Brewers home game on the way back to Madison. Trinity won the national championship and the Brewers won a game, both major accomplishments.

Don't be fooled by this sunny photo, it rained too.

We were a little surprised to run into Jim Potter, the intramural sports director when we were students at Trinity. But we were really surprised to find out his son-in-law is the Tigers baseball coach!

Finally, celebration late on a rainy night.

Great seats in a great ball park, Miller Field in Milwaukee.

We got back to Madison in time for a lovely evening with Tex’s best-man-to-be John Vining (St. John’s College Class of 2011), his wife Claire and their new puppy “jumpin” June at their new home here. Unfortunately, we failed to take a photo of the event.

We are staying here in Madison at a great RV campground in a county park about five miles south of downtown where we have been able to ride our bikes downtown on the city’s extensive trail system; to the UW campus, to tour the fabulous state capital and, of course, to make not one but two stops at the world’s largest Brat Fest!

We’ve both remarked that Madison has the look and feel and size that Austin used to have way, way back in the day; before Dell, SxSW, the line at Franklin’s and North Korea selecting it as one of three U.S. cities to target with nuclear missiles.

Like Austin Madison is home to a great university and a beautiful capitol building. Unlike Austin you can still see the Wisconsin capitol from a distance because the city prohibits construction of buildings that are taller.

En route to downtown Madison.

Our final day in town was probably the best, in part because it was sunny, dry, cool, chamber-of-commerce weather and we more or less knew our way around the bike trails and streets of the downtown and university areas that we revisited; stopping to check out the state history museum downtown, Muir Woods on campus (John Muir is a former student but did not graduate, a distinction also held by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who was this year’s commencement speaker), for ice cream in the UW dairy sciences building, to take in the fabulous, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Unitarian Meeting House on the edge of the campus, and (whew, finally, this is a really long sentence) for beers on The Terrace at Memorial Union, a fabulous indoor/outdoor venue on the shore of Lake Mendota in the heart of the campus.

We thought that was going to be the fitting end to a great visit in Madison but as we were biking and burping our way home we noticed several other cyclists pedaling along with various forms of lawn chairs creatively strapped to their bikes and backs. Where were they coming from, we wondered? But the question should have been, where were they going? We soon found out when everyone peeled off the path into a large open field where an event celebrating Wisconsin Bike Week was just getting started.

So we valet parked our bikes (seriously), grabbed some (more) beers and bought two orders of fabulous, fresh cheese curds from a food truck called “Curd Girl”.

Is this a great city in a great state or what? Madison was suddenly rocketing up our list of favorite places.

Finally, in fading light we wobbled back to the trailer sated by three of the essential food groups (ice cream, beer, cheese curds) and contented that we had done our best to suck the marrow from our final day in Madison.

 

A photo of the capitol dome...

...from the capitol dome...

...in the capitol dome.

 The world's largest (only) Brat Fest? Brats and beer conveniently located...so we went twice, of course.

A view from the UW campus.

Wisconsin is, by far, the number one cheese producing state in the U.S. and is second to California in milk production. However, interestingly, when the state capitol was constructed in the early 20th century the murals made no mention of the dairy industry because it had not really started in earnest. Wheat and timber were the big agricultural products then. This guy, Stephen Babcock, had a lot to do with changing that, in part by inventing a device that can relatively easily test the fat content in milk (important in the production of cheese and butter). Today there is a full-blown milk, cheese, ice cream and butter production facility on campus and were pleased to be able to sample some of the product.

The moment you see the Unitarian Meeting House on the edge of the UW campus you know it was designed by FLW.

The Terrace, perhaps Madison's favorite place.

We've seriously considered actually purchasing a Cheese Head rather than simply putting them on in the store and posing for photos. This seemed like a good middle ground.

Madison-style valet parking.

Well, what do you think?

2016 Summer Plans

The Sand Island Lighthouse (circa 1881), as seen from the shores of Lake Superior

We wanted to do something "extra" to help the National Park Service celebrate its 100^th anniversary and decided that we would “pull a second shift” as NPS volunteers; opening (for the third year in a row) the Sand Island Lighthouse in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (in June) AND (for the first time ever) closing the lighthouse (in September).

Logically, that raised the question of what to do “between shifts”? Answer; “really get to know Wisconsin” (a continuation of our “really get to know” a state series); knock a few more state fairs off of our list, and have an up-close encounter with the world’s largest rubber duck.

We’ll start off with a relatively-direct, week-long drive to Madison, arriving in time to attend the Brat Fest on Memorial Day (could there be a better way to kick off a summer in Wisconsin?). En route to the Apostles from Madison we’ll stop off for a few days in the Chippewa Falls/Eau Claire area (home of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company). 

FYI Note: Madison is in south-central Wisconsin; CF/EC is in the west-central part of the state, about 100 miles east of Minneapolis.

From Chippewa Falls we’ll move on to the Bayfield Peninsula, the northernmost mainland area in the state, where we will stay in an RV campground in Washburn on the shores of Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay and busy ourselves by picking berries, eating cheese curds and attending some NPS staff training sessions. 

On June 16 we’ll ship out to once again become the King and Queen of Sand Island, mowing grass, cleaning privies, swatting mosquitoes, maintaining trails, herding campers and giving tours of the refurbished 1881 lighthouse.

Our Island Home - 100% solar powered.

Betsy provides instruction to two future Junior Rangers.

Lighthouse Tour Guide, on duty.

Outsmarting the mosquitoes?

Tree Hugger.

We’ll get back to Washburn on July 7 where we will spend a few days “decompressing” from island life before heading back “downstate” for a three-day visit to the touristy Wisconsin Dells area (northwest of Madison).

From there we’ll backtrack a bit north to the Wassau area in the center of the state and from there move east to the Wisconsin “thumb” (if you’re looking at the back of your left hand), a long, narrow peninsula that juts northeast from Green Bay into Lake Michigan. We’ll spend a week on “the thumb” before moving south along the shore of Lake Michigan to the Sheboygan/Fond du Lac area. While we are in this area of the state we are looking forward to visiting the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, Lambeau Field and the Kohler “bathroom museum”.

With those cultural milestones behind us, we will continue heading south down the lake to the Greater Milwaukee area where we will encamp for a week at the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds, concluding our stay by attending the first day of the Wisconsin State Fair.

Continuing southward we’ll try to figure out a relatively low stress way to tow the trailer around (hopefully not through) Chicago to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, on the southern tip of Lake Michigan. There are four parks in the NPS system designated as National Lakeshores and after this visit we will have been to all of them. Tex and Rachel are working this summer in Chicago and we hope to take the train from Indiana Dunes into Chicago for a visit with them.

From there we will head down to Dayton, Ohio to complete our 2014 “really-get-to-know” tour of Ohio that was cut short by the death of a friend in San Antonio. Then it will be over to Indianapolis for the Indiana State Fair and from there to Springfield for the Illinois State Fair. If all goes as planned, our "state-fairs-attended" count will rise to 14!

After Springfield we will re-engage with Wisconsin by stopping in for a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin estate en route to Duluth, Minnesota for the Tall Ships Festival that will feature the World’s Largest Rubber Duck!

“It’s really a fantastic compliment to the Tall Ships,” states Craig Samborski, executive producer of Tall Ships Duluth 2016. “The World’s Largest Rubber Duck inspires us to enjoy the world’s waterfronts and conserve our natural resources for future ducklings.”

Inspired, we’ll return to Washburn for a few days before shipping back out to Sand Island on August 24 for our second tour of duty that will end around September 7.

The schedule after that is a bit more tentative but Betsy may fly home from Minneapolis to get her car and then drive out to meet me in Buena Vista, Colorado where we may stay until early October. After that it’s possible that I may go out to California to tackle one or two (or three or four) of my "un-climbed" 14ers.

But first things first, On To Wisconsin! 

A quick trip downtown

 

We ventured out Tuesday afternoon to check out the newly-restored, high-ceiling courtroom in the fabulous, 1896, James Reily Gordon-designed, Bexar County Courthouse.

We also paused to admire the art work of our friend Eloise Stoker, in the sidewalk outside the county's new Elizondo Tower next door to the courthouse.

We have one of Eloise's "seconds" (that did not make it into the final project) on display here at the house.

 
Finally, we stopped in to view some of the 300-year-old Spanish documents related to San Antonio's founding that are on temporary display at the Presidio Gallery just south of the courthouse.

All are at the corner of Nueva and Main, and worth checking out.

 

Canyons Trip Videos

I finally got around to processing some of the video we shot on the recent "Canyons Trip". If you are actually going to watch more than one of these the best way to do that is to click on the link, watch the video on YouTube, click back to the blog page, click on the next link, etc. 

We'll start with a one-minute assault by a cardinal attacking his reflection in the window of the trailer (at Palo Duro Canyon); followed by a 3-in-1 package that includes daytime views from Palo Duro's iconic "Lighthouse" feature and two different takes on Grand Canyon sunsets (the first is a video, the second is a video of time-lapse photos). There is also a quirky-jerky short of me bicycling along the rim trail at the Grand Canyon followed by two videos from my hikes to two of Zion National Park's iconic features, a 3-minute take on Angels Landing and a 12-minute recap of my hike to The Subway.

Enjoy!

Canyons Trip Photos

Palo Duro Canyon

Apparently this guy saw his reflection in the trailer window and thought it was a rival trying to steal his territory (and more?). So he spent a good part of the day flinging himself at the window.

She looks interested.

Palo Duro, the country's second-largest canyon (as seen from its iconic "Lighthouse" feature)

Same thing, sans pano.

Turkeys and...

...?????

Grand Canyon

Palo Duro may be second, but it is not a close second.

 

Zion (Canyon) National Park

The intrepid explorer...

...bravely pushes her limits...

...and is rewarded with this!

With bonuses along the way like this.

An iconic (and relatively difficult to reach) ZNP feature known as "The Subway".

The room with a view.

Looking back at Observation Point from Angels Landing.

Lake Havasu City, AZ

A short history of LHC in three photos. First they had to get the Feds to build (another) dam on the Colorado River; then they had to figure out how to keep California (where the sun is setting) from stealing all of the water; then they had to figure out where to put the London Bridge.

"That's the perfect place! Thanks!! I wish we had thought of that!!!"

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Phoenix Area

Angels v Dodgers in Glendale.

A's v Rangers in Surprise.

The Arizona State Capitol (in Phoenix).