Down The Road A Piece ... in a 5th wheel: July 2014

The first day we were in Milwaukee we visited a place that was on Diners Drive Ins and Dives and found the food to be only so so. Yesterday we visited the Miller Coors Brewery which was a very good tour and also very informative. It seems the best beer makers came from Germany since the ancestors of Miller's and Coor's were German. The tour lasted an hour or so and then they drop you off at the hospitality area were you get to sample some of the product. While the tour was very good the Bud tour in St Louis was much better. It is still amazing to see how fast they fill the cans and bottles going down the production line. The best thing about the tour in my opinion was going under ground to the caves where they used to put ice from the lake to help keep the beer cold in the summer.

On Wednesday we hit the Harley Davidson Museum. Saw a lot of old and new motorcycles and movies of how the company was purchased from AMF in 1981 and later to become publicly traded to be the successful company that it is today. The number of new motorcycles that are very old and on display is amazing.

After the Harley Museum tour we drove around the city in order to see other parts of Milwaukee. We had a great time in this city and would like to come back.

The only downside to our stay in Milwaukee was the "dirty" electricity we received at the Jellystone Campground we stayed at. Our appliances would go off and back on and the ground fault interrupter would kick off. I went out to turn the breaker on and off and the neighbors ask if we were having problems with our electricity. I told them we were and they informed us that the people on the site before us were having the same problem. I called the camp office and they came down and checked the pedestal and said they had 115 volts on each leg. I told them I think the problem was a short somewhere in their system which they would not be able to detect with just one check of the voltage. I used to have a surge protector on our motorhome until it fried in Albuquerque, NM. We had to have it removed and have not replaced yet. After our experience at Jellystone I ordered a new better surge protector which I will hard wire to the motorhome when we get back to Warsaw.

Enjoy the pictures for those of you who may still be monitoring the site.

Thanks Jack

Here are the beers that Miller's Coor's produces

The Miller icon

In the main cave

At the Harley Museum now

Replica of Easy Rider bike

One of the older bikes I believe this one is a 1933.

Me on my favorite Harley an Ultra Classic.

A picture of one of the old neighborhoods we drove through

This next picture has nothing to do with Milwaukee but is one of our friends Joann and Wally who we plan to see this November on our way to Titusville, Florida where we will be spending the winter, God willing. This winter we will be closer to them than last year and will be able to see them every so often, hopefully.

We left on Monday July 14 and headed north to Traverse City, Michigan and stayed at Timber Ridge RV park for the next three days. We didn't do a whole lot since we were just glad to get away and chill out. We had camp fires, which I really like, and did some site seeing around the area. We had been here before but it was still nice to come back and see things again.

After Traverse City we headed north across the Mackinaw Bridge to St Ignace, Michigan where we stayed another three days. While there we took the ferry over to Mackinaw Island and took a carriage ride around the island. Years ago we had the boys here and we rode bicycles around the island. Now we enjoyed being pulled around the island by big horses while we sat in the carriage. We also went up to the Sault Saint Marie locks and watched the boats get raised and lowered the 23 feet when moving between the two lakes while in the locks.

After St Ignace we went to Marquette, Michigan where I spent some time with an old friend and we visited Pictured Rock National Lake Shore. We took a two hour and forty minute boat ride to see the rocks but we both thought it was over hyped. We have seen so much better rock formations out west without having to spend almost three hours on a boat. You see so much advertising for this that you think you have to see it or you are really missing some spectacular scenery. If you want my opinion you should save your money.

Leaving Marquette we drove to Wisconsin where we stopped at Kewaunee which is about 30 miles east of Green Bay right on lake Michigan. We stayed at a nice campground except for the crappy tv reception. We spent one day in Green Bay where we did a tour of Lambeau Field the home of the world champion Green Bay Packer football team. While I am not a Packer fan we really had a great time seeing the Lambeau complex and having lunch at Curly's bar while we were there. The city of Green Bay is very under whelming for a city with an NFL francize. Only 104,000 people live in Green Bay while the stadium holds 80,000 people and there are 104,000 people on the waiting list to get season tickets. The "Pro Shop" which sells Packer merchandise is the largest selling sports store in either pro or college shops in the entire United States. Another day we went north to Door county which is said to be the cap cod of the mid west. We found a small hippy store that we really enjoyed. I drank a beer while we walked around the grounds admiring the work of some very creative gardeners and sculptors.

We left Kewaunee after three days and went to Caledonia, Wi. Caledonia is about 10 miles south of Milwaukee. The first day we visited the Comet bar in downtown Milwaukee which was a diner on Drive Ins Diners and Dives but the food we had was just so so. We enjoyed seeing downtown Milwaukee since we had not been there before. We enjoy the urban areas as much as the wilderness. Tomorrow we are going back to Milwaukee and doing a tour of the Miller Brewery. We enjoyed the Budweiser tour in St Louis so much we thought we would try another one. After we leave Caledonia we are heading back home on Thursday, July 31st so on Friday August 1st we can celebrate Hulio's 61st birthday. If anyone reads this please wish her a happy bday on Friday August 1st.

We forgot our camera but we did take some pictures with our phone. Here they are.

Just chillin by the fire with my buddies

The tour boat before dropping 23 feet in the locks

A big picture of one of the smaller Sault Saint Marie Locks

The tour boat above after dropping

The Mackinaw Bridge. It cost us $19 to cross with the motorhome and car. $15 for the motorhome ($5 per axle) and $4 for the car. Remember everything with my mind is in dollars and cents. Some days I'm doing good to remember my name but numbers...no problem.

When we were at Mackinaw there was a sail boat race from Chicago to Mackinaw and the boats were arriving all day long. Every time a boat would cross the finish line you would hear a horn blow.

Our spot in the Marquette Tourist campground. No 50 amp no satellite but no problem. We enjoyed watching those black and white shows that were 60 years old and the temps were in the 50's to 70's so we didn't need air conditioning.

Pictured Rock National Lake Shore. Pretty but not $39 per person pretty. I told you I think in dollars and cents. I try very hard not to but it doesn't work.