A trek across Northern America with three friends met along life’s journey on my trip around the world starts with MB, in New York. But after ten days MB bids me farewell and drops me off at Buffalo where I board a flight to Chicago. I next meet up with KP who takes me onto Wisconsin for a fourteen day adventure visiting favourite haunts and local sights ……
“ … The building is exquisite. Breathtaking. It’s like a white graceful winged bird and it sits gently upon the earth by the waterfront of Lake Michigan. I am instantly reminded of several of Calatrava’s other structures I’ve seen, the World Trade Centre’s Transportation Hub in New York which I saw about two weeks ago, The Perfect Wave Train Station between Milan and Bologna in Italy two years ago, as well as the City of Arts and Sciences buildings in Valencia also two years ago. The designer has a certain style, flair. Inside the gallery there are many artworks I’ve read about, and KP and I spend the next two hours wandering the glorious exhibits that range from classical painting to modernism, sculpture, furniture design, contemporary art form, print, photography, classic toys, collections of artefacts and glass. A stunning museum housing a wonderfully rich array of period art and wildly contemporary art and it makes me wish I’d gone into the $200 million Bilbao Guggenheim Museum in Spain now, instead of just walking its perimeter … ”
Day Forty Seven – 31st. October – Monday – This morning was my last morning in Honeoye Falls. It was hard to say goodbye. I felt welcomed, coddled, look after and looked out for. Such a warm and wonderful family is MB’s, and no better friend, for twenty-five years could one have ever hoped to have. It’s been even better in company however, so much time to talk, share experiences and simply be in each other’s amiable presence. MB you are a treasure!
So I depart New York State with MB driving first to Buffalo, then I board a small American Airlines Eagle Jet that is only three seats across the width of the plane. It is a domestic internal flight of I hour 20 mins duration, and all too soon I am in Chicago, Illinois. O’Hare Airport Chicago is a literal rabbit warren and I disembark in Terminal Three then make my way straight to the baggage claim. In the USA they don’t let you enter an airport without going through forty-five thousand hoops to get on the plane, so the mentality is just let everyone loose when the plane lands at an airport, there’s simply no further checks. KP is waiting in the baggage claim area and calls out as I walk in. Relief, as I was concerned I was in the wrong area.
KP and I met on the first leg of my Italian trip in Italy in 2014 and was only on tour for the first eight days of the sixteen day tour I was on, travelling with us from Rome to Capri and then onto Sorrento. KP joined our table a few times for meals and I got to know him a little before he and several others then left to return to Naples then go onto other destinations. More tourers then filled their spots joining our tour from Naples for the last eight days (Courtney from my England odyssey was one of these.)
KP is one of several people I’ve kept in touch with since my 2014 trip and is an ex-city engineer with an avid interest in archaeology. Whilst in Italy KP found Italy’s roads fascinating but he missed seeing Sicily’s road’s (which I toured the second week of that trip), so I emailed some pictures to KP after returning to Australia as I knew after seeing the Sicilian roads KP would find them a true engineering marvel. (KP has since visited Sicily to see some of the famous archaeological sites and travel the Sicilian roads.)
Retired for a number of years KP lives alone with his dog Digger Da Dog and is as pleased as I to be catching up with me as the American leg of my journey is to be spent with friends who are all keen to show me the real USA, “their part of America”.
We walk towards the underground parking to find KP’s car, which is very close to the baggage claim, and it’s all of $4 USD for less than two hours and I am amazed. That’s not even close to Australian parking fee rates I advise, as when I picked my daughter Sarah up last year from the airport in Melbourne it was $36 AUD for less than two hours.
We head off onto major motorways then along and around what is called interchange highways which are the major roads which intercept them. The roads are wide, flat and are significant features in the landscape as we head toward West Bend Wisconsin which Kp says is an hour and a half “down the road aways”. We stop for lunch half an hour into the journey at a “Brat Stop”. The bar has Brats or German Sausages in a roll style bun and my German heritage friend is keen for me to try the favourite. I order a brat with chips but find there’s a packet of potato chips or crisps as they are called in England on the plate next to it not hot potato chips as you might get in Australia. So we laugh and chat about language idosyncricies with the waiter as the chip packet goes back to the kitchen and I then reorder correctly, French Fries, as they are called here. Who would have guessed I could have gotten the order so wrong?
An hour further on and we arrive in West Bend and at KP’s house which is typical of houses built in the 1948 era being a single story house, ranch or bungalow style dwelling. The house is post war, clad in steel, and has generous rooms but it’s very dark inside as there’s not a lot of windows because this is a snow climate, although the windows are all new as KP’s been renovating. I meet Digger Da Dog who is happy to see me until I pat and ruffle his ears, then he barks at me. A little later I forget and do it again, he’s not happy and sort of snaps at me. I defer to KP, apparently Digger doesn’t particularly like women or having “his ears patted”.
KP shows me around, shows me my room and finds some coat hangers in case I wish to hang some things up. I settle in with a coffee whilst KP and Digger go walking for an hour. It’s been a long day with an early start for me with lots of time frames to meet. When KP gets back we discuss what we might do each day in terms of schedules and come up with a rough plan. KP does things early, walks the dog at 4:00 am, comes back has coffee and reads the paper at home then heads out at 6:30 am til 7:30 am meeting where he uses the sauna and shower at the “Y” (YMCA) and catches up with friends there, after which KP returns home to have breakfast.
As is KP’s custom, he chooses to eat out rather than cook dinner at home so on my first night in West Bend we head out to a favourite tavern for dinner but it’s an early evening and we are back at Kthe house by 9:00 pm.
Day Forty Eight – 1st. November – Tuesday – I am up early as it seems freezing cold to me, too cold to stay in bed and a hot shower helps me defrost. KP appears after I’ve finished breakfast, returning from the Y as per usual. I’m feeling a tad guilty when KP returns though as I decided Digger and I needed to improve our relationship and discovered the dog likes his food, so I fed him some grapes whilst I was eating my breakfast. KP notices his dog is much friendlier towards me upon his return from the Y but at this point I don’t let on what I did to actually improve the relationship.
My first day in Wisconsin is allocated to driving around to see some local sights and we trek first to the east branch of the Milwaukee River whose warm waters is the native habitat for wildlife including painted turtles, great blue herons, northern pike, black crappies, walleye, dragonflies and mayflies. We also visit St. John, a Lutheran Church, before heading on to KP’s families’ favourite church, the much loved and historic rural Catholic Chapel St. Matthias Catholic Mission in New Fane, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
In the 1850s a cluster of immigrants from Bengel, Germany settled around what is now called New Fane, and settled into farming. In 1861, 24 of these German-Catholic families built the nave of St. Matthias of logs and at the consecration of the building in 1863, the congregation’s collection totalled 98 cents. For the first ten years St. Matthias was served by Rev. John (Johann Baptist) Reindl (1827–1891) of Immaculate Conception in West Bend. Some time before 1888 however the log walls of the building were covered with milled weatherboard. In 1888 a tower was added, with a frame of vertical posts and cross-timbers connected by mortise and tenon, and like the main church body, it too, is sheathed in weatherboard. In the tower hangs an 1883 bell and on top stands a cross.
KP tells me his great grandparents were instrumental in establishing the church. It is a humble building for today’s times, but I can imagine that in its heyday it was possibly considered quite imposing. We head inside, it is homely with warm woody hues, and with the day being sunny and mild at 65 degrees Farenheight or about 20 degrees Celcius, the inside of the church is also bright with sunshine. The large stained glass windows are beautiful and beneath each are family names instrumental in the foundation of the church inscribed in a smaller lower panel. KP says this one was a great grandfather, as was that one, and another was … It’s a history lesson, but more, KP is talking about his life, family, his community and the local people.
Outside is an elevated graveyard to the rear. It is a pretty spot. The church and graveyard sit on a rise surrounded by woodland and ravines and is green with low grass and littered with autumn leaf fall. KP shows me the graves of his great grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins and then KP shows me where he plans to be laid to rest. The church and graveyard, perhaps not surprisingly, are across from where KP was raised, went to school and where he grew up.
After leaving the church we head a few kilometres down the road to the nearby Kettle Moraine State Forest. KP tells me this is where life as a youth was spent, where the family’s children went fishing, canoeing and swimming in the ponds and where they all were hauled across to the lake to swim regularly as there was no running water in the family home. It’s really peaceful here today, pretty and very scenic and the water body is completely tranquil as there is no wind. The water is coloured a deep sapphire blue reflecting a relatively clear blue sky above.
A kettle hole is a shallow, sediment-filled body of water formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. Kettles are formed as a result of blocks of ice carving from glaciers and becoming submerged in the sediment on an outwash plain or because of the sudden drainage of an ice-dammed lake. When the block melts, the hole it leaves behind is called a kettle. As the ice melts, ramparts can form around the edge of the kettle hole. The lakes that fill these holes are seldom more than 10 m deep and eventually become filled with sediment. In acid conditions a kettle bog may form but in alkaline conditions it will be kettle peatland.
From the Kettle Moraine State Forest we drive onto New Fane, New Prospect and Dundee and then head east to Parnell, driving down through Beechwood and back to New Fane. It is a pretty drive. The leaves have fallen more in Wisconsin than in New York State and whilst most of the trees are grey with bare branches in some spots there are occasional bursts of autumn colour as trees slower in changing colour break through the uniformity of leafless woodland.
It is warm today, really warm, unseasonal I am told. There are rises and falls in the landscape, lakes scattered everywhere, and farmland in the flatter areas. The American barns we pass are almost all painted Barn Red and they are all essentially the same shape but vary from huge in size to quite small, almost tiny. The clusters of farm buildings around them are quite different to those in Australia, and I see many farm silos of a style that’s not familiar, tall, thin and towering over other buildings, and domed on top.
We stop for lunch at The Rusty Spur a tavern on the side of the road we are travelling on. Lunch is a while coming, so KP strikes up conversations with those in the bar who have also stopped by for lunch. Amazingly some rode horses to get here today. We continue on at 2:00 pm and tour on see some more local country before heading back to West Bend so KP can take Digger on his walk at 4:00 pm.
KP and I then drive to, then walk around, a park called Riverside Park, a park that KP created in his role as West Bend City Engineer that was previously a dam with inherent problems. I’m then told how it was initially met with disapproval by some residents, then applauded after it was finished by others, and then finally taken on by several politicians, as their own project.
Dinner tonight is at a Texan Restaurant and as as we arrive I notice there are empty peanut shells scattered thickly all over the floor. On the tables there are small bowls full of peanuts in shells. Apparently it’s acceptable practice to open the sheets, eat the peanuts and then discard the empty shells on the floor (an interesting exercise). Over the course of dining the waitress is extremely over exuberant with her requests to help so KP explains that American waiting staff do this in the hopes of a good tip.
Day Forty Nine – 2nd. November – Wednesday – Today we are visiting The Milwaukee Art Museum. It is a museum that began with an idea around 1872, when multiple organisations were founded in order to bring an art gallery to Milwaukee. Over the span of the next nine years, all attempts to build a major art gallery however failed but then Alexander Mitchell donated all of her collection and Milwaukee’s first permanent art gallery in the city’s history was then constructed.
In 1888, the Milwaukee Art Association was formed by some panorama artists and local businessmen. That same year Frederick Layton built and provided artwork for the Layton Art Gallery, but then in 1911 the Milwaukee Art Institute, another building constructed to hold other exhibitions and collections, was completed. (This building was constructed next to the Layton Art Gallery.) The Milwaukee Art Museum was considered, but this has been disputed, to be Milwaukee’s first art gallery. The Milwaukee Art Centre (later the Milwaukee Art Museum) was created when the Milwaukee Art Institute and Layton Art Gallery merged collections and the museum was shifted into the Eero Saarinen-designed Milwaukee County War Memorial in 1957. 
In the latter half of the 20th. Century, the museum came to include the War Memorial Centre in 1957 as well as the Kahler Building (1975) designed by David Kahler and the Quadracci Pavilion (2001) created by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The Quadracci Pavilion contains a movable, wing-like brise soleil that opens up for a wingspan of 217 feet (66 m) during the day, folding over the tall, arched structure at night or during inclement weather. The pavilion received the 2004 Outstanding Structure Award from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. This iconic building, often referred to as “the Calatrava,” is used in the museum logo.
The museum funded jointly by a museum capital campaign and by Milwaukee County, opened a $34 million expansion in November 2015. The new building, designed by Milwaukee architect James Shields provides an additional 30,000 square feet for art, including areas specifically dedicated to light-based media, photography, and video. The building has an atrium and lakefront-facing entry point for visitors and was designed with cantilevered elements and concrete columns to relate, respectively, to the existing Calatrava and Kahler structures on the site. The final design was a lengthy process that included the main architect’s departure because of a number of design disputes and his later return to the project.
The museum is home to over 35,000 works of art set over four floors, with works from antiquity to the present. There are substantial works featuring 15th. – 20th. Century European and 17th. – 20th. Century American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, as well as the decorative arts, photographs, and folk and self-taught art. The museum also has one of the largest collections of works by Wisconsin native Georgia O’Keeffe. Other artists represented include Fragonard, Homer, Rodin, Degas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec and Andy Warhol, and also has paintings by European painters Jan van Goyen, Pissarro, Francesco Botticini and Antonio Rotta.
The building is exquisite. Breathtaking. It’s like a white graceful winged bird and it sits gently upon the earth by the waterfront of Lake Michigan. I am instantly reminded of several of Calatrava’s other structures I’ve seen, the World Trade Centre’s Transportation Hub in New York which I saw about two weeks ago, The Perfect Wave Train Station between Milan and Bologna in Italy two years ago, as well as the City of Arts and Sciences buildings in Valencia also two years ago. The designer has a certain style, flair. Inside the gallery there are many artworks I’ve read about and KP and I spend the next two hours wandering the glorious exhibits that range from classical painting to modernism, sculpture, furniture design, contemporary art form, print, photography, classic toys, collections of artefacts, and glass. A stunning museum housing a wonderfully rich array of period art and wildly contemporary modern art and it makes me wish I’d gone into the $200 million Bilbao Guggenheim Museum in Spain now, instead of just walking its perimeter, even though a visit inside the museum on that trip hadn’t been time factored by the tour company.
We leave The Milwaukee Art Museum and head into town to The Safe House, a hidden Restaurant which opened in 1966. It is a restaurant tucked away behind a bogus shipping front entrance and it’s filled wall-to-wall with spy memorabilia collected by founder/owner David J. Baldwin. It has been used as a backdrop in several movies shot in Milwaukee such as Major League and has been featured on the History Channel as one of the best secret locations to visit in the United States. The restaurant has quirky food and spy named drinks and it connects to The Newsroom Pub, also designed by David Baldwin, where autographs of celebrities who have spoken to the Milwaukee Press Club are displayed. The ornate banquet rooms have booths with secret entrances into the Safe House. On June 16. 2015 David Baldwin retired, selling the Safe House to the Marcus Corporation.
It is an entertaining hour and a half lunch, and whilst at the Safe House I try some of KP’s selection today, the very popular Wisconsin dish Deep Fried Cheese Curd. As we set off on our trek back to West Bend however we first have to pass under a labyrinth of elevated highways before we even depart Milwaukee. I ask KP at length about the planning of these roads and I am assured there’s a lot of planning and precise calculation involved to make sure all the roadways join together flawlessly when constructing these structures. It is mind boggling.
Today has been a very educational day and on the way back to West Bend I decide to buy some ham hocks and vegetables to make a hearty soup for a change instead of going out to dinner again. Digger is waiting for us upon our return and is keen for his late afternoon walk. Home cooked food is my norm so I get busy making soup.
Day Fifty – 3rd. November – Thursday – I’m slow getting up this morning so have to hightail it out to the car before 9:00 am as planned, to drive to the Wisconsin Dells for a cruise starting at 11:00 am so I munch fruit on the way and enjoy a cup of tea as we drive. I am off to a poor start.
The Wisconsin Dells is a city in south-central Wisconsin with a population of more than 2,500 people. It straddles four counties: Adams, Columbia, Juneau and Sauk and the city takes its name from the Dells of the Wisconsin River, a scenic, glacially formed gorge that features striking sandstone formations along the banks of that river. We are running late when we arrive as we took a wrong turn and went a few miles out of our way to get here but the boat is held for a few minutes past departure time to accommodate us as we rush down the gangway to board.
The cruise today is on a tranquil river, and is one of the last for the season. There’s a female guide giving commentary, and a female captain. The tour on the river goes for an hour and a half and the time passes quickly but it is really cold this morning so I snuggle up in my jacket, and frequently entertain regret having raced off from the car without my scarf and beanie. Even KP (who rarely feels the cold) says it’s cold today and is donning a generous thick jacket.
We trek down the river and up some winding channels which lead to a place called Witches Bathtub. The sandstone formations here are very close together, there are tight passages of deeply sculpted rock, green with moss and algae, wet with moisture and mist, and darkened with shadows from the absence of natural light in the confined spaces. It is a magical place. Mystical. Eerie.
There’s a boarded walkway, level for the most part, which makes the passage easy going, but it truly takes away from the majesty of the tightly twisting corridor. The sound of rushing water is heard at a location called the Witches Bathtub then again upstream, as water courses through the floor of the tunnel, below our walkway.
The group reaches the top of the passage, then we all turn around to head back. When we arrive back at the boat, we board, then the boat turns around to retrace its passage and return to the dock from where our trek began. It’s a relaxing morning, spent simply enjoying the beauty of the watercourse and land formations that has given its name to the city that adjoins its boundaries.
From the Dells it’s then back towards West Bend. We pass huge waterparks and theme parks which KP tells me is host in the summer to thousands of children. It’s such a popular summer water resort city that it swells in numbers during the season to forty-thousand people plus, and to accommodate this, there are several hotels with over two thousand rooms in each. And looking at the huge waterparks and themed parks flanking both sides of the road, I’d believe it. There’s a number of enormous roller coasters, a mini Roman Colosseum, a Roman Parthenon, a Godzilla like creature smashing a huge building called the White House, a gigantic Trojan Horse, and so the list goes on.
Lunch today is at The Log Cabin about an hour from West Bend. I’m amused at all the wood carved animals and birds that surround and are inside this place. Bears, moose, a fox, and birds like Eagles adorn the posts and walls. There’s also taxidermies with heads of a moose and reindeers inside, ducks, chickens, and carvings of bear heads and there’s rustic wooden logs and amber glass shaded lights in the ceilings, and a reindeer antler chandelier. The log cabin has booths and wooden tables, wooden chairs and carved wooden doors and an extensive dessert menu.
On the way back to West Bend today I look for a camera store selling flash cards at reasonable prices. Surprisingly I don’t find them at the local camera store, rather I find them at Walmart, and buy four Sandisc flash cards 32GB each at USD $75 the lot. Walmart is a gigantic store and it seems to sell absolutely everything you’d need for daily living. The flash cards are not badly priced and should have enough disc space to get me home with many photos yet to capture on this journey.
Dinner tonight is, again, ham and vegetable soup, but a large lunch earlier means a lighter meal tonight is all that is needed. Digger is very happy when we get back at about 4:30 pm and KP immediately takes him walking. But later, after Digger’s walk, I am sprung enticing Digger with a couple of grapes. KP is amused but not impressed and asks me politely not to give the dog anymore. Well the dog and I have finally become friends so I guess the exercise was worth it and I am happy to refrain. Oops!
Day Fifty One – 4th. November – This morning, I ask if we can visit the Houdini Museum in Appleton, North Wisconsin. It’s an hour and nineteen minutes drive and I’ll get to see a lot more of Wisconsin in the process although KP admits at this point, to not being a real fan of doing really long distance travel and an hour and a half drive one way, is long distance. KP however kindly agrees to the trip.
Appleton is famous for several notable people particularly writer Edna Ferber and escape artist Harry Houdini. The drive to Appleton is through farming country to the south and then west of Lake Winnebago. It’s a pleasant drive although fall colour has almost completely disappeared from the landscape this far north. It is a beautiful, mild, clear and sunny day, the sky is vibrant blue and early in the drive we pass through light fog.
When we arrive in Appleton we head to “the castle” the home of the Harry Houdini Museum, it is a token entry fee so I guess it’s not a huge exhibit from the get go. But it’s interesting, and a reason to travel in yet another direction from West Bend during my time here. There’s not many exhibits but a fair amount of information so the observer can piece together the escape artist’s story.
We decide to find lunch and KP throws the ball in my court, “Would I like to go to … Or …?” I don’t really mind so I leave it up to KP. We make our way to a place called Fratello’s on the Fox River, just next to the weir, or dam as the Wisconsinites call them. Lunch is delicious and each day KP has been inviting me to try the local craft beers with our lunch or dinner. Today I select a blueberry beer and I’m fascinated to see blueberries floating up and down in what tastes essentially like a regular beer, it doesn’t seem to taste sweet at all even with fruit in it.
The view out the window is stunning at Fratello’s with huge volumes of rushing, turbulent water pouring over a slipway a short way upriver and through the dam’s adjoining gates falling wildly into the river in a mass of white foam and bubbles. 
After lunch we head back to West Bend but drive around the top of Lake Winnebago and then south down the eastern side, to enjoy a slight change in the scenery. It’s not as busy on this roadway as we head back as it’s a highway not a freeway. KP, as usual, points out things along the way. I struggle to stay awake though as the sun is beaming in through the windscreen from the South, and I pause to think about how it never fails to amaze me that the sun is in the South when I’m in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s always in the north in Australia. We arrive back in West Bend at 4:30 pm.
Tonight we are making our way to the Knights of Columbus Club a club where KP and many friends from the local West Bend community, regularly gather for drinks and a Fish Fry on the first Friday of every month. This is catholic country so Fish Fry’s are “the thing to do” on a Friday evening. There’s 550-600 people here tonight though and we literally have to fight for a spot at the bar. I manage to find a seat, the others we are with though and KP, stand, and there’s a mix of drinks to be had. The Wisconsin drink of preference tonight I observe is called an “Old Fashioned” a drink made with brandy and a toothpick with cooked mushrooms shoved in to it as olives might be into a martini. Apparently it’s really good, and everyone seems to be having several, one after another. I stick to Merlot though, then I have a Spotted Cow Craft Beer, and finally I graduate to water.
After an hour and a half at the bar our group’s dinner is ready and we are relocated to, then seated in, an adjoining dining area. Our meals are quite cold when we start eating though. There’s just too many people here this evening to get it exactly right I’m thinking. I met Butch and wife Sue at the bar and they accompany us to the table. It’s not a late night, but before we depart I also meet KP’s brother and I am invited for dinner at Butch and Sue’s house Tuesday evening.
Day Fifty Two – 5th. November – Saturday – It’s KP’s birthday, but KP doesn’t like fuss and I greet him this morning with a birthday card and gift. KP’s quite speechless. I have brought a copy of my dad’s book with me (memoirs), which my daughter Sarah on forwarded to MB a few weeks ago. I picked it up at MB’s and brought it across with me to Wisconsin. KP’s pleasantly surprised, I think. He is hard to read though and not used to gift giving.
I was read the riot act yesterday. Say what I want, don’t beat around the bush. KP is forthright and very to the point and takes what one says absolutely literally. I’ve never met anyone like him before but Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory show on television comes close. KP, maybe understandably, loves the show and relates to Sheldon. KP even considers his forthrightness an attribute and says that insults are only insults if a person chooses to let them affect the way they think and regularly cites to me “You should say it exactly like it is”.
However there are many moments where KP can’t figure out what I am saying at all. This is mostly due to the language barriers between cultures when speaking and thinking as an American or an Australian, one to the other, and my frequent habit of using sayings. For example I might say “going hell for leather” or “hammer and tongs” instead of “going fast”. This I am told is completely confusing to someone who doesn’t speak using sayings and who speaks literally as they are imagining what on earth hell and leather or hammer and tongs have to do with anything at all. They would possibly, as a result, never acquaint the words with speed. And, KP adds, they only makes sense if you’ve actually heard the sayings before. Add to that I am soft spoken. KP then explains to me his theory on attitudes and demands I be brutally honest and say things exactly like they are, be more literal, and do not to be considerate of anyone else in any of my choices. If I want to go somewhere or do something, just say. Don’t try to accommodate anyone else in my decisions. Yes, I think KP’s very much like Sheldon.
Today we head to a nearby town to enjoy fresh Cheese Curds but when we arrive at the factory outlet near New Fane, there is a sign with “No Cheese Curds Today” written on it. We are disappointed but we depart and drive on further, on roads unfamiliar to both of us it seems, to arrive a short time later at Lizard Mound County Park north of West Bend one mile east of State Highway 144.
Established in 1950, the Lizard Mound County Park was acquired by Washington County from the state of Wisconsin in 1986. The park contains 28 effigy mounds in an excellent state of preservation. A self-guided anthropological nature trail winds around the park and trail markers reveal information about the extinct culture that built the mounds. An unusually beautiful group of mounds, each is of prominent height and careful construction.
Most of the mounds rise more than three feet above the ground surface. The variety of mound shapes found in the park is considered unusual. Two are long-tailed effigies are usually referred to as “panther” effigies. One of the 28 mounds is named “Lizard Mound” and whilst this mound might have been intended to represent the same animal, a panther or something else, it is in a spread eagle posture that shows all four limbs.
The mound builders lived in Wisconsin and bordering states between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1000 and they survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants, and they moved from place to place often. In the summer they could be found closer to rivers and lakes, while in the winter the people moved into sheltered upland valleys. The builders built burial and effigy mounds shaped like mammals, animals, birds and other creatures, both real and mythical. They also constructed conical, oval and linear mounds.
The effigy mound builders usually buried their dead in small pits or laid them on carefully prepared surfaces. The mounds were then built over them like grave markers. The custom of building effigy burial mounds died out about 1000 years ago and it was a custom unique to the general area. Little else is known about the Mound Builders. Even Indians who lived in Wisconsin when the first white man arrived didn’t know why, or by whom, the mounds had been built.
I walk on the lightly formed track around the small park. Another gloriously sunny and clear day, and the last of the autumn leaves yet to fall are bright vibrant red, orange, yellow and a dull paper bag brown, and are sprinkled only lightly now amongst the predominantly oak, elm and sycamore trees. Snow season is close. It was supposed to arrive three weeks ago I am told, but an unusual warmer lull in autumn’s progression has delayed the frigid onslaught. The air here today is fragrant and thick, fresh and incredibly earthy with the smell of decaying forest leaves, dew on the ground and grasses, and deep mounds of aged tree litter. And the park is blissfully quiet. There are only a couple of other visitors here this morning.
Day Fifty Three – 6th. November – Sunday – Church this morning is at 10:00 am. I am keen to attend a church service whilst in America and am ready before KP returns from walking the dog. I realise when he gets back however Day Light Savings time went out yesterday so I actually need to turn the time on my watch back one hour, so I am for once, surprisingly early for church. We attend St Francis’ Catholic Church in West Bend.
After church we set off for Big Cedar Lake where we have a reservation for Brunch at the resort there and we are sitting at the bar by 11:30 am. It’s a beautiful sunny day, again. We are soon seated in the restaurant and nearby there’s a comprehensive brunch buffet and a lass making omelettes. I order one and watch her weave her magic and she’s surprisingly quick. After brunch we wander down to the lake.
The water is amazingly clear and a lovely shade of translucent teal/blue as the sky is brilliant blue today and almost everyone dining at Big Cedar Lake today has the same idea, eat then take a leisurely stroll down to the lake. There’s about ten people milling at the edge.
We head back to the car and drive back to West Bend on different roads again as KP keeps showing me a little more of the state each time we drive somewhere.
The China Lights Sue and Butch told me about at The Knights of Columbus Club on Friday evening are finishing in Milwaukee tonight they will then be moved on. They start at 5:30 pm at the Milwaukee Botanical Gardens and the exhibition is a fund raiser. The organisers extended the exhibition an extra week as the weather in Milwaukee has been exemplary. Normally the exhibition would have had a two week break between stops but one of those weeks was used to accommodate the extra time, and plans to simply not completely dissemble exhibits before trucking them onto Ohio were put in place to allow the exhibition to arrive at its new destination on time.
It’s early when we arrive and we are amongst the first visitors tonight so manage to park very close to the exhibition. With the return to regular time from day light savings time occurring early this morning, it is quite dark when we arrive. The exhibition is really pretty, very Chinese”y”, and sort of really corny, childlike even, and there are hundreds of children here this evening and well worth the small fee to attend.
Day Fifty Four – 7th. November – Monday – Digger Da Dog is ready for a second walk at 9:30 am this morning and I accompany KP and Digger along one of the ex railway lines now converted to bicycle track that KP was instrumental in planning, developing and creating in the twelve year role of Washington County Highway Commissioner. The trek KP tells me is just one of the success stories he managed to bring to fruition in this role. And each day as we’ve driven around the area KP has pointed out different projects undertaken in his roles, that road, this bicycle track, that park, and later today we are to visit the Washington County Highway Shop, one of two buildings KP has also helped to plan and build. It’s KP’s old stomping ground.
Digger enjoys his walk, at 14.5 years though he struggles to do some things but he does enjoy walking, and on his walks he’s king of the lead. KP lets Digger walk as long as he wants, wherever he wants and Digger knows the treks well. Digger has about eight preferred routes, some longer than others but much of the journey is just a sniffing expose. Digger stops here and there, marks his territory, then moves on. It’s a beautiful morning, and a nice day to be doing this and when we arrive back at KP’s house Digger is puffing heavily. Digger has neck muscle restriction and arthritis issues but is pleased to be back, is energised and happy, and has seen some of the nicest part of the day.
This morning I suggest I’d like to get outside so I rake leaves in the back yard, whilst KP uses the blower vac at the front. After driving me here and there the last few days I am happy to help out with this chore and after a good hour and a half, the leaves, several inches thick in the two yards sitting on top of KP’s lawns, are neatly piled high in the gutter on the street ready for the city street sweepers to pick them up. The city sweepers are doing pickups until the Friday before Thanksgiving, when deer hunting season starts, as many of the city employees take time off then to go hunting. And the autumn leaf fall season has usually finished by then with the first snows either having fallen, or on their way.
Lunch today is at The Riverside Brewery, a boutique brewery pub, with two female friends of KP’s, Barb, and her travel companion Alice. We walk in early, but they virtually follow us in, and we are quickly seated and order a variety of salads. We all chat about travel for a time as the other ladies are heading to Australia this time next year. They tell me they are going to Australia first then cruising around New Zealand but they are not sure of their itineraries though so I can’t really advise what might be good to see when they ask and an hour and a half passes quickly.
After lunch we head to the Washington County Highway Shop. KP tells me he was responsible for the building of the facility, its location and the redevelopment of the old facility into a large car park for the nearby court house. KP then tells me how he worked with many others to gain their approval to have the project actually come to fruition. The building, KP adds proudly, the Washington County Highway Shop, cost $3.5 million dollars and took nine months to build in 2002.
It is a huge facility and the Washington County Highway Department I’m told is responsible for the maintenance of approximately 515 lane miles of State Trunk Highway under the direction of the State and the maintenance and construction of approximately 390 lane miles of County Trunk Highway. County Road construction is decided on the basis of need and roads are built with Federal aid if possible with contracts let to the lowest bidder.
Maintenance includes crack filling, pothole repair, blacktop patching, picking up trash on the right of way, mowing, tree cutting, shoulder repair, drainage, sign repair, guard rails, putting up snow fence, salting and snow plowing.
It’s eight years since KP retired from the role of Highway Commissioner. KP introduces me to Scott, KP’s replacement, then Scott takes us on a tour of the building and I see state of the art job specific equipment and modern vehicles, in the new building. KP is proud of his achievement and rightly so and tells me as we leave after the building was erected he was given complete control over a second smaller building project which cost $1.5 million. KP says he enjoyed the building process and relished bringing the project in on budget.
We head to Kewaskum for KP’s regular Monday catch up with his buddies at a local tavern at 4:25 pm. There’s about ten people there and as I walk in I am warmly welcomed. They have been expecting to meet me, this Aussie pen pal who also likes to travel. There’s three couples, several men, and the bar tender and his wife. After an hour we drive back to West Bend.
Day Fifty Five – 8th. November – Tuesday – An easy day today. I am up at 8:00 am. We are staying at the house today. It’s Election Day and a new President will be voted in by day’s end. KP suggests going out but I “vote” for staying at the house today as we are going to grill German brats for lunch on the BBQ outside, I want to wash my sheets and do some laundry and, as we are going out tonight to Sue and Butch’s, I think it’s a good idea to stay in for a change.
The brats are cooked by 12:00 pm as we are leaving a good time frame to relax and chill as we are invited out for dinner later. They are tasty and simply served on their own with just ketchup, mustard sauce, onions and horseradish. I then settle in to tuning out from the TV after lunch as we sit in the lounge. American TV is full of advertising and political broadcasts and today, would you believe, is a full day of speculation on who MIGHT win. There’s no lock down on political campaigning like in Australia, here and it’s full on, seriously non stop, all day. Every broadcast on the box tips Hilary. KP doesn’t watch much TV apart from the news and stock market shows, and The Big Bang Theory, but the ads all week, drug advertisements, insurance advertisements, etc., and political advertisements run twice as long as advertisements in Australia and the news here has been simply been 80% political this week. I tune completely out, especially today as I am not at all interested in American politics, and I opt to write my journals, then read for a while.
Dinner at Sue and Butch’s is at 6:30 pm so we stop by the wine store on the way and buy two bottles of a Californian red called Dark and a bottle of German Riesling. We take one bottle in when we arrive at the North Pole. Well, it looks like the North Pole as it’s everything Christmas in Sue and Butch’s house. There are no less than four Christmas trees and there is fruit, ribbons, baubles, tinsel, glitter, short lengths of tree decorated boughs and many other Christmas decorations everywhere. I am introduced to Tess and Crystal, and the ladies mingle and enjoy pizza in the upstairs living room on small plates and drink copious amounts of good wine. The conversation is easy and the women are welcomng and friendly.
Fred, Don, KP and Butch however spend the evening in the basement, entirely separate to the four of us above on the first floor, and they enjoy hamburgers and chips with beer below. And it is an interesting dinner party to say the least, and the first one I’ve ever been to where the men get together and enjoy each other’s company entirely seperate to the women.
Go to Part B – Wisconsin – Around The World in Seventy Five Days https://www.travelessae.com.au/part-six-b-wisconsin-around-the-world-in-seventy-five-days/ for the next part of my journey …