"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

October 2, 2006 The sun feels good today. We continue our trip south and west. There are family farms dotting the landscape growing corn and soybean. It is almost time for the harvest. We came into the little town of Monroe and stopped at the public library to send journals and walked around town. It is here that we decided to stop in a cheese and brew pub. We bought some locally made swiss cheese – yum. We walked around the town square, visited the courthouse and jumped back in the roadtrek. Elder box bugs are everywhere! We stopped in Cadiz Springs State Recreation Area and did a drive through. More box elder bugs. Leaves are those burnt color, falling with the wind. An Indian summer kinda day. We listen to Mozart. There was a sign: “Bridge Out 15 miles” We saw vehicles turn around, but we continued knowing with our gps we would find an alternative route. we got to the bridge out and found that the old road looped right around the problem of the new bridge going in. In the area aroun...

October 1, 2006 We are now in Central Time zone, but our bodies are still on Eastern Time. We got up at 6:30. We decided to go for a walk and walked up hills and down around neighborhoods and through the park. It was a good morning walk. Val and Tim came and picked us up and we went to the Jiva Jive, The 11th Annual Coffee Tasting to benefit the Rape Crisis Center in Madison. We entered the nightclub turned coffee shop for the day. The Jan Wheaton Duo played jazz, featured local coffee shops provided coffee and there were pool tables coved with donuts, sweets, fruits, bagles and goodies. We each received a ceramic coffee cup and were sent on our way. Val found us a table upstairs at the banister so we could look over the happenings. Kathy’s favorite coffee was the EVP coffee Company’s Guatemalan French Roast. A silent auction and raffle kept people moving about. We bid on a handmade folding table, but got out bid quickly. It was a great time people watching and spending time with speci...

September 30, 2006 We had to carefully wiggle ourselves out of the parking area. In the early morning pick-up trucks filled the little parking lot. The occupants are all bass fishing. We made our way south on small roads named by letters to state route 73 where we paused and watched a bald eagle soaring with a vulture. We listened to NPR as we traveled south. Stopped in Columbus where they have a Christopher Columbus museum. We walked around the streets of town admiring the architecture. Sullivan, the inventor of modern architecture and father of the skyscraper, designed the Farmer’s Bank. He called his design of the bank as his “Jewel Box.” We sat and internetted waiting for the storm to pass then continued on state route 60. We arrived in Madison, WI, capitol of the state. The state capitol building has a dome like the capitol building in DC. On the walls below the dome of a Michael Angelo type painting are mosaics of Government, Justice, Representation and Liberty. We climbed the wo...

September 29, 2006 Located in Green Bay, WI, the National Railroad Museum is home to the "Big Boy," the nickname given to locomotives of this type. There were only twenty-five built; this is one of the few left. It is 132 feet long. This 4-8-8-4 configuration carries over 30 tons of coal and 25,000 gallons of water. The full load would get it the first 75-miles on the UP, Union Pacific, trip from Cheyenne to Ogdan. The museum has 77 pieces of rolling stock including : The Dwight D. Eisenhower Command Train, One of only three ever built aero trains build by GM in the 50s, a set of passenger and dining cars you can walk through to name a few.

September 28, 2006 We awoke to sun just coming above the cloud layer at the horizon. With hot coffee in hand we went out to the shore line and watched as five eagles flew and landed on the beach just within binocular view. The white head, the dark body, the strong legs -The Bald Eagle. One flew and hit the water sending up a spray, but we couldn’t see if it caught himself fish breakfast. We left our coffee cups in the dune grass and walked up to where the eagles sat; they flew off long before we got there. Will went right up on the rocky spit of land to the log they had sat on and saw the scratch marks. A Great Blue Heron had walked in the sand near by and a raccoon had come out to see if the eagles had left him a snack. Kathy cut some yellow and deep brown willow to work with later. Menominee had internet service so Kathy was able to load another journal entry and do some internet searches. Carmine, thanks for taking the ball on getting our reservations for a sisters trip to Hawaii fo...

September 27, 2006 We got up to a cloudy rainy cool day and said to each other, “Today is a good day to drive!” We got a misty picture of the Manistique lighthouse and took off on route2 heading west. Having trouble again with the battery not charging; when something gets wet the needle drops and something shorts out. We found a nice little restaurant, Rosie’s at Tyelene’s, on the Bay de Noc and had breakfast. They also had free internet so we took advantage of the time and put up yesterday’s journal. We found out that pasties, advertised everywhere up here, are meat pies. It was pouring down rain. We checked the weather and it was going to storm all day so we found a little nitch in the Hiawatha National Forest at Flowing Well to camp for a while. We drove around the ten sites and found one to suit, put out the awning. Will examined the leaky tail light, but could not find a way the water was getting in. The rain finally stopped and we packed up to continue our drive on route 2. A sig...

September 26, 2006 It was a beautiful sunny morning. We walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and sat there at the water’s edge sipping our coffee and enjoying our hot oatmeal. Will took the opportunity to pull out the items from the bottom storage bin that filled with water the other day. We opened everything and let it dry out in the breeze. Four swans paddled out to sea and off, a schooner sailed along the horizon and sea gulls came and went. The air was still for most of the morning. When the sun went behind the clouds we packed up. We are leaving the northern most tip of Lake Michigan. The leaves are colorful; the air is crisp. Waves roll white-capped to the sandy shoreline. We are heading south. It is flat here for the most part. Trees are maples and long skinny pines. There are towns separated by a distance of open land and for sale signs everywhere. President FD Roosevelt created Seney National Wildlife Refuge in 1935 to protect wetlands for loons, swans and nesting bald eagl...