Paddling on the Wisconsin River

We have been on the road for almost 3 weeks but have not hit the water ... until today.  Yesterday we extended our stay at Buffalo River Camping Resort for an additional 3 nights.  That gives us a home through the weekend, always a concern when traveling in the summer without long term reservations.  It also gave us some time to do some paddling and sight seeing at a more leisurely pace.

Today we drove about 35 miles to the Wisconsin Dells to paddle a section of the Wisconsin River in the Upper Dells.  The Wisconsin Dells is both the name of a town and a particular region of the Wisconsin River.  We have driven by the cut-off to the Dells almost every year since 1997, but have never bothered to stop.  We had been told it was a gaudy tourist trap, much like Gatlinburg, and they were right.  However, the Wisconsin River near the Dells is very scenic, albeit clogged with motor boats, jet skis, tour boats and "ducks".

We chose a section of the river where we could paddle upstream in an oxbow around Blackhawk Island, then turn down stream on the Wisconsin River.  After negotiating "the Narrows" we would loop back into the oxbow and return to our starting point.  "Look Ma, no shuttle!"  Very cool.  The literature suggested the Narrows could be very treacherous at high water, but there was no problem today.  We had also been warned about heavy boat traffic and fast, rude boaters, producing heavy wakes.  While there was some traffic, it was less than expected, and we had no problems.

It turned out to be a fairly quick trip.  We were on the water for only a little over 2 hours and paddled just a little over 3 miles.  We finished so quickly, we did not eat the lunch we prepared.  After loading the boat, we cruised the tourist strip, then found a quiet town park where we ate our sandwiches and cookies.  Before returning home we hit the local Walmart for some groceries.

Our put-in on the Wisconsin River

Our route on the Wisconsin River

Myron's usual view of the river

Cold Water Canyon on the Wisconsin River

These are Wisconsin Dells ducks, but not "THE Wisconsin Dells Ducks"

Signs of the Times

Campers can be an expressive lot.  Many disply signs on their camp sites to express their feelings or views.  We carry a sign that displays our names and home state, but no particular message.  Here are some signs we found at our camp at Buffalo Lake Camping Resort in Montello WI.  There are two common themes.  One group says "Let's party!"  While the grumps say "Stay away from me!"

This sign starts with a Christian message, but then changes its tune

'Nuff said?

There is no shortage of Scandinavians in Wisconsin

Hopefully the message here is " Come sit and visit for a spell"

Quote of the Week

Quote of the Week:

The Definition of an RVer

n.  One who drives a $500,000 motor coach, towing a $50,000 automobile, looking for a free place to park.

I don't know anyone like this.  Do you?

Montello WI

We found ourselves in the unusual position of having two weeks free and no set plans for that period.  In the prophetic words of Meatloaf " Do ya know what it's like? All revved up with no place to go."  After leaving Madison on August 2, our next firm destination was Elk River MN on August 17 for a motor home service appointment.  Two weeks with nowhere to go!  What to do?  A little research found Buffalo Lake Camping Resort in Montello WI, about 65 miles north of Madison.  Buffalo Lake is relatively close the Wisconsin Dells, which we have never toured and close to several potential paddles.   It is also a Passport America member, meaning half-price camping.  The park seemed to have positive on-line reviews.  So, we called and reserved for 4 nights, and off we went.

On the road.  See the shiny new boat?  Life is good.

We arrived at Buffalo Lake Camping Resort without incident, and they assigned us site #51.  It was a terribly hot day, so we hooked up to power right away, as we usually do, so we could run the A/C.  We have an Electrical Management System (EMS) which monitors the condition of the incoming power and cuts us off if it detects conditions that are out of spec and could damage our 120 VAC system.  The EMS showed clean power, but when the A/C came on, the voltage dropped to 102 VAC and shut us down.  Not good!  While shut down and under no load the pedestal voltage rose back to 120 VAC, so the EMS re-connected us and the A/C came back on.  Then the voltage dropped again, and cut us off again.   This continued for several cycles, before I disconnected from the pedestal.  It was certainly no good for our electrical system.  I hooked into another box on the same pedestal, but the same condition existed.  Finally I unhooked again and turned or the generator so we could cool the coach, and then hiked up to the office to report the problem.  It turned out that the park had been upgrading their electrical system over the summer, but had finished for the season and had stopped before finishing the pedestal at our site.  Using a 30' 30 amp extension cord I carry, we were able to reach another pedestal on another site that had the improved service.  We are probably the only ones who have ever hooked up to this pedestal who have such an EMS.  Consequently, others were likely unknowingly operating their rigs at low voltage, perhaps damaging their equipment, and never reported a problem.  All is well now, and everyone is happy and cool.  On 30 amp service running both A/Cs is iffy.  It might work, but if the water heater comes on or if we use the microwave, it could trip the breaker on the pedestal.  Thankfully after the sun lowered, temps dropped and we were much cooler the rest of the week.

We had originally signed up at Buffalo Lake for 4 nights, meaning a Thursday check out.  We currently had no home for the upcoming weekend.  Good camp sites on a summer weekend in the upper Midwest are sometimes hard to find.  Kinda like in the winter in Florida.  We decided it would be nice to stay here through the weekend.  It was a nice place, and there were still things we wanted to do in the area.  Buffalo Lake had a 4-night maximum on the Passport America discount, so I figured we probably couldn't re-up at that rate.  But I marched down to the office anyway to negotiate.  The good news is our site was still available for the weekend.  The bad news is she wouldn't give me the Passport America rate.  She did offer the Good Sam rate, which represented a 10% discount.  I countered with 3 nights for the price of 2, representing a 33% discount and she agreed.  That's almost as good as the Passport rate.  It's fun dealing with a family owned camp ground.  We are now set through the weekend and a Sunday check out.  Life is still good.



There is an abandoned granite quarry in downtown Montello.  The city has installed pumps and created five artificial waterfalls that drop back into the lake.  At night the falls are all illuminated.  Pretty cool.





Now, off to have some fun!

Madison WI

We departed Shipshewana shortly after noon on Sunday.  Our destination was Blackhawk Valley Campground near Rockford IL, about 250 miles away.  We discovered this park when we stayed there in September 2014.  It is very nice, and it is also a Passport America member park, meaning half price camping for the Whitleys.  Several other attendees of the rally were headed to the same park, and a few were caravaning.  We would rather not caravan with others if we can help it.  We prefer to travel at our own pace and stop when we wish, without feeling beholding to others.  We worked hard to avoid the central Chicago area and the inevitable toll roads, and we were largely successful.  We bought 76 gallons of diesel near Joliet IL for $3.39/gallon (YEAH!).  GasBuddy rocks!

We arrived at our camp well before dark. At least 4 other parties from our CCI rally were already here.  After we got set up we joined George and Irene, and Jack and Mary Lou for happy hour.

About 10:00 Monday morning we departed for our next primary destination, Madison WI, to attend "FMCA's 92nd Family Reunion; Motorhome Showcase — "Escape to Wisconsin"".  After a short jaunt of only about 83 miles we were parked in Lot N at the Alliant Energy Center, only about 2 miles from the capitol in downtown Madison.  We would be dry camping at this event, meaning we would be camping without the benefit of electric, water and sewer hook-ups.  That's fine; we boon dock all the time, but this week it was HOT!  We could have paid $175 for 30 amp electric service, but they wouldn't turn on the juice until sometime on Tuesday.  Plus with 30 amp service we might only be able to run just on air conditioner.  Plus we would have had to park in the holding area Monday night, then move to our assigned site the next day.  We have an excellent working generator that craves use, and that will power our 2 air conditioners, and then some.  In the end we were comfortable, using our generator for a total of about 23 hours and using only about 12 gallons of diesel, for a cost significantly less than $175.  There were slightly less than 2000 coaches attending the convention, a smaller number than most past conventions.

The convention didn't officially start until Wednesday afternoon, so we had some time to explore Madison.  We visited Rutabaga Paddlesports, the premier canoe dealer in the upper Midwest.  We spent quite a bit of time talking with Darren, the owner of the company, and of course, we bought a new boat.  We last visited Rutabaga in September 2012, on our way home from the Boundary Waters, and guess what?  We bought a new boat.  Dorcas says we can't ever go back to Rutabaga again.

Ho. Ho. Ho. Christmas comes in July.  Our new Nova Craft Prospector 15

The convention featured hundreds of seminars with 12 seminar rooms running all day long for 3 1/2 days.  Seminars covered a myriad of topics:  Topics included RV technical, engines and transmission, generators, RV life style, health and fitness, games and so on.  Many seminars we had attended before, but some topics were worth attending again and some were new.  Dorcas and I mostly attended seminars separately, because there were conflicting topics we wanted to attend, or because we had different interests.  They also had Pickleball courts set up, so I played for about 2 hours each morning and a few afternoons, while Dorcas attended morning exercise classes.

There was also a big exhibition hall where hundreds of vendors were hawking their wares.  We dropped a few coins on a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS), a refrigerator monitoring/control system that turns the fridge off when the unit is out of level and the boiler is overheating, to prevent fatal damage, and a towed vehicle braking monitor that will alert us when the towed vehicle auxiliary brakes are engaged.

We also attended a posh event at Monona Terrace which involved free food, beer, wine and entertainment, sponsored by a large RV dealer, RVOne Superstores.  Monona Terrace was designed in 1938 by Frank Lloyd Wright, a native of Madison, as gift to the city.  It acts as a visual and physical link between the state capitol building and Lake Monona.  It was finally constructed in the mid-nineties, decades after Wright's death.  Originally designed to contain municipal offices, it was ultimately built as a major convention center.

We also toured the Wisconsin State Capitol.  The capitol building is a very impressive structure built in the shape of a cross centered by a 265' granite dome covering the rotunda.  Each of the four wings house a major component of the government: both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature, the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor.  We were able enter each chamber except for the Supreme Court, which was being renovated,  Much of its art and carvings are adorned with the Wisconsin state mascot, the badger, a ferocious little guy.

A view from above the rotunda

Crest showing the state mascot, the badger, and the state motto "Forward"

In the legislative chamber

Legislative chamber showing the public gallery

View towards Monona Terrace and Lake Monona

Badgers were everywhere!

Madison has a very active cycling community.  There are tons of bike trails and many streets are bike friendly.  In the downtown area there were public-use cycles.

Finally we visited the Henry Vilas Zoo.  It is a fairly small zoo and the animals were often hard to find, but it was free.

At the zoo

The Tundra Buggy, near the polar bear exhibit

All the animals on the carousel were zoo animals

Feeding the goats

Strangely, we found no badgers at the zoo.  Go figure.

We departed the Alliant Energy Center shortly before noon Sunday and continued our northward trek.

Shipshewana

Our first destination was Shipshewana IN, home to a large Amish-Mennonite community in extreme northern Indiana.  Shipshewana was named for a local Potawatomi Indian chief.  We are here to attend a rally of Country Coach International (CCI), the national club for our brand of motor home.  This is not our first trip to Shipshewana.  We visited here August 2010 on our way to Michigan and Minnesota (again!).  On that trip we spent a day at an Amish farm where they also make replacement cooling units for ammonia absorption RV refrigerators.  We installed a new cooling unit to replace one I had recently installed, which turned out to be defective.  You can read that post here.

People often ask us what an RV rally is and what we do there.  Essentially a rally is a gathering of RV owners, usually who own a similar rig or have some other common interest, to socialize and visit.  It gives these RVers a reason to travel to a location or venue that they may not have thought to visit by themselves.  We share stories and experiences and close friendships are formed.  Eating and adult beverages are usually involved.  We belong to two manufacturer-related RV clubs and both have rallies 3-4 times each year.

Prior to our arrival, the area had many days of hard rain.  When we arrived the weather had cleared and was perfect for the duration of our stay.  During the rally we toured Shipshewana, over-ate, visited the Midwest's biggest flea market, over-ate, visited the Entegra Motor Coach factory, over-ate, visited Cook's Bison Ranch, over-ate, torued the Menno-Hof museum, over-ate, rode carriages to an Amish home for dinner where we over-ate and, finally, we over-ate.  There were also adult beverages involved.

The Amish shun automobiles and other modern conveyances
This photo and many others in this post courtesy of George H.

Dorcas and Irene in a quilt flower garden

Buggies all in a row

Boarding a wagon at Cook's Bison Ranch

Beefalo on the hoof up close

Hand-feeding the bison.  Have you ever been licked by a bison? 

Dorcas after the buggy ride to an Amish dinner.  Does she look full and happy?

An Amish farm

Myron and Dorcas boarding a buggy to the Amish dinner

View from a buggy

Preparing to be fed at an Amish home

Another view from the buggy

A Spartan chassis; the foundation for many fine diesel pushers

Near the beginning of the Entegra production line

I wonder what they thought of all these Country Coach owners viewing the Entegras.  I bet they were hoping for a sale.

A view of the cockpit through the D/S living room slide out

Entegra Motor Coach is the luxury motor home line of the Jayco Company.  They list for over $400K.  We're not buying a new coach any time soon.

We stayed at the Shipshewana Campground- South Park for seven nights, but now it is time to move along.

Upper Midwest 2015

After an extended absence from this journal (but not from traveling), Dorcas and I are on the road again.  We departed this day with the ultimate destination of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern Minnesota.  In the meantime we will attend a Country Coach International (CCI) Rally in Shipshewana IN and a major FMCA motor home convention in Madison WI.  After our canoe trip in the BWCAW we plan to loop through Canada, likely north of Lake Superior, and re-enter the US near Niagara  Falls and then attend another CCI rally at Watkins Glen NY.  Within mere days after the Watkins Glen rally in late September, we will dash back to NC and attend another motor home rally in Marion and then a canoe club gathering at Hanging Rock State Park the first week in October.  Whew!!!!  That's the plan and we hope to stick to it.

We left home shortly after the crack of noon.  On our way out of town we stopped at Bill Plemmons RV World and took on 18 gallons of propane at the ridiculously low price of $0.99 per gallon.  Bill Plemmons sells LP way below their cost as a loss leader to get customers into their store.  We fill up there every chance we get.  We also filled a 20# bottle and a 5# bottle.

We continued north on US 52 north and hit I-77 north of Mt. Airy.  When I say we hit I-77, I mean we hit I-77.  Traffic was at a near standstill and, according to Google Maps Traffic, would be that way all the way to the VA state line and then all the way to West Virginia.  We traveled at a blistering 10-15 mph until we got to Wytheville VA, where we jumped off and topped off with 70 gallons of diesel.

We crawled back onto I-77 hoping, hoping the traffic had cleared a bit, but it was not so.  To add insult to injury we encountered a severe thunderstorm.  Ironically, I don't think the storm slowed traffic any further; it could just go no slower.  The traffic congestion magically cleared after exiting the East River Mountain Tunnel at Bluefield WV.  We had traveled almost 75 miles, rarely exceeding 15 mph.  We never did determine the reason for the slow down.  It was a Saturday afternoon and most of the vehicles had Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania plates.  Maybe it was just a hoard of Yankees returning home from a summer trip to Myrtle Beach.  There was no corresponding back-up in the south bound lanes.  I love to put lots of photos in these posts.  Unfortunately, we were so disgusted with the traffic neither of us thought to take any pictures.  It was not a good start for our trip

We had no particular destination for this evening.  We had a few Walmarts spotted along our route. We intended to pick one and park about dusk.  Due to our day's slow pace we didn't go as far as we had hoped.  It turns out that we stopped in Gallipolis OH just across the WV line on the banks of the Ohio River.  Coincidentally, we had spent the night at this same Walmart on July 30, 2014.  It is a memorable spot because it is next door to Tudor's Biscuit World, home of the biggest biscuit sandwich and cinnamon roll I have ever seen.  You can guess where we ate breakfast.