Where the North Begins

I think Portage, Wisconsin could have done better in choosing a slogan.  As a place, it has quite a history.  Back in the 1670’s, Father Marquette and Joliet were on a search for the Mississippi River by canoe.  They followed Lake Michigan into Green Bay and the Fox River.  At the headwaters of the Fox, they were advised to “portage” a two-mile marshy section to the Wisconsin River.

This is where the City of Portage was eventually established–between the Fox and the Wisconsin Rivers.

I drove up to Portage this morning because I decided to buy a small, quiet inverter generator.  I know, I know.  Generator are evil, noisy things, but there are times during periods of cloudy skies (where solar energy isn’t available) and one is without an electrical hookup…anyway, my plan was to get one at Tractor Supply in Portage.  I had read that Tractor Supply has an old geezer discount on the last Tuesday of every month.  With a 20% discount, I could get a 2000 watt Champion inverter generator that had a rating of less than 60 decibels at 20 feet for less than $400.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I research the heck out of everything and then try to find the very best possible deal possible.  I’m not cheap (I tell myself), just frugal.  Rather than drive straight up to the store and buy the thing, I decided to go on a hike and think it over one last time.  I knew that the Ice Age Trail went along the canal between the Wisconsin and Fox, but didn’t really look at the map to see where it was.  How hard could it be to find it?

Well, Callie and I walked awhile in downtown Portage near the canal and then we walked out Highway 33 and then we walked along the railroad tracks where Hwy 33 left town.  Finally, after walking several miles, we found the trailhead.

The trail looked wet, due to rain and minor flooding.

Now that I knew where it was, I decided to head back to the truck and save the actual hike of the canal segment for another day.  I was ready to buy the generator.  We were off to Tractor Supply Company.

I loaded the generator into my shopping cart, along with some required oil.  As I walked up to the cashier, I casually asked if many people were using the 20% senior discount today. “What senior discount?” the cashier asked.  Uh oh.  She got on the phone and talked to a manager.  It turns out that there is a Tractor Supply Company in Canada that uses the exact same logo.  The Canadian Tractor Supply has a 20% discount but not the American one.

I took the generator back to the shelf and took it as a sign that generators are
evil, noisy things.

Gotcha Day

Today, we are celebrating “Gotcha Day”,  the date we met our daughter Allie in China–twenty-one years ago. As best we can recall, these photos were taken in the Lake Tahoe area when she was still young enough to be carried in the backpack. 

We also celebrated Justin’s 19th birthday on Friday.  Allie was in town.  She will graduate from college in December and has a paid internship with a Fortune 500 company this summer. Justin’s plan for the summer is to continue his education at UW-Whitewater.  Julia’s dad and step-mom have moved into a nice accessible apartment near Madison.  We are starting the process to get their house ready for sale.  Allie received some nice camping equipment in the emptying out process.

Second Annual Art on the Trail

I first wrote about Art on the Trail here

This year, I was out of town when the publicity about the event started.  Someone called Julia with the news that her art was in the Wisconsin State Journal.

I think Julia would readily admit that her art wasn’t the star of last year’s show.  She was one of the artists who installed pop-up art without being asked. 

Because Julia’s piece was made of natural materials and biodegradable, she was allowed to keep it up all year.  Amazingly, it was still recognizable after a hard winter, so the newspaper used Julia’s piece for this year’s pre-event publicity.
When I returned from my trip south, I hiked each of the local Ice Age segments and took some photos.  There is a lot more art this year.  Here are some examples:

Here is Julia’s piece for this year. She didn’t have much time to put it together, but I still enjoy it.

I’m not a purist like the commentator in the “trash” piece in one of the photos above, but I think that there is a lot of art to be found in nature “as is.”

 

 

Pikes Peak State Park

No, not that Pike’s Peak.  This state park is in Iowa across the Mississippi River from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.  It is located on a high point in Iowa, but not exactly a 14,0000 foot mountain.

What drew me here was the cheap price of camping, compared to a similar high spot on the same river in Wisconsin. There is no admission fee to Pikes Peak, and the camping was only $16/night with electric hookups.  But the amazing thing about my visit to Pikes Peak State Park is that it coincided with a fiberglass camper rally, which I had no idea was happening before I arrived at the campground.

That’s me on the left side, still hooked-up to the truck for a quick getaway to home after a social evening.   Everyone was very nice, especially since I dropped in on their activities without registering beforehand.  Even though the official tours didn’t happen until later, several people showed me their “eggs.”
The biggest egg was this 1988 Bigfoot Silver Cloud, affectionately nicknamed the “egg carton.”

You know it’s still an egg because of the belly band dividing the fiberglass top mold from the fiberglass bottom mold.  “It’s got rooms,” exclaimed the owner.
At the other end of the spectrum were the 13′ footers. The one below is unusual in that  it doesn’t have a belly band.  Made by U-haul (not for many years) the molds run from top to bottom.

Escape Trailers were well-represented, considering they are made and sold in the Vancouver, Canada area.  This was the original trailer that I wanted to buy.  I still like them a lot, but you learn to love (and hate) the trailer you’re with. There were also a bunch of Scamps and a couple of Casitas.

The weather was cold.  I ended up wearing two fleece pullovers and my jacket.  Temps fell into the 30’s, and I let my electric heater run overnight to take the chill off.

Callie and I still had time to check out the trails and views.  We did get a little lost following a ridgeline trail that turned into a steep descent and eventually a game trail.  I think we were supposed to stop at the bluff before heading down. It was slick and steep enough that I had trouble on the way down.  Going back up, I took Callie’s lead and used all four paws (hands and feet).

We were up early the next morning, dumped tanks, and headed home.  I had a great trip, but it will be good to be home for awhile. There’s a bunch of family stuff going on.  Julia’s dad and stepmom are moving into a new, more accessible apartment.  Julia  got a new Subaru and sold her old Subaru to my daughter Allie.  And spring has finally come to Wisconsin.

Amana, Iowa

I stayed at the Amana RV Park and Event Center for two nights for two reasons.  First, it was a convenient base from which to visit my parents in Cedar Rapids.  Second, It was cheap ($18/night) with my Passport America discount card.  However, I probably wouldn’t stay there again.

The campground is a huge, flat Iowa field with many campsites laid out on a grid of gravel roads.  There were some amenities.  I did laundry.  I took advantage of the flush toilets. I took a couple of showers.  There were three showers in the men’s bathroom:  one was out of order, and another only had cold water.  I gave up being politically correct and took a quick, hot shower in the accessible stall on my last day.

I had a nice visit with my parents  We visited the newish Cedar Rapids City Market and also the Czech Museum.  I didn’t know it before, but I’m apparently part Czech on my Dad’s side.

One night, I dined on sauerbrauten at one of Amana’s German restaurants.  It was very flavorful, although it seemed a little mushy to me–just on the wrong side of tender.  Maybe that’s just because of the lengthy marination time.  I had a dunkel beer, which is a dark lager.  It confirmed for me that I like hoppy ales better than mild lagers.

After about a six-week trip, I’m almost home and will camp at Pike’s Peak State Park on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River for my last stop.  Callie and I are both ready to do some hiking, and the state park should have some good trails.

Iowa

I was born in Iowa, but I never really lived there.  My parents brought me home from the hospital and took me to their small trailer in a small trailer park in a small Iowa town.  Within a short period of time, my Dad got into Stanford to get his PhD in secondary education and we moved to Sunnyvale, California.

My parents both grew up in Iowa and met at the University of Iowa.  After retiring, they eventually moved back to Iowa.  I’ll be visiting with them in a couple of days.

When I was in high school, I spent summers in southwest Iowa, working on my uncle’s farm and getting into mischief with my same-age cousin, Tim.  We remain friends.  He’s a social worker-turned-truck-driver-for-the-money.

Tonight, I’m camped in south-east Iowa, a part of the state that I’ve never visited.  There are lakes, woods, hills–pretty much everything I like about Wisconsin.  Callie and I took a couple of loops hiking around the lake.  Then we drove to town where I had some difficulty finding a beer to buy that had any flavor.  Nothing local, but I did find a Deschutes Juicy IPA at the local Hyvee.

I’m having one of my favorite simple meals, prepared in the cast iron skillet:  a thin ribeye, sautéed mushrooms and spinach.

Here’s my campsite at Wilson Lake County Park ($20/night).

I have no plans to ever move to Iowa, but this is a nice, quiet campsite.

Babler State Park

During my last night at Caddo Lake State Park, there was a severe thunderstorm.  Not much wind but huge thunder that rattled my rib cage and sent Callie into a panic.  I let her up into my bed for awhile, but she jumped down.  Near as I can tell, she spent the night on top of the dinette table leaning into the window because the table was wet and her back was wet.  My windows don’t leak unless something presses against them during rain, and Callie apparently was leaning hard.

On a short night’s sleep, and continued rain, I decided to drive all day to from Texas across Arkansas and to Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  During the drive, I was listening to tunes via Spotify and feeling good.  Just about that the time that my mood was definitely  taking a turn for the better, a Wal-mart truck kicked up a pebble that deeply divoted my windshield with a horizontal crack from the divot. 

I was ticked, but what can you do?  About five minutes later, I came across a really bad recent two-car wreck on my side of the highway.  Things can always be worse.  Much worse.

In Cape Girardeau, I did my internet research and called around to find a campsite for the weekend.  Apparently, camping in Missouri is very popular in early May; everything was booked up.  There were some possible boondocking spots along the Mississippi River, but they were complicated by flash flooding with more expected rain on Friday night.  Some main roads were closed, and that means more minor roads to boondocking spots were suspect.

On Friday morning, I called a couple of state parks during my drive to see about openings.  Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial Park was one of the possibilities.  The woman answering the phone was super nice but they were full for the weekend.  She could try to radio the campground and see if there were any cancellations.  She didn’t call back for a long time, and by then I had crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois.  Then she called with possibly good news.  There was one electric site and one primitive site available, but they were first come, first serve.  She asked if I was feeling lucky.  I thanked her for her efforts, but  I was about an hour away, so I didn’t think I was going to risk it.  Plus, I hated the thought of backtracking.  On the other hand, Babler had great reviews online, and I didn’t have a clue where I was going to stay in my least favorite state–Illinois.

After I hung up, I decided to turn around and run for the Babler.  I turned the hour drive into a 40 minute drive.  As I got off the highway, I called to see if the sites were still available.  She said that as far as she knew, the electric one was, but I should skip the park office and drive directly to the campground and tell the host that I was there for the cancellation site.  When I arrived, the host wasn’t at the campground check-in and didn’t seem to be anywhere near the host trailer.  Breaking with campground etiquette, I knocked hard on the trailer door.  “Is anybody there?”

“No one’s here”, was the answer.  I don’t know if the hosts were saving the spot for friends or what, but they sheepishly emerged and said that the spot was mine since I was the first to arrive and that I could have it for up to four days.  I took three days, set up camp and began some serious relaxation time.

It’s been too wet to hike the trails, but Callie and I have hiked the 3.5 mile semi-paved trail at least a couple of times each day.

The park is named after a surgeon who lived from 1874 to 1930 and reportedly spent much of his time devoted to charity cases and the unfortunate.  He died of pneumonia at 55.

On Saturday morning, the sun broke through.  And the weather looks good for Sunday as well.  Monday morning, I’ll continue north.

Caddo Lake State Park

Caddo Lake State Park is about a four-hour drive northwest of Houston. The entry fee $4, and the camping fee was $15 (with electric).  Showers, dump station, and bathrooms are available.

When I left Northlake RV park north of Houston, I already was having a bad morning.  Somehow, I was showing very low readings on my voltage battery indicator, which did not predict a long future for an expensive gel battery that wasn’t that old.  Normally, I rely on solar to top off the battery, and I’ve never let the battery get below 50% until now.

I headed off to Harbor Freight and then Wal-Mart to find a battery charger that worked for gel batteries.  Then I rushed back to the rv park and charged the batteries up to 80% before leaving. Unfortunately, the batteries wouldn’t take any more charge than that.  I always used to get the charge levels to 13.0, but now I can only go to 12.8.  I think perhaps the polar vortex may have damaged my somewhat fragile gel batteries even though the charge levels stayed high throughout the cold.

Then I had another Brew Hut equipment failure.  I know I remembered to flip up my rear stabilizers, and I found them in the flipped up position when I arrived at the campsite.  However, the stabilizer jack pad on the right side was simply missing.  I flipped the stabilizer down, and there was no rod/pad to let down.  So I had to rig up a temporary solution to have support under the right rear of the Brew Hut.  It should get me home until I can order the part.

Last, to add insult to injury the band on my watch broke.  It was just one of those days.

Once we set up camp, Calle and I went for long walks to burn off energy and anxiety.

She’s sleeping, as I eat my leftovers meal of pan-fried steak burritos with rice, ny strip, jalapenos, tomato, onion, and cheese, washed down with St. Arnolds Art Car IPA (maybe more than one).

If I can avoid further equipment mishaps, I’m headed for Arkansas.