Out of Our Rut: West Bend Wisconsin

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We got lucky when we called our first choice for a campsite in West Bend and they had a site for us for the full 10 days we want to stay. Now that we know exactly where we are going, we can hitch up the Jeep and head out. The timing was good. A thunderstorm had rolled through the area earlier in the morning but was east of us now and the weather looked to be good for the drive.

It wasn't until we got on the outskirts of Milwaukee that we ran into a fair amount of traffic mainly due to construction. Generally I don't mind driving the motor home, but when the lanes are defined by Jersey barriers and traffic is weaving back and forth, a wide rig that's 57 feet long isn't all that much fun. But things got better as we headed north from there and soon the drive was back to normal.

Lake Lenwood Beach and Campground turned out to be very nice. Our specific site was a bit of a challenge to get the big rig into, but once there, it was nice. Here are a few shots from around Lake Lenwood.

From the beach area looking towards the campgrounds.

From the campground area at sunset.

Spike at your own risk!

Cannot say I have ever run across an all steel volley ball pole and net setup like this.

I guess if you break a bone, or get a concussion, you can be called for some sort of net interference.

Just seems to be a pretty severe penalty.

We decided that we had to do Wisconsin's oldest geocache. It is only about 12 "crow" miles from our camp. But we also wanted to do a cheese making tour. We found one in the general direction of the state park and headed there first. Widmer's Cheese Cellars was in a smaller building than I was imagining. When you walk in, there is a small (no more than 10 people) viewing area overlooking the cheese making equipment. The viewing area was nearly full of 4 older couples watching the video and the guys making the cheese.

We talked with one of the visitors and discovered they are a group of fellow RVers on a long trip from Sun City Arizona. We shared a few stories and they shared the large cheese sample tray that was brought out for them. After they left we watched the workers a little more and picked out a few different cheeses that we liked, then we left before the other half of their group showed up.

One tank was being emptied of curds while the second one was being cooked and mixed.

The geocache we wanted to do is in Pike Lake State Park. Unlike Illinois, Wisconsin charges for entry into it's parks. $11 per park, or $35 for an annual pass for non-residents. We decide that there will likely be other state parks we want to check out so we went with the later. The park ranger at the desk was nice and knew all about the geocaches in the park. He mentioned the one right outside the office, but I had already signed the log before going in.

We have managed to find the oldest active cache in 14 states so far. Not all of them have been in the nicest locations, but this one was at the top of one of the highest points in SE Wisconsin. Okay, maybe it's not much more than a hill but it was a nice trail up and there is even an observation tower at the top - one that Chris reluctantly climbed all the way to the top.

View from tower on top of Powder Hill

After enjoying hikes on a few more trails in the park, we decided to head to the town of Slinger. There are quite a few geocaches with a very high number of favorite points and we wanted to see why. Here are a few pictures of the fun we were greeted with. For those non-geocachers out there, the following caches are not the norm but do exist.