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After spending 37 nights in Michigan, we headed south from the Upper Peninsula into Wisconsin. Our main goal is to attend the Oshkosh Air Show but it doesn’t start for a full week. In planning for the event, we had done a lot of research - reading blogs, watching YouTube videos and even talking with people that have done the show in past years. We knew that show runs from Monday July 21 through Sunday July 27. Camping is in a huge field with thousands of other RVs and tents with no hookups other than a dump station. It sounded like there was no need to actually register for camping in advance but it would be better to come in a few days prior to the start to avoid some of the more significant traffic. The other thing we needed to be cognizant of is that since the camping area is simply a 200 plus acre field, rain could have a huge impact on parking a 33,000 pound rig and not getting stuck either coming in or leaving.
To deal with the weather uncertainty, we plan to stop first at the Sheboygan Elks Lodge to allow for some flexibility with our arrival in Oshkosh which is less than 60 miles from the lodge. It is around 170 miles from Iron Mountain and we manage to make a stop at Bass Pro Shop in Green Bay to allow Chris a chance to get better walking shoes since we know there will a lot of walking at the air show. We arrive at the lodge and manage to park near the one 50 amp outlet they offer to traveling Elk prior to the lot getting quite full for an after golf party. The extended weather forecast called for rain on Wednesday so we think it might be safe to arrive at Oshkosh on Friday hoping to beat some of the weekend traffic but allowing the fields to dry a bit. That means we have 4 nights to kill in the Sheboygan area - 3 at the lodge and one at a private campground to allow us to get our holding tanks ready for our planned 10 nights of boondocking at the show.
One of the activities we wanted to do while in Sheboygan was to take the Kohler plant tour. The 3 hour tour is free but does require an advance registration. We managed to get in on the Tuesday morning tour which meets bright and early at the Kohler Design Center in the town of Kohler just a few miles west of Sheboygan. As we drive in, it is clear this town is a bit different than most. It was founded in 1900 to be model company town. The company still has strict guidelines about home design, so even though the place is over a century old, there is a quirky charm to the village.
We arrive and meet the tour guide as well as the eight or so others on the tour today. Unfortunately there is a no photography policy so I only have pictures from outside the gate of the several hundred acre plant. We are provided headsets so that we can hear our guide as we move from one location to another.
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| Courtyard Outside Kohler Plant |
The tour started in the pottery area where the china sinks and toilets are made. There wasn’t a lot taking place in this area today since the process of casting the products requires time for them to set up prior to firing them in the huge kilns. There were huge racks of different designs waiting for the next step. We spent a great deal of time exploring the vast building and learned all about the process.
One aspect about Kohler that comes across quite clearly is their commitment to artistic expression. They have an arts residency program that brings in several artists at a time for a few months. It sounds like a very competitive program to get accepted into but once the artist is accepted, they get to work on very unique pieces of art while learning from workers about the various manufacturing techniques. We got a chance to meet with a few of the current artists while they were working on their creations. We also had a talk from the Kohler worker that interfaces with the artists and the manufacturing areas. He may get a sculptor that has an idea for something but needs to learn not to make sand molds to be used in the foundry which is where we head next.
There was a great deal going on inside the huge foundry building. We learned all about the forms and molds that are needed to pour the molten iron into in order to create a tub or sink. We got lucky enough to watch them actually pour some of the red hot metal. At times, the whole floor would shake from the vibrations of the equipment. The last stop was to see how the glaze is applied and baked onto the pieces. A worker would use large dolly to remove the piece from the furnace while a coworker with heat resistant clothing would sprinkle the powder onto the item before it was placed back in the furnace for final baking. The 3 hours seemed to go pretty quickly and before we knew it we were back in the design center. If you ever are in this part of Wisconsin, we highly recommend taking this tour.
The design center has all sorts of Kohler products on display and lots of employees able to help with a kitchen or bath design. There is also a lower level that has many displays from Kohler over the years since it was founded back in 1873. It was a fun place to spend a bit more time learning even more about the company.
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| Tubs, Sinks and Toilets from 1883-1920 |
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| 1926 Electric Sink |
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| Old Kohler Generator |
After lunch, we head back to the part of town that Chris grew up in. We stop at the small neighborhood park and wander around Indian Mound Park. We had previously visited the area back in 2016 but this time we decided to walk the neighborhood streets instead of driving them. People are less suspicious of people walking than slowly driving by like we are casing their home. It also helped that it was Tuesday afternoon and not many people were home. This time Chris was able to identify her old house from her childhood. I spotted the sign on the home’s front porch that read “Come Sit on My Porch”. There were a couple of chairs and we really debated about taking them up on the offer but decided not to press our luck in case a nosey neighbor of Ring doorbell turned us in to the police.
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| Indian Mound Park |
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| Chris' Old House |
Next we drove over to the nearby James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden. There were a few geocaches with trails and a wide variety of sculptures on the grounds. At first, I was surprised that Chris didn’t know about this place since it was close to her home and has some cool sculptures. But the signs at the entrance that this area didn’t become a park until 2000 - well after Chris lived here.
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| Man on Horse |
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| Splitting Logs |
There are trails meandering through the property past many dozens of unique sculptures made mainly from concrete. The guy definitely was very creative and we enjoyed walking around.
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| Gnomes at Play |
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| Lots of Stonework |
Just a few blocks from this park is a road that heads east to Lake Michigan. Chris remembers coming here as a kid. Today the signs make it sound like the shoreline to the north and south are private property so we just take a quick look at the lake before heading back to the Elks Lodge.
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| Shore of Lake Michigan |
I took advantage of one more day in Sheboygan to take the Jeep in for an oil change. They couldn’t get me in right away but could do so in a couple of hours. I use the time to head out for a geocache in a nearby county and in the process, I discovered the Johnsonville Sausage plant. They have a beautiful headquarters building next to the plant and a great retail store across the street. I felt obligated to stop and check it out. After wandering around inside, I realized that Chris needs to visit the place as well so we would come back tomorrow and pick up some brats.
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| BRAT Statue |
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| Johnsonville Marketplace |
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| Beautiful Johnsonville Headquarters |
Our 3 nights at the Sheboygan lodge went by quickly. We had reserved a site at Sundance Farm Campground only 15 miles to the west. Our goal wasn’t just to get closer to Oshkosh but have the ability to fill up our fresh tank and dump our holding tanks so we are prepared for boondocking for 10 nights. Since check-in wasn’t until afternoon, we headed back to the Johnsonville store and have lunch before driving to Plymouth Wisconsin.
Chris planned to catch up on laundry so I took advantage of the nice afternoon to go grab some caches in a few counties to the west. It was a nice day and while I didn’t think I had driven that far from camp only driving 20 miles this way and 25 miles that way. By the time I had gotten my 4th county and put the campground into the GPS, I discovered I had a 70 minute drive. At least it was a very pretty area of the state.
The drive from Plymouth to Oshkosh was about 50 miles so we were able to arrive late Friday morning. Coming up Interstate 41 just a few miles prior to exiting for Camp Scholler, the name of the air show campground, there was a large section of a truck tire from an earlier blowout that was in the middle of my lane and traffic didn’t give me the opportunity to avoid it. When we pulled into the campground entrance, one of the volunteers checking campers in mentioned that my rear full width mud flap was dragging on one side. I got out to discover that the tire debris had ripped out one of the two mounting brackets. Fortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic coming in at the time so I was able to get out my tools and remove the damaged part while Chris was registering.
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| Camp Scholler at Oshkosh |
We were warned that the rain two days ago had made some of the areas of the field rather soft and suggested that we park the rig off to the side and drive the car into the area to scope out a location that might work for us. We drove around and found a spot that was off one of the more substantial roads that also appeared to be fairly firm. So I headed back to get the motorhome and claim our spot. The spot we picked was a little soft but I didn’t have any issues sinking in. We did place our leveling boards down and backed onto them to help get out if it rains while we are parked here.
Since the show doesn’t officially open until Monday, we have two full days to get out and explore the Oshkosh area. Our plan for Saturday was to drive around and find some geocaches in a few nearby Wisconsin counties. We had picked one stop based on its high number of favorite points. From the sounds of it, the cache is located near a small country hardware store that has a large number of oddball sculptures on the property. It sounded quirky enough to be worth a visit and as we pulled into the parking lot, we knew this was going to be a fun stop.
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| King Kong Greets Us |
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| Bald Eagle |
To find the cache, we needed to solve a puzzle. But the puzzle was to simply find an old rusty Ford pickup truck. So we start to work our way around the large property taking in the unusual pieces of art. Many of them are quite large and must have taken a large amount of time and effort to create and install.
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| Huge Cow |
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| Old Motorcycle Rider |
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| The Whole World in His Hands |
There was no consistent theme or style from piece to piece. Some appeared to be fiberglass while others were metal. One was an octagonal building with windows all around while the Blues Brothers were performing a song. On part of the grounds had a large number of animals.
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| The Blues Brothers |
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| Hungry Hungry Hippo |
We eventually spotted a suspicious pickup truck and found the hidden container not far away just like the cache description explained. The hide was nothing special however where it brought us was very fun. Another place we would never had found if not for a geocache.
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| Zebra? |
Another stop was in the town of Fremont Wisconsin. We had an Adventure Lab that toured us around town. During our walk, we stumbled upon another water ski team location. Having just experienced our first ski show about a week ago, we were thinking it might be fun to watch this group perform. Unfortunately they were not going to have their normal weekly shows since they were at the same state championship event the other team was heading to.
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| Wolf River in Freemont WI |
For Sunday, we decide to stay in the Oshkosh area and see some local attractions. The Menominee Park Zoo is a small city zoo that is free to the public. The zoo takes up about half of the 8 acre park.
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| Menominee Park Zoo |
As we head in, we hear a wolf howling so we head that direction. Sure enough one of the enclosures has two wolves. Initially one is standing near the fence howling but it wanders over to the rock pile to find its partner.
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| Howling Wolf |
The black bear was very active and entertaining. It was near the fence playing with a ball. It was pretty good at ball handling and would alternate between using its front and rear legs as it laid on the ground almost like it was trying to juggle the ball.
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| Playful Bear |
When we first stopped at the elk enclosure, they were at the far end with most of them laying in the shade of some trees. But several minutes later, they had been moved out of the area and some staff were inside putting out new hay. As soon as the workers were out of the pen, the half dozen elk were allowed back in and they made a quick trot over to the food.
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| Elk Investigate New Food |
The bald eagle at this zoo is like many in captivity. It had been injured and would not be able to survive in the wild. This one was fairly active too.
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| Real Bald Eagle |
Not all of the animals were out. We didn’t spot the otters and the fox was asleep inside a large hollow log nearly hidden from view. We had better luck with the domestic farm animals.
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| Turkey |
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| Burro |
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| Alpaca |
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| Goats |
We were able to cover the whole zoo in just over an hour. The rest of the park was one interesting wherigo cache hidden in the park. It had us going all over Menominee Park.
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| Fountains in Pond |
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| Colorful Lion |
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| Chief Oshkosh |
We eventually solved the puzzle and found the big tree where the container was to be hidden but it was nowhere to be found. The train that runs around the park grounds did seem to be a popular attraction - especially for kids.
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| Train in Menominee Park |
Wandering around the zoo and the park had brought us to lunchtime. We had a recommendation to try out a dive bar called “Pete’s Garage”. They don’t have an extensive menu but have been rated as having the best burgers in town. They are also known for their poor service and bad attitude. When we walked in, the place definitely had the dive bar feel. It was rather busy but fortunately there was an open table. There is no hostess to seat us or even a waitress to take our order. Our table has a printed out sheet explaining the rules for sitting at a table and how to order food and drinks. We look over the menu and Chris heads up to the bar to place our order. She comes back with out beers and occasionally someone at the bar hollers out to the crowd that an order is up and sitting at the bar. It’s our responsibility to pay attention for our order so it doesn’t get cold or stolen. The burger was delicious but the fried cheese curds were incredible!
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| Pete's Garage |
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| Fried Cheese Curds |
After lunch we drive out to Waukau Creek Nature Preserve west of Oshkosh. There is a one mile loop through the woods so it wasn’t a true hiking destination. However there is a geocache here that was hidden way back in November of 2001. We like to find these really old caches so that’s the real reason for coming here. We starter out on the loop in the direction of the cache. We didn’t make it more than quarter mile before the trail became very narrow with tall weeds making it feel more like a jungle bushwhack. Chris decided she wasn’t that interested in continuing so she took the car keys and headed back, I continued on and the overgrown section was actually only a few hundred feet long and then returned to a decent trail.
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| Waukau Creek Nature Preserve |
The bigger problem was that the cache was an almost a tenth mile off the main trail and by then the mosquitoes had located me. It took me some time to get to ground zero and a few more minutes to locate the ammo can. By then, I had donated a lot of blood to the little suckers. As soon as I found it, I signed in and hustled back to the car. Mission accomplished.
When we got back to Camp Scholler, the traffic had increased dramatically and the fields around us were definitely filing in. Another class A motorhome had backed into the spot right next to us which made for tight quarters but we hadn’t staked out a sitting area like many other had done, so I guess they assumed since they fit, they could squeeze in.
I got on the bike and went around some of the perimeter of the air show just to get a sense for how big the place is. One section near the runway, visible from the fence line, had hundreds of small airplanes parked in the grass with tents pitched right next to the wing. I found it amazing just how many people fly in for this event. Personally I prefer our accommodations to theirs.
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| Airshow Visitors That Flew In |
While the air show doesn’t open until Monday morning, they did offer a few talks at one of the large covered venues on Sunday evening. We put on our wrist badges that get us into the show all week long and head down to the bus stop that was only a few hundred feet away from our spot. There was a pretty good crowd of people heading into the event when the bus stopped at one of the main gates. It took a bit of wandering before we located the Theater in the Woods for the presentations. There were 3 different presenters. One pilot that has been flying acrobatic planes for air shows for decades talked about how he got into the profession and some of his close calls. Another pilot that used to fly new Cessna airplanes from the USA to Australia for delivery. She talked about how the planes needed special fuel tanks added to permit up to 2600 mile flights between small islands in the Pacific. On one such flight, she experienced engine failure and needed to ditch the plane in the ocean. Since she was giving the talk, it’s not a spoiler to say she survived. By the time the 3rd presenter started, we had gotten our fill of aviation stories knowing that we have a full week of planes coming up.
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| Big M&M Pilot |
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| Cessna Delivery Route |
