It has been a week since I last wrote, sorry to be such an absent author but it has been a whirlwind of a week. I will try to catch you up on all that has been happening. After we left the campground we wandered down to the town of Algoma. This has to be one of the nicest towns we have visited to date. It sits right on the shore of Lake Michigan and is a community very involved in the arts. We arrived as the town was setting up for some kind of summer festival. I took lots of pix for reference for future paintings and Carol wandered in and out of the many shops. Harper and I did do a bit of chatting with folks along the sidewalks.
EAA Museum in Oshkosh
From Algoma we started the drive to Jasons house in Sun Prairie. The route took us back through Green Bay which is a spectacular drive over high bridges and swooping highways - quite a difference from the back roads we had been traveling. We found a museum in Oshkosh that we wanted to visit: the EAA Museum. The EAA is the Experimental Aircraft Association’s museum of aircraft. We had a ball exploring all the aircraft they had there. Room after room opened up into such a great collection of aircraft, most experimental as they were either an actual experiment or first of a kind.
The EAA museum was just amazing, lots of planes!
They had replicas of the Wright flyer can other Wright models and Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. This is also the site of the annual Fly-In in Oshosh of all sorts of aircraft. We missed the fly-in by a couple of weeks and they were still cleaning up. We were told that they had over 600,000 attendees and were landing 124 planes an hour. For a few days it was the busiest airport in the world. We took the shuttle acrid the airstrip to the hangers and viewed even more planes. This was an awesome afternoon, made even better because they allowed Harper to be with us during our time there.
Carol checking out a replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, the first plane that crossed the Atlantic in a solo flight.
After we finished with the gift shop we made an afternoon picnic out in the parking lot and then continued our journey to Jason’s house. Since he lives in Sun Prairie and works for a company on Portland Oregon his timing of day is shifted by a couple of hours. He gets off work at 5 Portland time or 7 Wisconsin time so we planned our arrival for 7:00 - Jason was waiting for us on his porch.
Jason in his man cave, the garage, getting set up to watch the game. . .
It was so very good to see Jay, as we hadn’t seen him since last summer in Portland. Jason has just made the move to Sun Prairie a couple of months ago. He found the house online and worked it all out long distance. What a beautiful place he has. The house was originally built in 1915 by the town of Sun Prairie for the superintendent of schools. It is a very ‘arts and crafts’ structure and is absolutely magnificent home. The interior has all oak trim and ten foot ceilings, just spectacular. He also has a wonderful three car garage for his ‘toys’.
Jason’s house in the morning sun, what an awesome house.
That first evening we watched the Patriots play, and get beat by the Giants in the first preseason game of the year on Jasons HUGE screen in his garage. What a fun evening. The next day I got out early for a bike ride and rode the back roads around Sun Prairie and even found a coffee and muffin. Back at Jason’s we got things sorted out, as we had brought Jay lots of useful stuff from home to help him fill in all the nooks and crannies in his house. By early afternoon our daughter Megan, and her kids Ben and Grace arrived from New England. We had the whole family together for the first time is I don’t know how long. It is so good to be all together.
The view as we walked to the farmers market at the State House
Since then it has been a whirlwind of events and things to do. After an even of reunion we all turned to get some sleep before heading into Madison Saturday morning for the Farmers Market that takes place every Saturday on the grounds around the Wisconsin State House.. This was an amazing farmers market. The sheer numbers of vendors was way over the top. There were vendors of all sorts form the freshest vegetables to canned foods to honey and jams to original artwork and clothing. We all had a ball exploring and we tried to visit every vendor I think.
Carol, Harper and Megan checking out the market.
We came home fully stocked and Jay even go a new poster for his kitchen. Wisconsin is turning out to be just a fine place. We did more family things, more shopping and more eating. Sunday afternoon there was a race at the local race track, about one minute from Jason’s house. This happens every Sunday in Sun Prairie and had since 1903! The track at the Angell Park Speedway is a 1/3 mile dirt track and is primarily used by midget racers, the small, loud, open wheeled cars that are all roll cage. They are awesome to watch.
Midget racers at the speedway
hey also had a race of much larger cars, the style of which is unknown by me but we still enjoyed the evening. The cars kicked up a lot of dirt which filled the air and the noise was deafening, but it was an awesome evening anyway. Jason and Ben and I joined Jason’s friend Chris and his dad Roger at the track, Ben rode over to the track in Chris’s 1979 VW bus, he was in heaven.
The ladies were shopping in this store, Grace had a very good time in Madison.
Monday brought another round of exploring and we discovered downtown Sun Prairie. We also discovered a great little bike shop called Sun City Bikes - by the time I am writing this I think we have been to the bike shop at least three times, we all have t-shirts and stuff and Ben bought a bike frame for a project back home. We also discovered a t-shirt shop right next to the bike shop..can you imagine…oh well.
THE BACK OF THE SHOP WHERE BEN FOUND THE FRAME HE WAS LOOKING FOR.
Jason rented a pontoon boat on Lake Monona for four hours that afternoon, and we had a ball exploring the area and swimming off the boat.
Captain Jason on Lake Monona
We had an afternoon of wetness and fun.
Even Harper had a swim or two
It is really fun to swim in fresh water again. We had also packed a picnic lunch and added all together we had an absolutely perfect afternoon.
We explores down the river a ways and found another lake.
Madison from the water
It was another evening where we all turned in early as we were all exhausted from the days activities. In the past few days we have just been exploring the area and doing all of the Wisconsin things we can find to do..there has been a lot of cheese and corn involved.
The entire family made it to Trek.
Yesterday (as I write this) we visited the Trek factory in the neighboring town of Waterloo. I have been a big fan of Trek Bicycles since the late 1970’s when I had met some Trek folks at a bicycle expo at the Javitts’s Center in NYC. One of the things I had always wanted to do is visit their factory.
Reading some of the history of Trek
this is genuinely an American bicycle company and I have owned at least one Trek bicycle since the late 70’s. I currently own two and at the peak of cycling madness I think we had well over 10 Treks in the garage, so a visit to the factory is indeed a visit to the mothership. And as it happened, when Jason moved to Wisconsin, he moved 12 miles from the factory… And my Grandson Ben, who is also visiting here, now works at the local Trek shop in East Providence.
Ben at the mothership!
We felt we just had to do the tour. I had called to arrange a tour for Wednesday as their website said they had tours for the public at 10 every Wednesday. Apparently their website is not quite up to date. Since Covid they have not been giving tours. After leaving a message for Todd, I got a return call from Jason who was a real delight to chat with and he set up a special tour for us. When we arrived we were greeted by Joel who was our tour guide. Joel made us all feel as though we were a part of the family of Trek.
Where custom painted frames are assembled
We had a fantastic back door tour, getting a tour through many of the production and painting areas, and through the photo studio and the exercise room, the cafeteria and we got a complete history of Trek. As we were leaving Joel took down our contact information and t-shirt sizes..What a gracious guy, thanks Joel.
Jason signing the book, and including t-shirt sizes.
At Trek, Harper and the guys.
I am writing this on Thursday morning and the UPS lady just dropped off a box from Trek…amazing. We will open that in a minute. — We couldn’t wait and just opened it. I got a hat and everyone got T-shirts, special ones that only come from the factory. Joel even sent an extra small for Harper. It is still too big but Carol has some awesome sewing skills and says she will make it fit.
Maybe it’s a little big, but Mom fix it. . .
From the factory we took a five minute trip up the road to the ‘red barn’ where Trek originated in 1976 (I think) by two guys with a vision. I love ‘see American Dream’ stories. We were all so excited and I was so glad that Ben got to visit the factory, an experience that not all employees get to do.
The red barn where Trek started.
And the day was not over. We made our way into Madison again and toured the State House which is amazing and the Monona Terrace a convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright..it too was awesome.
Grace in the State House
And if that weren’t enough this was also the first day of ‘Corn Fest’ in Sun Prairie. The parade started at 6 pm, and we had staked out our seats along the route earlier in the day.
Jason and Ben staking out our place along the parade route.
Around 5:30 we all walked down to the parade route. The next couple of hours were right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Americana at it’s best.
Corn Fest Parade …YAY!
The whole town turned out. There were the firetrucks of course and marching bands and dancing classes and even the 4-H, just awesome and as they passed they tossed candy and such to the crowds along the sides of the road.
Grace had a ball at the parade.
I ate a lot of Tootsie Rolls…. Today, well here I am writing and Jason has mown the lawn so it is just a lazy day and maybe I can pump this out by day’s end.
Now that’s a happy grand daughter.
Below is a gallery of images in no particular order, but if you have read the blog most of them shouod make sense. You must remember that I really write this to soothe my own ego. . .
