From Weird to Weirder!

Good evening!  After 650 miles of riding shotgun Becky is wiped so you're stuck with guest blogger Steve tonight!  

Today started before sunrise with a quick breakfast from a local cafe in Elkhart, IN.  We inhaled our food in the parking lot of a small local museum.  In the fenced-in courtyard of this museum sits the Elkhart Tooth Brick, a brick comprised of thousands of preserved human teeth mortared together over the 40+ year career of a local dentist.  Apparently adding new teeth on occasion was quite the event for local children.  To quote Becky's uncle, "Gross!".  We had to sneak pics of the brick over and through the fence, so apologies for fuzzy pictures!  

This thing bites!  

After a long-haul drive through rainy, cloudy Chicago we found ourselves in Madison, Wisconsin.  I'll let the plaque in the pic do the talking, but I think this is the closest we've ever come to walking in Elvis' shoes, albeit without the bravado to end a physical altercation.

If the tooth brick wasn't enough to weird you out our next stop may do the trick.  About 60 miles north of Madison is the small community of Plainfield.  In their local cemetery lies the (now) unmarked grave of Ed Gein.  Don't Google him before bed.  You will not sleep.  His exploits are even more gruesome than those of his Alfred Hitchcock-created protege: Norman Bates, or another Hollywood favorite: Leatherface.  

Brother on one side, mother on the other

A slightly tamer stop awaited us in Wausau and Atlas, WI.  We can now claim membership in the "45 x 90 Club"!  We stood on a point exactly halfway between the North Pole and the Equator and one-quarter of the way around the world from Greenwich, England.  We even have the coin to prove it!

We're in the club!

We booked it from the 45 x 90 point to our favorite stop of the trip so far:  Jurustic Park!  Jurustic Park is one man's 27+ year quest to re-create "ancient creatures from the local marshes" out of scrap metal.  This guy's a stitch!  First, walking onto his property is like walking into a fantasy land.  His creativity and humor are on display as hundreds and hundreds of whimsical steel creatures greet you.  Many move through strings and springs and many "sing" when struck with whatever is sitting around.  Clyde, the 86-year old proprietor, has tongue-in-cheek stories for every piece.  He sells some small pieces so we have a mosquito coming back to Maryland.  His wife also has a creative streak and makes glass pieces in her own "hobbit house" workshop.  Together they put on quite a show and is well worth the stop!  

Our next stop was in Neillsville.  Atlas Obscura calls out three stops in this small town.  Chatty Belle, the world's largest talking cow, shares a parking lot with Wisconsin's pavilion from the 1964 World's Fair.  Today the pavilion serves as a small tourist trap and the local radio station.  Up the road is the Silverdome dance hall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.  It's only open for special events so a couple outside pictures are all we could grab.  

After a quick stop at a local brewery to grab some beers we ended the day at a giant Paul Bunyan statue outside the Wisconsin Logging Museum.  Unfortunately the museum is closed due to Covid so we'll have to check it out the next time we're in Eau Claire, WI, but we got our picture in the meantime.  

We're back at the hotel eating dinner, having another Covid-style beer in small glasses session, and reviewing plans for tomorrow.  The further west we get the BIGGER our stops will become.  We have two more days of Atlas Obscura-inspired stops before we hit the breaks and spend a few days in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  This guest blogger is off to bed...after I finish a scotch ale.  

See you tomorrow!

-Steve

Remember Us??

 Wow - we're coming up on almost a year since the last blog post we did!  A pandemic will do that though.  What a crazy year, right?  I guess let's get it out of the way that we had some big plans for travel in 2020 that included celebrating my in-laws' 50th anniversary in Colorado.  We were also originally planning to go to the New England area in late September so we could see some beautiful fall colors and so Acadia National Park could be our 300th park.  Well as we all know, COVID ruined all those plans.  On the bright side, we were able to go to Michigan to celebrate the milestone anniversary with Steve's parents.  The Michigan road trip gave us a sense of what traveling would be like, so we decided to still try to find somewhere to go that allowed us to do everything outside and be socially distant.  We think we have a winner with this trip.  The marquee park on this trip will be Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  This isn't a very heavily traveled park and it's after school has started, so crowds should be lighter anyway.  Unfortunately we won't be hitting our 300th park this year, but we are thankful we were able to figure out a way to safely get away.

So, let's get on with this trip!  Before our Michigan trip in August, we discovered two websites that have been so much fun:  www.atlasobscura.com and www.roadsideamerica.com.  These sites are fantastic!  They are basically an encyclopedia of all the weird and/or intriguing stuff that are worth a detour or a quick stop during a road trip.  We've been focusing on outdoor stuff for this trip so that we are safer than being indoors, but there are a lot of museums that are listed on these sites that sound awesome too.  We're keeping those in mind for future trips!

Today's trip started with a stop at James Buchanan's birthplace in Fort Loudon, PA.  A stone pyramid has since been built on the site as a monument for where his homestead was.  This is located in a state park that seemed really quiet and pretty.  We only went to the pyramid though because we had a long drive ahead of us today.

James Buchanan Pyramid

The next stop was to see the Optimus Prime sculpture that "guards" a business in Pennsylvania.  We grabbed the picture as we drove by, so it was a very quick "stop."

Optimus Prime

The third stop of the day was a good one for us to stretch our legs for a bit.  We stopped at Gardenview Horticultural Park in Ohio.  We spent about an hour walking through the beautiful garden.  I was surprised that there were still a good amount of blooming flowers.  I bet the place is stunning in the spring, so I would love to go back some day!

This was the size of a dinner plate!

We tried to see a giant soup can at the Campbell's factory in Ohio, but construction kept us from actually seeing it.  :-(  Instead, we were trying to hurry over to Mottville, MI to have enough daylight to see the longest camel-back bridge in Michigan.  We were glad we made it because it was pretty cool to see!

Beer in small glasses is much different during COVID times.  Basically we plan to stop at breweries along the way that are selling cans of their brews.  We then take them back to the hotel and drink the small glasses there.  We didn't stop at a brewery tonight, but we did find the best store ever:  Meijer!  So we stopped there to pick up some local beers and Oktoberfest beers.  Tonight's samples shown below.

Founders Imperial Brown & Founders Oktoberfest - both were ok.

Thanks again for following along!  Tomorrow's adventures are going to be so much fun, so stay tuned for another blog post tomorrow evening.

Guest Blogger Part 2!

A day full of forts and battlefields means one thing...guest blogger Steve is here!  After one fort and two battlefields in one day Becky is not feeling post writing tonight so y'all are stuck with me!

We started the morning in Fort Scott, KS.  We tracked down the local donut shop for breakfast and Daylight Donuts did not disappoint.  All sugared up we hit Fort Scott NHS just as it opened.  Fort Scott was built in the 1840s when the Kansas/Missouri border was considered the end of the USA and the start of the "frontier".  That all changed in 1849 with the discovery of gold in California.  The fort was closed in the 1850s and sold to the town only to be reopened in the Civil War for use as a hospital and supply depot and closed again in 1865.  The fort itself is mostly replicas and demonstrate well life for frontier soldiers in the mid-1800s.  The standout was an officers' quarters building that is original and has been used as a children's home and municipal building before coming to the NPS in the 1970s.  NPS has left parts of the building in varying conditions to show all aspects of its life.  It's an incredible tour through history!

After Fort Scott we headed to George Washington Carver NM in Missouri.  Even after seeing the Carver museum in Tuskegee, AL, we enjoyed the NPS museum at this site.  There is also a 3/4-mile trail at the park that includes GWC's birth site, the original cabin of his owners when he was a slave, and multiple memorial statues.  The trail itself winds through forests, streams, and ponds that were all familiar to GWC as a boy.  Given the beautiful weather it offered a chance for rest and contemplation.  All in all a very well-deigned NPS site!

GWC as a boy. 

Battlefield time!  Our third park of the day was Pea Ridge NMP in Arkansas (scratch off another new state for both us!).  Pea Ridge was a decisive Union victory in 1862 that kept large scale Confederate presence in Missouri non-existent.  A nine-mile driving tour of the battlefield provided a quality overview of the battle.  The most stunning stop was a high overlook from a mountain that provided perspective for the sheer size of the battle.  This battle included one of the largest mass charges of the Civil War.  Over 10,000 Union soldiers amassed shoulder-to-shoulder for almost one mile before simultaneously charging the Confederate lines.  And we got to visit with a husky puppy, so that was cool, too.

The Union charge came from this field towards our vantage point.  

Our ruthless park efficiency carried us through the day as we found ourselves with enough time to book our way back into Missouri and get to Wilsons Creek NB before the visitor center closed.  We were able to watch the diorama about the battle before completing the driving tour.  The tour road itself was open until 7:00 PM and we were surprised at how many people were taking advantage of the beautiful weather to enjoy an evening in the park.  This battle was nowhere near the scale of Pea Ridge, but gave the USA and CSA a second taste of the horror to come in the Civil War after Bull Run.  More scenic hikes gave way to a setting sun and growling stomachs as we made our way to Springfield, MO.

Marker at the site of Gen. Lyon's death.  He was the first USA general killed in the Civil War.  

Dinner tonight was at Bricktown Brewing.  We understand they are a chain, but the beer and food were both great.  We capped off the meal at Andy's frozen custard.  It gives Captain Sundae in Holland, MI, a run for its money.

Tomorrow brings lunch with a family friend and a return flight home.  After Wilsons Creek NB we are 2/3rds of the way through all 419 NPS sites!  Becky will be back next time, unless I torture her with more battlefields.  Stamps like Champs!!!!

The "S" Stands for Stamps

Welcome back to our adventures!  Steve and I are taking an extended weekend in the Kansas City area to get to a few parks.  This morning, we started our day with Harry S. Truman's home (Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, and this is the "S" I'm referencing in tonight's blog title).  This is a National Park Service hidden gem, because as the ranger on our tour put it this morning, the home and its contents are "100% intact."  Basically when Mr. and Mrs. Truman passed away, their daughter Margaret went through and took the sentimental items for herself, but left everything else to the park service and she even helped design the tour layout.  The house is literally left like the Trumans just ran out for some errands.  Because everything is original in the house, they do not allow pictures inside of the home.  The ranger made us turn off our cell phones too!  A couple fun things we saw in the house were two house plants that have been kept alive since the Trumans lived there, and Harry's Stetson hat (and cane and overcoat).  This was so neat to see so many original items in the house that belonged to the Trumans - typically in these house tours, it's only an item here and there that is original to the family.  This was a real treat to see it exactly as they left it!

Harry & Bess Truman's wedding picture

The church where the Trumans were married.

Truman Home

Our last park of the day was Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.  Steve and I were both looking forward to this park because it was our only shot at seeing wildlife on this trip (the rest of the trip is basically battlefields and we all know how I feel about those).  Tallgrass has about 40 miles of hiking trails, and a free-range bison herd.  There is a bus tour offered twice a day that we learned fills up very quickly with a waiting list.  So we had to do the hiking if we wanted to see anything, which isn't the worst thing in the world.  It turns out that the bison herd is actually penned up for the time being while the NPS counts and vaccinates them.  So we were able to walk to the outskirts of the pasture where we watched the bison hoping they'd get closer for some better pictures for us.  They felt like being lazy instead.  Oh well, it was still cool to see!  We also took time to check out the ranch house and the barn on the park property too.

We take a picture of all the entrance signs to a park - this is one of the prettier ones. 

Part of the bison herd, and that's basically the scenery from the prairie too.

Buddy the Bison

It was just a tad windy today.

The Ranch house

We hit two breweries today, too.  For lunch, we went to Radius Brewing in Emporia, KS.  This was delicious, and had one of our favorite sampler presentations!  After dinner in Fort Scott, KS, we went to Boiler Room Brewhouse, which was okay.

Radius Brewing Sampler

Dearly Beloved...

...We have gathered here today to get through this thing called life.

Okay, the Prince quote will make sense at the end of the blog.  I'm sitting at the airport with nothing to do, so I figured I might as well blog about the rest of the trip.  So here it goes...

Our last morning in Voyageurs was spent kayaking on Lake Kabetogama.  We rented a tandem kayak from Northern Lights Resort and we had big plans of kayaking to the Rock Garden, which is a 4-mile kayak ride one-way.  As soon as we saw the water, we knew that wasn't going to happen at all.  It wasn't as windy as the day before, but it was still breezy.  When we got on the water, it was a tough workout.  We spent an hour in the little bay we were in and then called that done.  If you want to see Voyageurs from the water, wait for the National Park tour boats to start up - it's a lot easier that way!  We were one week too early for that.  We kept the day pretty easy after that because we had a long drive to Grand Marais where we were staying for the night.

Kayaking in Lake Kabetogama

Me constantly looking for Bald Eagles - Steve wasn't too mad about my lack of paddling.  ;-)

This needs to go viral.

The next day, we drove to Grand Portage National Monument.  This was a very well-done park!  They had to rebuild the Great Hall because it burned down at one point.  But with the new building, they've transformed it into a really cool museum about the fur trade and what it would have been like at Grand Portage in the 1800's.  Another fun fact about this park is that on a clear day, you can see Isle Royale across Lake Superior.  Had I known that it would have been a shorter (and likely more calm) boat ride from Grand Portage, I probably would have skipped the boat ride we took a few years ago from Michigan since everyone on that boat ride got sick!  We spoke with a couple people at Voyageurs who had been to Isle Royale and they all had similar stories about the lake not being very friendly.

In between the two land masses is an island in the distance - that would be Isle Royale NP

Great Hall at Grand Portage NM

After we finished up at Grand Portage National Monument, we went to Grand Portage State Park which had a pretty quick hike to High Falls - the tallest in Minnesota.  We were pretty impressed with the falls!  They are 100 - 130 feet tall - for some reason they weren't sure exactly how tall.  We continued with more hiking in a different state park to see Cascade Falls and Devil's Kettle.  Devil's Kettle is another waterfall that sits higher than Cascade, and 1/2 of the flow disappears - no one knows where it goes!  This is a pretty steep hike, about a mile one-way, and includes 176 steps.

High Falls

Devil's Kettle

Cascade Falls

Our last park was Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.  We did the Grand Tour on the boat which takes you out to Devil's Island (if Lake Superior and the weather cooperate, which it did) and back.  The narration includes fun facts about each of the islands you see on the tour.  The highlight, in my opinion, was Devil's Island - that's where some of the sea caves were and it just provided some fun scenery to look at.

Boat selfie - it was chilly!

Bald Eagle!

Devil's Island Lighthouse and some of the sea caves (the one on the left looks like a skull to me).

More of Devil's Island

Raspberry Island lighthouse

Today was our last day of vacation and since we had to get to the airport, we only had time to grab a quick tour of Paisley Park which is where Prince's recording studio is (and at one point he lived there).  Now the title of the blog should make sense!  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside, but this was a pretty neat tour.  I expected a lot more purple, but surprisingly there was only a tasteful amount.  We did the cheapest tour, but there is a VIP option which will show you more rooms.  We saw the atrium, Prince's office, rooms dedicated to specific albums/movies, a couple recording studios, and the soundstage.  And that's a wrap for this trip!

Paisley Park