Sep 6, Monday
High Cliff State Park
We arrived at High Cliff State Park around 1 pm and had Site #82. We had to get water at the dump station before proceeding to our site. The campground was heavily forested and near a cliff, but we were quite far from it.
After set up, we went to the picnic area in the park for lunch. It was near the lake, so we found a picnic table overlooking the lake and the beach. We walked down to the beach afterward, which was dirty. A couple of people were sitting on the beach, but it was too cool and windy for swimming.
Little Chute
After lunch, we headed north to explore the area. As we were driving, we spotted the Little Chute Windmill above the buildings and decided to stop. The working windmill is an authentic 1850s design based on similar mills from the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands, the home province of many of the first Dutch settlers. It was built in the Netherlands and assembled in Little Chute to honor the area’s Dutch heritage. Though the windmill and the adjoining museum were closed, we still enjoyed walking around the grounds.
Seymour
We were getting hungry, so we continued north to Seymour, the self-proclaimed capital of the hamburger. Several towns claim this title, but Seymour’s claim rests with “Hamburger Charlie” Nagreen, who claimed to have invented the sandwich (and coined its name) in Seymour in 1885. The story goes that he was a meatball vendor at the fair, and after not experiencing much success selling the meatballs, he realized people could take the meatball with them if he simply smashed the meat together between two pieces of bread. Since ground-up beefsteak was a popular food item for the German immigrants in the area, he named his creation the “hamburger” after the German city of Hamburg, where it was commonly consumed.
In the middle of town was a 12-foot statue of Charlie. Across the street stands a 5000-pound grill that cooked The World’s Largest Hamburger in 2001. The hamburger weighed over four tons and fed 13,000 people. Atop it sits a giant “hamburger” that is, in fact, a cheeseburger. Seymour also has a history museum with the world’s largest collection of hamburger-related items, but it is only open on weekends.
Of course, we needed to find the highest-rated hamburger restaurant in Seymour for lunch. It was a very small town, and there weren’t many choices, but we ended up choosing Petticoat Junction, which was highly rated. There, we enjoyed some good burgers and a beer before heading back.
Fox River
As we were crossing the Fox River in Kaukauna, we saw the water was very turbulent, so we stopped to check it out. When we pulled over and stopped in a parking area below the bridge, we saw the Kaukauna Lock and Dam releasing much water. The underbridge was very creepy, though, because it was covered with spider webs. We decided to go across the bridge to the library, which looked like it had a better view of the river.
Kaukauna Locks
After we left the library, we continued up the river a short distance to look at the locks. Though no longer an important river route, these historic locks had been closed for 35 years and recently restored and open for operation only this year. These locks were built to overcome the 50-foot drop in the river.
We stopped between locks #2 and #3 in a parking lot in front of a warehouse to look at the locks. They were not a pretty sight as they were full of algae and looked in rough shape.
As we continued to drive up the river, we passed a display showing a cross-section of a tree labeled “The Big One.” This Douglas fir was cut down after standing for 586 years. The fir grew to a considerable circumference of 34 feet 8 inches, a dilatant diameter of almost 13 feet, and a head-spinning height of 238 feet. The fir is believed to have come from Tacoma, Washington, and was on display at the entrance to the Menasha Corporation in Wisconsin until 1969. Not long after, the Army Corp of Engineers transported the tree north by barge along the Fox River to its current home, Kaukauna Lock #4.
Across the street, we found a historical marker marking the first recorded sale of land in the state of Wisconsin in 1793 by Dominique DuCharme. He purchased land from the Chippewa and Menominee nations in 1790, built a log cabin, and opened a trading post. Soon after, the riverfront became a major outpost for the fur trading business, and Kaukauna became one of the first settlements in Wisconsin. At this same location was the 1837 Grignon Mansion, a restored mansion from the time when the Fox River was an important fur trade route.
Road construction kept us from going any further downstream.
Little Chute Lock and Dam
Since we could no longer go upstream, we decided to drive downstream. We eventually stopped at the Little Chute Lock and Dam. We enjoyed the views from the nice park on the island between the lock and the river.
High Cliff State Park
It started getting dark before we got back to the Park. We stopped at the Park marina to watch the sunset before returning to the campground. The dense tree coverage made it dark at the campground.
Sep 7, Tuesday
Today, we decided to head east and visit attractions along Lake Michigan’s shore.
Henning’s Wisconsin Cheese Factory and Store
We left around 9 am and headed toward Sheboygan. We stopped at Henning’s Wisconsin Cheese Factory and Store along the way. The store has a cheese museum in the back where you can see vintage cheese-making equipment and Cheddar and String cheese-making videos. There are also large viewing windows into the factory where we could see the cheese curds being made. The store had cheese and other milk products from all over Wisconsin and wine. They offered wine tastings, and though it was still morning, we couldn’t say no. We tried the Hay-Baby Green Apple Fruit Wine, Door Peninsula Winery Mead, and some grape wine with cherry flavor from Cedar Creek Winery. As we got ready to leave, it started raining heavily.
James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden
We continued through the rain to Sheboygan, hoping to see the James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden. The garden consisted of thirty realistic often whimsical, concrete statues surrounding his family’s summer cottage. Unfortunately, when we got to the address, I could not find the garden because of the heavy woods and no signs were pointing to it. We also did not have any cell phone coverage, so we were unable to research more specific directions. We did find one sculpture that looked like it might be part of the garden. In later research, I found that we were very close. Drats!
Red Arrow Park
From there, we headed north. Just south of Manitowoc, we stopped at Red Arrow Park for lunch. The park is named after the soldiers of the 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, which was formed from Army National Guard units from Wisconsin and Michigan and fought primarily during World War I and World War II. With roots as the Iron Brigade in the American Civil War, the division’s ancestral units came to be referred to as the Iron Jaw Division. During tough combat in France in World War I, it soon acquired the nickname Les Terribles from the French, referring to its fortitude in advancing over terrain others could not. It was the first Allied division to pierce the German Hindenburg Line of defense, and the 32nd then adopted its shoulder patch, a line shot through with a red arrow to signify its tenacity in piercing the enemy line. It then became known as the Red Arrow Division. The park had a nice beach and several monuments honoring the Division.
Cedar Crest Plant and Ice Cream Parlor
After lunch, we drove to Cedar Crest Plant and Ice Cream Parlor and had some ice cream. Cedar Crest mostly sells its ice cream in Wisconsin, but it can be found elsewhere in the United States. The company has about 30 standard flavors sold in stores, around 70 available for ice cream parlors, and monthly featured flavors. They claim to have launched the “tracks” trend in ice cream flavors. The big cow out front is called Bessie and is often decorated for special occasions.
Wisconsin Maritime Museum
We then traveled up to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. The museum has a large collection of Great Lakes maritime history, original artifacts, and nautical archaeology, including stories of the many well-preserved shipwrecks of Lake Michigan. The major exhibit is the USS Cobia, a Gato-class submarine similar to Manitowoc’s constructed during WWII.
Lisa and I signed up for a guided tour to see the submarine, which would begin an hour later. In the meantime, we were able to see the exhibit that explained the USS Cobia’s tours in WWII, which was interesting. The submarine tour was similar to the one we saw in Muskegon, but was in much better condition. There were a couple of current submariners in the group that were able to add additional information about changes and similarities with modern submarines.
Afterward, we toured the rest of the museum.
Rawley Point Lighthouse
A major feature of Point Beach is Rawley Point and the lighthouse operated by the U.S. Coast Guard since 1853. The light is atop this steel tower that rises 113 feet above the lake’s surface. It is the tallest octagonal skeletal light tower and the only one on the Great Lakes. It was manually operated until 1979. The present light system was installed in 1987, and ships can see the light 28 miles away. This lighthouse is an active aid to navigation and is closed to the public, but we could view it from the beach.
Two Creek Solar Park
As we continued north, we started seeing fields of solar panels intermixed with cornfields. They seemed to extend forever. I learned later that this was Two Creeks Solar Park, near Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Rivers. The solar park consists of 500,000 solar panels spread across 800 acres, and can power over 33,000 homes. It was amazing seeing how large it was.
Kewaunee Lighthouse
We next stopped at the Kewaunee Lighthouse South Pierhead Viewpoint. The lighthouse was first lit in 1931 but has gone through several changes. It was deemed excess by the US Coast Guard and transferred to the city in 1991. Today, it is still used as a navigation aid.
Tug Ludington
Tug Ludington was just around the corner. It was closed for tours, but some informational signs outside the Tug told its story. It was the fourth in a series of eight seagoing tugboats constructed specifically for World War II in 1943. The tug’s armament consisted of two 50-caliber machine guns mounted above the chartroom and pilothouse. Tugs were often strafed by enemy planes and submarines but were considered too small a target to waste a torpedo on.
The tug participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, towing ammunition barges across the English Channel. It eventually ended up in Cherbourg, France, where it assisted harbor operations until being sent to Plymouth, England, for the duration of the war. In 1947, the tug was transferred to Kewaunee, Wisconsin, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was renamed the “Tug Ludington.” With its arrival in Kewaunee, the Tug Ludington assisted in constructing and maintaining many harbors on the Great Lakes. The City acquired the Tug Ludington from the Federal Surplus Program on December 29, 1995.
World’s Largest Grandfather Clock
About a block away was the World’s Tallest Grandfather Clock, which is a 36-foot tall Colonial-style redwood grandfather clock with real clockwork, motor, mechanisms, and chimes. It was built as a 1976 Bicentennial project by Svoboda Industries, a local manufacturer of custom wood products.
Return Trip
It was getting close to dinner time, so we started back to the park and planned to stop at DeGrands Family Restaurant in Denmark because it had good reviews as a family-owned restaurant for 30 years. When we arrived, we found that it was now a bar, and it did not look very inviting, so we continued on back to the camper.
When we got back to the park, we stopped at the marina again to watch the sunset before heading back to the camper for the evening.
Sep 8, Wednesday
It had rained hard overnight, and we woke up to a windy and cool morning. We decided it would be a good day to drive around Lake Winnebago.
Neenah
As we traveled counter-clockwise around the lake, our first stop was Riverside Park and Kimberly Point Park in Neenah. These parks were on a little peninsula where the Fox River meets the Lake. There were a lot of beautiful mansions along Lakeshore Drive that went to the park. The park was created in 1929 through a donation by Kimberly Stuart Clark, who wanted to keep the land public. The lighthouse was added in 1939 as a navigational aid for those going up the river.
It was a beautiful park, though there were spiders and cobwebs everywhere. We talked with a groundskeeper there who said they were worse than usual that year. We talked with her a while and she told us several stories to include how she often had to defend the ducks from cruel treatment from hooligans and how she got a hook and fishing line off another. She also mentioned, though, that she was glad that they found another place to sleep and poop this year because of how messy they are.
Asylum Point
We continued along the coast as much as possible and stopped next to Asylum Point. Near this point in 1871, the Northern Asylum for the Insane was constructed, which later changed its name to Winnebago Mental Health Institute, which is still operating today. But the label Asylum stuck. We found the park run down but still used by local fishermen. There was a lighthouse on the point that was reportedly the result of a 1937 project of the Works Progress Administration. The Department of Transportation rejected it as a navigational light for the lake and was thus never lit.
Oshkosh
We had to drive through Oshkosh to get to our next destination. I found it interesting when we passed a large military truck manufacturing facility. But the more interesting find was “The Cheatin Heart Bar”. We could not tell whether it was just a small neighborhood bar or a place promoting infidelity. Either way, it gave us a laugh.
M Schetti Sales
Just outside Osh Kosh is a home improvement store with a collection of large statues and oddball art. It is like seeing all the quirky statues we have seen everywhere elsewhere all in one spot. They are scattered around several warehouses in often buried in tall grass.
Schetti opened his home improvement business here in 1973. Though he has several warehouses of home decorations and home improvement products, the property that surrounds the building is littered with hundreds of larger-than-life statues: a moose, a bull, a bulldog; King Kong, Bugs Bunny; dinosaurs, mythological creatures; and weird metal sculptures like a robot stegosaurus and a shark on wheels. All are available for sale to someone who might need an attraction for the front of their store.
Fond du Lac
We drove back through Oshkosh toward the costs and continued south until we reached Fond du Lac. There, we stopped at Lakeside Park. We found a nice picnic table near the coast with a view of their lighthouse. It was very windy, though, so we hung on to everything, or it would blow away.
LaClare Family Creamery
As we drove up the lake’s east coast, we discovered no large cities on this side. Instead, we found a lot of farms and higher hills that allowed us to view the lake most of the way.
We stopped at LaClare Family Creamery, a goat farm known for its goat milk products. They had a large gift shop with an upstairs viewing area where you could peek into the dairy. They also had an outdoor area to feed and pet the goats. One of the highlights of the petting area was a sile with a spiral ramp that the goats would climb. Unfortunately, the goats did not seem to accommodate us by climbing it while we were there. We did get to watch them at feeding time.
Scoops Ice Cream
We took a short detour from the coast to stop for ice cream at the Scoops Ice Cream Shop in Chilton. They were known for having 24 flavors that were all made in-house.
High Cliff State Park
We got back to the park around 3:30 pm, so we decided to hike some of the trails that were there. We started hiking the Butterfly Pond Trail, which was their handicap-accessible trail, but we found it boring and decided to instead go to another trail. They had some huge Purple Martin birdhouses there, which was fascinating. Unfortunately, the Purple Martins migrate away from the park in August.
We then headed over to the Lime Kiln Trail. This trail took us along the lake but below the high cliffs of the park, next to the ruins of an old lime kiln. Limestone was quarried from the cliffs formed by the Niagara Escarpment and cooked in these kilns to create lime from 1855 to 1956. Most of the wood was cleared from the cliffs, and the surrounding farms were used to heat these kilns before they switched to coal in 1924. Though the cliffs remain, the quarries are hard to see because trees and vegetation have overgrown the area. The heavy rains overnight had turned the trail very muddy. It was supposed to be a loop trail, but we never found the return leg. We discovered this after walking through some pretty dense brush. Even though we were on a trail, it became obvious that it probably was not one maintained by the Park Service, so we had to backtrack to return to our truck.
We then drove up to the Observation Tower where I was able to get some great views of the countryside.
Before returning to the trailer, we had to go about 10 miles away to fill up with gas for our jump the next day. We did enjoy a couple of Wisconsin beers to celebrate the day.
Sep 9, Thursday
Mounds Trail
In the morning, I went out early and walked the Mounds Trail. This trail was a lot nicer than the trail that Lisa and I hiked the previous day. It was a loop trail past several Native American burial mounds and then looped back along the cliffs.
We left High Cliff State Park around 10 am.