Madison FMCA Reunion - What to See and Do

[manholt]

I have never been to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan, except to fly over, and would like to know what to see and where to camp. I'll have two months. I thought about driving around the lakes and coming back in via Canada in Northern Michigan. Carl

[Alamolady]

We have never traveled in Wisconsin but I have been researching for a trip this summer. I will be glad to share with you what I have as of date.

Milwaukee, WI - central RV Park location - The Winconsin State Fair RV Park - 414-266-7035 - $40 per night

Things to do:

Untapped Tours - 414-698-8058 (plan to do this to get familiar to the city)

Milwaukee Food Tours - 800-979-3370 - (plan to do the pizza tour, I hear the city has the best pizza)

Harley-Davidson Museum - 877-436-8738 allow 4 hours

Miller Park, Miller Brewery, Pabst Brewery, Great Lakes Distillery, Specher Brewing Company, Lakefront Brewery

Art Museum, The Fireside Dinner Theatre, Mitchel park (The Domes), Old World 3rd Street (414) 273-7222 (German Ancestry), The American System-built homes are Frank Lloyd Wright treasure (note one home is now open for tour) 2714 W. Bumham

July 20-July 26 - Oshcosh, WI - AirVenture Show You can stay on site of the AirVenture Show are in a local RV Park. At this I have us staying at Breezy Hill Campground, about 15 miles from park entrance.

Fond du Lac, WI. Breezy Hill Campground, N4177 Cearns ,54937, 920-477-2300,

We will be traveling from Alabama toward Wisconsin, working our way into the state.

Hope this helps you get started. If you find out other interesting places to see along the way let me know.

Shelia W.

[tbutler]

We did that drive around the lakes in 2008 in reverse from your intended trip. We started in Detroit, MI (Henry Ford Museum is a must). Crossing into Canada driving south across the bridge into Windsor, Ontario. You can spend a week or so visiting the southern tip of Canada. It extends into Lake Erie at Point Pelee National Park. The area around there has beautiful homes, English garden landscaping and many interesting sites to visit. We enjoyed the area around London, Ontario for its scenery. Just outside London is the Museum of Ontario Archaeology which features a reconstruction of a 500 year old Iroquois village. Also near London is the Cheese Factory Museum. The cheese factory is closed but the museum is interesting and goes way beyond the cheese factory. There are three or four buildings with all kinds of historical items and displays. We enjoyed the history museum which features a story and display for a woman who is a local hero, having tipped off the British that the Colonists were coming. It is sort of a Paul Revere story from the viewpoint of the loyalists! Just goes to show one persons hero could be another persons villain! To the north is Stratford on the Avon River (sounds familiar if you've been to Great Britain). They have a wonderful theater there that focuses on productions by, wouldn't you know it, Shakespere. There are walking trails on both sides of the Avon River, we saw two pairs of nesting Trumpeter Swans complete with eggs in one nest and the young cygnets in the other. We even got to watch as the pen (term for the female) led the cygnets (term for the young chicks) followed by the cob (term for the male) from their nest into the river for a swim. Along the trail are English gardens. In town many small shops including a tea shop (Distinctly Tea) that Louise enjoyed thoroughly as did the shop owner when Louise checked out! We found an advertisement for a butcher shop, The Best Little Pork Shoppe just outside of town so we stopped and stocked up on sausage, chops, etc. Highly recommend this place. They were very happy when Tom checked out!

We went on north to Sudbury, the heart of the nickel mining area of Canada. There is a nickel mine tour there at a place called The Dynamic Earth. They have a Big Nickel on a large signpost. There is also information on gold mines which operate in the area. There is a mine to tour. We had the luck of meeting one of the original miners in the cafeteria and enjoyed having lunch with him as he reminisced about his life. We stopped at the Soo Locks where Lake Superior transitions to Lake Huron. We stayed on the US side because we wanted to call home, fill up the diesel tank with US prices and as much as we love traveling in Canada, we just have to get home once in a while. While there we found a weeks worth of travel fun, touring the Tower of History, touring the Locks on a boat tour, touring a Great Lakes Freighter, and we took a train ride on the Algoma Central Railway to Agawa Canyon in Canada. We found out when we talked to my mother that they had also taken the tour and her parents had also done the train tour. So it has become a family tradition. We crossed back into Canada at Sault Ste.Marie (Soo Saint Marie on the US side). From there we drove the north shore of Lake Superior visiting Lake Superior Provincial Park briefly. We had a nice picnic inside the motorhome because we didn't want to be a picnic for the mosquitos. We did brave a walk through the woods to the lake shore and enjoyed a long walk barefoot on the sand of the small bay there. Then we shopped at the Agawa Indian shop and picked up some nice moccasins. There is a petrograph site on the north shore near there that is worth a visit. Agawa Rock has interesting hiking, great views of the lake shore and the paintings are amazingly clear for their age.

Traveling further west, we stopped at Wawa (Native American name for the Canada Goose) and they have the world's largest one there. We stayed several days here because we wanted to explore the Chapleau Crown Game Preserve. Crown land belongs to the British royal family. This is a wilderness area which has some good gravel roads and then a really severe 4WD road. There are several game observation platforms along the road. We made it through but I would advise asking questions before planning to take that route. We had to ford several hundreds of feet across a pond formed by beaver that had dammed a small stream just below the road. That and several deep gullies across the road were negotiated by our 4WD Chevrolet Trailblazer. We were urged on by the bears and moose that we were seeing close up. It was fantastic and at the same time one of the more stressful things I have done. At one point the maps didn't agree with or provide enough information so we had to do some searching to find the proper road. That is always fun when you are miles from anywhere and haven't seen a vehicle in a long while. Louise called it being lost but you know how guys are, just keep driving you'll find a way out!

We stopped again at Kakabeka Falls and hiked up to the top of the falls. Great scenery again. We ate lunch along the stream, sitting on a rock that was actually in the stream. Rushing water, cool air, lovely stop. Then we were back to the US with a stop just across the border in the "arrowhead" of Minnesota. The Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center tells the story of the early French traders in the area and their trips across Lake Superior and the trading post at this location where they collected the furs from the Native Americans and shipped them out by canoe across Lake Superior. Needless to say, these were hearty voyagers. A very interesting stop, we had popped rice (made from wild rice in an iron skillet over a fire). The buildings and the story are quite amazing.

Our next stop was Duluth, Minnesota. Here I'm going to recommend that you stay at the Marina Campground which is right downtown on the Marina. You will be across the High Bridge, a vertical lift draw bridge from the town. From our campsite we could watch the Great Lakes freighters coming and going from Duluth harbor into Lake Superior. Walking across the bridge, there were any number of interesting restaurants and the aquarium, all worth a visit. The restaurant area is a night club area and is alive well into the night if you are so inclined.

In Wisconsin one area I would recommend beyond those mentioned in the previous post is the peninsula north of Green Bay, known as Door County. This area features the Scandinavian culture that settled there. You'll find many Scandinavian restaurants, farms to tour, towns to visit and fruit and farm products to purchase on the site of production.

From there we visited some friends in Wisconsin and then went on to the FMCA Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. So... start reading here and go backwards! There you are. It's a wonderful trip. We found no end of amazing things to see and enjoyed it thoroughly.

[tbutler]

There are as many interests in travel as there are people traveling. It always is helpful if you indicate your interests when you request information. If you tell us what you want to see, be it cities or rural, watching wildlife or hunting/fishing, history or antiques, festivals or sporting events, let us know and someone can suggest something special most anywhere!

[Pvgsma]

Anyone traveled the Sturgeon Bay peninsula that can make recommendations for campgrounds and sightseeing plus food?