You can go home again

So, let me see.  Where was I?
Oh yes, in Oshkosh. 
My wonderful niece made us a beautiful basket of veggies from their garden.  Not only beautiful, but tasty as well.  Thank you again Michaela & Mark!

I know it seems like we eat a lot, but I actually have lost weight, about 5lbs....and that's sitting on my butt!

 OK Linda & Dan, you are responsible for the Leinenkugel's purchase.  I really like this beer, and I am not a big beer drinker.  Just looking at this makes me thirsty for one...

I saw this cloud formation and had to get a picture.  Pretty amazing, eh?

Personal garbage man

 We finally went out for pizza at Ratch and Deb's.  They have fantastic pizza, my favorite in Oshkosh.  Forgot to take pictures and got this one as we zipped by.  Oh well, just take my word for it.  It was delicious.

Great shot?

 

 

Cary made his shrimp boil for 8.  Starting with potatoes, corn on the cob, kielbasa, and shrimp in Old Bay seasoning.  

Of course I forgot to take a picture, until just about everything was gone.  I guess we were a hungry bunch.

The next day was Saturday, which means the .....

It was surprising to see so many booths set up on main street.  Although many were not selling produce, there were plenty to choose from.

Even green beans and flowers.

Even entertainment.  But it was quite chilly, like in the 50's.  I was so tense from being so cold that my shoulders were killing me.  And the wind, if I only had wings.....

That night we had dinner at my cousin Larry and wife Nia's home.  And it was still cold out.  Good grief!  But we had some great burgers and potato salad and calico beans (not for me though!) and some cucumber salad.  Also a Brandy Old Fashioned.  Life is good.

Sunday.  Our last day in Oshkosh.  I had such a nice time just taking it easy and hanging out with friends and family.  And my sister's place is so nice and peaceful, it really feels like my home away from home.  :-)

We decided to eat lunch out and headed to Appleton to the Hu Hot Mongolian grill.  Quite an experience.  You filed in a line down a buffet style island.  Take a bowl, put in frozen shaves of meat, chicken, beef and pork, mild sausage and spicy sausage.  Then on to the noodles, 3 different kinds.  Then fake lobster and real pollack.  Veggies next, peppers, onions, chick peas, green beans, sprouts, mushrooms and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.  Then on to the sauces.  There were about 16 to 20 of them.  So you piled all this stuff in a bowl and took it over to a circular counter where it was put on the grill by a 'chef'.

Mine is the smallest one there, couldn't get the hang of stacking up everything.  Good thing you could go back as many times as you wanted.

Mine, I was shooting for Pad Thai

Cary's

It was pretty good, but the Pad Thai I get in Orlando at Pho 88 is the best ever.

Here's another thing you have to do when visiting Wisconsin, shop at a Fleet Farm.  I love this store!  There's everything from clothing and shoes to outdoor furniture and fertilizer.  Lighting, plumbing, paint, candy, nuts, housewares, just everything.

Couldn't pass up this cute Packers shirt.  Gotta support the home team.  I love my Green Bay Packers!

We also hit a Sam's Club, where I found a beautiful bracelet which I purchased for my upcoming birthday....well it's getting somewhat close! 

We had a nice dinner of leftover Lasagna and garlic bread, watched a little TV and called it a night. 

This morning we closed up the RV, and had a little bit of trouble with the bedroom slide..always something. 

We bid farewell to Oshkosh, just as the EAA came to town.  Hundreds and hundreds of tents, RV's and planes.  Good thing we're headed out of town.

Flying by the homeland.

We are stopped in Champaign, IL for the night and are thinking about stopping in Crossville, TN to visit friends.  Just depends on how I'm feeling as I picked up a bug somewhere and am in the midst of antibiotic treatment.  Ah the joys of traveling.

Where am I?

We moved on from Green Lake to Oshkosh, WI...my home town :-)
We are fortunate enough to be able to stay rent free in my sister's driveway with 30amp and water and shade!  We have had a great visit so far, dinner at my nephew's home with his wonderful wife and so cute dog.

They have a nice home with a super garden, and beautiful yard.

How cute is this?!

We visited the Paine Art Center and Gardens, which I haven't been too in so long.  What a beautiful place.

The house was built by a local lumber baron, Nathan Paine and his wife Jessie back in 1927.  The depression brought the construction to a halt in 1932.  In 1946 the Paines decided to establish the estate as a museum and work was finished in 1948.  The house was never lived in, the kitchen never finished, what a shame it never housed a family.

We went to see the Chihuly Venetians art glass exhibit.

You couldn't take pictures inside, which was a shame.  I recognized the work as we had seen some last year hanging in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

At Mayo Clinic

The work at Paine was a lot smaller, but just as amazing.  There were also watercolors by the artist which he used to develop his glass art.  Everything there was from a private collection.  Cary talked to the guard about how the shipping was handled.  The pieces are disassembled and shipped then reassembled at the destination.  Some of the parts break in shipping and are replaced.  Also they are not always reassembled the same way.  Interesting.
We also toured the gardens, it seems the theme this year was an edible landscape as chard, basil, dill and other herbs and vegetables were incorporated in the landscape.

But I don't think that the gardens were anywhere near as beautiful as my sister's gardens.

Add caption

My sister Su has an amazing yard.

And she maintains it all by herself!

One of my personal favorites

All of the above on in her back yard

Back at the Paine, we walked across the street and checked out a statue and monument.  Don't remember what it was all about, but it was a nice shady spot.

Couldn't go to Oshkosh without visiting Menominee Park.

It is always surprising to see places we went to when we were kids.  Places look so much smaller now, like this beach.  In any case, this is one of the nicest city parks I have ever seen. 


Gotta visit Leon's

Where I had a....

butter finger avalanche with chocolate custard.  Didn't eat much of it though, it's still in the freezer...

A trip to Neenah for Chinese food, which Cary has been craving since we left FL.  

These are pics of my sister and her husband's dishes as mine was not picture worthy....too bland.  But it was delicious.  We took a drive around some neighborhoods with huge homes on Lake Winnebago.  People there had made their money in paper products back in the day of Kimberly Clark and Bergstrom Paper.
 
Visited the cheese factory in Zittau, shopped at the Oshkosh Outlets, and went out to dinner last night with two wonderful women and good friends that I've known for a long, long time.  And I forgot to get pictures!


So, the adventure continues.  We will be here for a few more days and then head south.  Hopefully I will remember to take pictures!

Ah, The Hot Breezes in WIsconsin

I tell you what.  We leave Florida to escape the heat and it never fails, its hot no matter where we go!  We are in Green Lake, WI and our site has no shade.  Yesterday, the outside temp read 99.  Don't know how accurate that was but it was definitely in the mid 90's.

Haven't been doing too much exciting as I have been a bit under the weather. 

But today we got out and about.  First stop, an Amish farm with vegetables for sale.  All I got were some good looking onions, and they smelled great.  We then went to an Amish bakery that is only open Friday and Saturday.  They bake all morning so their goods are actually warm from the oven.  We bought some homemade egg noodles, a little 4" cherry pie, cinnamon roll and cinnamon bread.  The cinnamon bread is outstanding, best I have ever had by far.  Makes me want another piece just thinking about it.  The noodles were good and the cherry pie was also amazing.  YUM!

We went with friends to Maple Marsh, an unusual shop full of art prints, craftsman furniture and woodsy, cabin type decor items.  And it was out in the middle of nowhere.

A very interesting place.  I found a little wooden crafty item that I loved...

It's kind of like the elusive falls of Chippewa Falls.  We went to Maine and all around the northeast, looked and looked but never saw a moose.  Then we went to Wyoming and Montana.  Looked and looked and never saw a moose.  I think moose are avoiding us.
So when I saw this guy just paddling away, I had to take him home.

We headed back to the trailer, had some lunch and I took a nap. :-)

Plans to meet my sister and her husband for dinner were made earlier in the day.  Meeting up with them and Mary & Al in Berlin, WI at the City Inn.  Put the restaurant in the GPS and we were off.  Only problem being that the street the restaurant is on is under construction.

But nonetheless, we arrived

This used to be a Knights of Columbus, and is now the City Inn.  Most everyone had the buffet,

which was picture worthy, but I opted for the grilled chicken.  It was the first meat that I've eaten in 3 days.  It was pretty good but not picture worthy.

Downtown Berlin, a neat little town.

After dinner, we said our good-byes to Mary and Al.  So hard to do as she is one of my oldest and dearest friends.

Tomorrow we are headed to Oshkosh, where we will park in my sister's driveway for awhile before turning south for the North Carolina mountains and home.




 

the green, green, Green Lake

On our way from Chippewa Falls to Green Lake, we saw this rock leaping towards the sky.  Good thing I had my camera nearby, who would have believed it otherwise?

We arrived at our campground, set up and had lunch.  Then hooked up with my dear friend Mary and her husband Al.  It was when we all came back to the campground that we found out visitors were expected to pay $5 each, to enter.  Even though we aren't using the pool, golf course or play gound, our guests are expected to pay for the privilege of sitting in our trailer to visit!
We ended up going to the unfurnished house they are renting while waiting for their house to be built.
We had a nice visit and decided to get together the next day.

So today we went into Princeton, just to see if there were any princes hanging around.  Didn't see any.  I think they were all out looking for the falls in Chippewa Falls.

The downtown was decent.  Fairly well maintained.  But there wasn't anyone else out and about.... and we saw quite a few of these...

Not a real thriving downtown, but there were some neat shops and I managed to buy another cookbook, an olive spoon (look it up) and last but not least, a pearl bracelet.....when will it ever end?

We did come across a nice little spot that had a path down to the Fox River.

Is that a river or a mud slide?  Don't know if I've ever seen a river that brown.  And the water level was up.

I told Mary, "stand by those flowers"  and she did

The guys taking a break from shopping.

We left downtown Princeton, where there were no princes, and rode over to Berlin to a cheese factory.  Who can go to Wisconsin and not do a brewery tour, a cheese factory and Friday night fish fry? Obviously not us.
I picked up some shitake mushroom and muenster cheese and some sweet cream butter.  Cary picked up some horseradish cheese spread.  We stopped at our favorite store, WalMart and picked up a few essentials and then back to the trailer.  It was a nice day with good friends, and as a sign that I saw today stated, "This is as good as it gets".