{"id":5232,"date":"2023-08-06T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/?p=5232"},"modified":"2023-08-07T16:32:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T16:32:02","slug":"week-37-wisconsin-and-kentucky-visits-with-family-and-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/2023\/08\/06\/week-37-wisconsin-and-kentucky-visits-with-family-and-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 37 Wisconsin and Kentucky visits with family and friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 6, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week we didn\u2019t have as many adventures as normal. We did get to visit some family and friends along the way which was as sweet as our adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7\/31- We are in Baraboo, Wisconsin which we found out was the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers circus in 1884. All seven Ringling brothers were involved in The World\u2019s Greatest Shows. In 1907 the Ringling Brothers bought Barnum and Bailey Circus but kept them as separate circuses, but the slogan for both circus then became The Greatest Show on Earth. So of course we had to go tour the very active birthplace of the circus. https:\/\/www.wisconsinhistory.org\/Records\/Article\/CS547<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circus museum is on both sides of the Baraboo River and from 1884 to 1918 this area was home to the Ringling Brothers Circus. https:\/\/circusworld.wisconsinhistory.org\/explore\/history-of-circus-world\/<\/a> There are still seven buildings standing that were used by the circus during that time. We were able to walk through them and see what each building was used for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then we crossed the river and visited two buildings; one that contained many beautiful circus wagons and another where restoration of circus wagons is done. The second museum also contained wagons from circuses in England that were being restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was time to enjoy some circus food. They had funnel cakes but I had to get my favorite, cotton candy. Then it was time to see some shows. First we checked out the side show with the \u201cfreaks\u201d. Then we saw the elephants and an amazing motorcycle high wire show which was performed by a father and daughter duo. We had a great day exploring and learning more about the circus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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8\/1- We are camping halfway between East Troy, Wisconsin where Frank\u2019s mother spent her teen years and early adult years, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Frank\u2019s father was born. Today we headed into East Troy to explore. We had a list of things to see and do but where not very successful. We headed to J. Launder\u2019s Ice Cream Parlor to try some old fashion treats only to find out it is only open on the weekend. So next we headed to the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum. Electric trains were used in the early 1900\u2019s on, but once again we arrived to find that the museum is not open during the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So we decided to head downtown and walk around the square and see sites which Frank\u2019s mom must have seen while she was living there. We tried to visit the Historical Society only to find \u2013 you guessed it- it was closed. So we headed off to find where Frank\u2019s mom lived and the high school she attended and again we struck out. We were able to find the new high school but not the old one and we were not able to find her home. We were feeling a little frustrated at that point. We called Frank\u2019s sister and she mentioned that her mother used to go to Lake Geneva with her friends so we decided to drive over and see that town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just before you enter the town of Lake Geneva you pass by Yerkes Observatory. We found that Yerkes Observatory contains the world\u2019s largest refractor telescope. It was built in 1895 by the University of Chicago in a remote location where they could have better views of the night sky. The first ever photo of Pluto was taken from this observatory. For nearly a century, a virtual who\u2019s who of astronomy surveyed outer space through the Yerkes Great Refractor. Carl Sagan did his graduate work there. Unfortunately it was not open (of course that was how our day was going) but we were able to walk the grounds and admire the building that housed the Observatory. https:\/\/yerkesobservatory.org\/learn\/legacy\/#<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then we headed into Lake Geneva which apparently a very popular vacation spot and the streets were crowded as where the shores of the lake. We stopped just for a short time to buy some fudge and get some ice cream before heading back to the RV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8\/2- Today we were able to visit with and hang out with Frank\u2019s cousin Kevin and his wife Jenny. It was fun for Kevin and Frank to talk about their moms, who were sisters. Kevin and Jenny took us to lunch in East Troy at Gus\u2019s Drive-In which was a neat old-fashion drive-in.  https:\/\/gussdrivein.com\/<\/a> It had a giant statue of Gus and we all posed in front of it before going separate ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Frank and I headed off to Milwaukee to explore some of the area his father was from. We visited the graveyard where many of his Mueller ancestors are buried and drove around the area in Milwaukee where they had lived before moving to California in the 1930\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then it was off to the Harley Davison Museum where we were able to view motorcycles built by Harley from the early 1900\u2019s to present day. https:\/\/www.harley-davidson.com\/us\/en\/museum.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We spent a couple hours just exploring. But the last thing we had to do before we left was to get on a motorcycle once again. We will both always have a love of motorcycles even though we can\u2019t ride them anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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8\/3- Today I had a bit of an upset stomach so our plans to do more exploring of Milwaukee got canceled and we just stayed around the RV waiting for our Amazon package to be delivered to a nearby lockbox. Our hot water heater was not heating water so we had to take cool showers the other day. After some research Frank found that after 1,500 gallons go through the hot water heater it shuts itself down until it is decalcified. So Frank had order what he needed to decalcify it. Of course our package didn\u2019t arrive until almost 8 pm so Frank was up to almost midnight getting the hot water heater decalcified and working once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8\/4- Drove to Springfield, Illinois today. We were hoping to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum but we arrived too late in the day so we headed to Cracker Barrel where we planned to boondock for the night. We enjoyed our dinner at Cracker Barrel but spent a very uncomfortable night in their parking lot. We were located between the Restaurant and a McDonald\u2019s drive-up, so until midnight it was pretty noisy around us and we had a hard time getting to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8\/5- Woke up at 6:30 am this morning to the garbage truck emptying the dumpsters at Cracker Barrel and McDonald\u2019s so since we were awake we decided to go ahead and head out for Kentucky. We drove for about an hour and were both so tired we pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot and took a quick nap before heading on. Then another couple hours down the road we stopped for lunch at a rest area and Frank laid down and took another longer nap. We finally arrived in Henderson, Kentucky at 2 pm. We are staying in the John James Audubon State Park. The first spot they assigned to us was much too small for our RV so we had to get assigned another spot which worked perfect for our RV. It took us to 3 pm to get settled so we could head out to visit some friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we lived in Kyle, Texas we had some really good friends which we loved hanging out and doing things with. Tracy had two young daughters which were just a little older than our granddaughter and they would hang out and play and we became Mema and Papa to these girls. Now, 10 years later, they are all grown up but still seemed happy to see Mema and Papa again. Since that time another little boy had been added to the family and he quickly adopted us as Mema and Papa too. He especially liked Frank and had fun playing with him. We had fun visiting and spending time with them and enjoyed a wonderful dinner they had made for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8\/6- John James Audubon State Park is a beautiful park. Today we enjoyed driving around the park and seeing the area that was built up by the CCC in the 1930\u2019s. Both park buildings were designed by the WPA and built by the CCC. We were able to visit the John James Audubon museum and learn about Audubon and his drawing.  John James Audubon’s book Birds of America <\/em>was printed between 1827 and 1838 and contains 435 life-size watercolors of North American birds. Audubon and his family lived in the Henderson, Kentucky area and he spotted and created many of his watercolors of birds here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The museum had a room for viewing the local birds and wild life. We noticed both a raccoon and a beaver enjoying the leftover the birds were dropping from the bird feeders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After getting back from our tour of the park our friends came over to visit us at the RV and we said a good-bye to them and hope it will not be another 10 years before we see them once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next week will be spent exploring parts of Kentucky before arriving in Red Bay Alabama by Saturday for a long stay while things are getting fixed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 6, 2023 This week we didn\u2019t have as many adventures as normal. We did get to visit some family and friends along the way which was as sweet as our adventures. 7\/31- We are in Baraboo, Wisconsin which we found out was the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers circus in 1884. All seven Ringling…Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5365,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions\/5365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themuellerfamily.org\/htr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}