Where: From West Allis/Milwaukee -> Menominee Falls -> Wisconsin Dells Weather: Warm, sunny, blue skies with scattered clouds, 72*
We get up at 7, have breakfast, check out, and are on the road at 9. We are going to try and stay off the major highways and take the smaller back roads. Well between us we have 2 GPS’s, maps on an iPhone, and a good old map and guess how many times we get turned around? Well let’s just say each car took their turn in trying to lead! We arrive at 10:10 and the tour at Harley Davidson was to start at 10. Oh well, they are very nice about it and they just form another group with a tour guide for us. Then she says I can’t go with my shoes even though they are closed toes, they have slits on the side. She says no worries and lends me a pair of “closed” shoes. Everyone has to don orange vests and steel toe protectors.
The tour is very interesting. It is a huge factory, covering 15 acres. They only do the building of the power train/engines (with powder coating and all the machining) at this factory. All the precision work is done by robots! It runs three shifts/day, seven days a week. Totally automated with a lot of quality control. Automated cameras take pictures to make sure everything is put in its correct position. Any mistakes and the whole line shuts down. No pictures were allowed in the factory.
We are on our way after the tour, heading for Baraboo, Wisconsin. We decide to definitely stay off the highways and take our time seeing the country. I find the country side very interesting with a lot of farming and small towns with large old family homes. Large green lawns (truly needing ride-on mowers) and large mature trees around each home. In one of the small towns we stop for lunch. We find a little family cafe called The Apple Tree. What a good find, we all fill up on homemade chicken and dumpling soup and stuffed tomatoes with tuna salad.
Corn fields 
Two lane roads 
Lots of barns and silos 
Taking the ‘RUSTIC ROADS’ ( as they are called here) has it’s ups and downs. The ups being very pretty country and slower travel. The down being if you break down there aren’t a lot of places to get help, but FRIENDS HELP FRIENDS and usually working together can fix things. That being said, we really miss traveling in our Lizzy where Rick has tools and spare parts to work with.
A pressurized radiator does not do well without a radiator cap! And even trying to make do with stuffing it closed is of no use. But Rick takes an extra cap he had seen on Kenny’s overflow and puts it on Jim’s radiator, add some water and we are on our way!
We arrive in the Dells and check into the Great Wolf Lodge.
We check in. We decide that after our large lunch that a stop in the ice cream shop will do us just fine for dinner tonight. We call it a day and go to bed by 10.