“America’s Dairyland”
Wisconsin, state number 40 on our list ! And into the heart of the state we go ….
A bit of a lazy start as we had to be packed and ready for our 11am flight to Houghton. Sunrise is after 7am and it started quite cloudy this morning, but fairly calm and light winds so we didn’t expect any issues with our flight plans.
Sunrise from our verandah
We had breakfast again at the “grill” and there didn’t seem to be as many around this morning. Another of the ferries was loading up with passengers for locations around the island or back to the mainland.
After breakfast we made sure everything was packed and left our bags in the room to be collected and taken to the seaplane dock. We headed to the office to checkout and make sure there were no reported delays from the seaplane base. With the “all clear” on the planes arrival, we wandered down to the seaplane dock to wait.
Waiting for the plane to take us back to Houghton
Shortly after, two planes arrived, one the same size we had arrived in and one slightly bigger – and there were certainly more people at the dock looking like they were waiting for a plane. Only one problem – none of our luggage had arrived ! The pilot checked off our names and as we still had about 15 minutes until scheduled takeoff, I ran back to the office to find out what was going on. Luckily about half way I found the porter plodding along with the luggage so we made our way back to the dock. And along the way I found that our moose friend had come back and was just off the seaplane trail ! So another photo op …
With the bags now securely on board – this time we were on the larger plane – 7 passengers !! – we were soon on our way. The trip back was a little longer as there were headwinds across the lake but about 11.45am we were back in Houghton.
Back on the mainland, we found our trusty vehicle and packed up and were on our way again. Don’t think I’ve mentioned our car for this trip – our “intermediate SUV” category was not available so our “upgrade” is a Dodge Grand Caravan. Plenty of room and drives okay – doesn’t seem to guzzle too much fuel and has plenty under the hood !
We were a little lucky with our time today. With the reduced day for driving, it was handy that we changed time zones back to “Mountain time” again so gained an hour. It was really just a driving day, getting us across Michigan and into Wisconsin. The scenery was very nice though – the area is heavily forested and we passed through the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest and other state forests along the way. It is also an area with lots of lakes – every house has an ATV, a boat and a snowmobile parked out the front !
And now into Wisconsin ! A little about Wisconsin – It was the 30th state to be admitted to the Union on 29 May 1848.
It is the dairy capital of the United States and, not surprisingly produces more milk than any other state – except California, but also leads the nation in exports of cranberries, whey, ginseng root and sweet corn.
The Republican Party was founded in Ripon, WI in 1854
There were still a couple of sights planned for the day. First was the “Old Victoria Restoration Site” – a series of restored homes of former copper miners. The Victoria Mine was the name given to a series of copper mines located in Rockland, Michigan. Near this location, a large piece of float copper, known as the Ontonagon Boulder, was found. It weighed 1,682 kg and is now in the Smithsonian Museum. The mine itself operated off and on from 1849 until 1921 but most of the metal found was low grade.
Old Victoria restored houses 
We also passed another “Paul Bunyan and Babe” but “seen one, seen ’em all” 😂. But, you’ll be pleased to know, we are back in agricultural country and that means …
Corn fields ! Who’d have guessed !
We arrived in Wausau late afternoon and after checking into the Hampton Inn, we made a quick trip to Walmart to stock up on supplies. For dinner we walked up the street to an old favourite, Applebees, where we had a great meal – still up to old standards – and we shared Asian chicken tacos and buffalo wings for starters and Adrienne had a steak while I had the ribs.
Then it was back to the hotel to get our blogs up to date, now we were back in civilisation ! 😂
Tomorrow we’ll start heading west, move to another state and be back to the Mississippi …..
Today’s Tour Trivia – A Milwaukee newspaper editor and printer created the QWERTY keyboard in 1868.