Bailey

Exploring Grand Rivers, the town of the dueling soft drinks

This is a cute town with several restaurants and quaint stores

Love this one..  Pink Tractor Clothing

This is the largest cross I’ve ever seen, 198 feet tall x 113 feet wide.  Should have gotten a better photo but notice how small the car looks.  If interested in learning more about the 2nd largest cross in the US click here

Every rest spot we pass Allan says “need a rest”  No to this one, just as we pass it Allan says “should have stopped”.  Issue, something is flapping on the passenger side of Bailey.

Next exit is 7 miles; we can do it!!

We did!

Pull into a Pilot Truck Stop…  What’s this issue.  The base of the awning mounting gizmo, the screw pulled out. Doing the the peek a boo inspection

Allan says “let’s open the awing to I can access the screw” Oh my, what if it doesn’t close.  We’d then have more problems. My outdoor voice says “Yes, lets”

  Awning out! Bad photo

Team work, Allan does the screwing I do the in/out!

Success

Thanks Allan for the easy fix!  Awing back in. We’re good to go!   🙂

Here we are, the last windshield view was way nicer Our site #16

Destination  D and W Lake RV in Champaign; would be less time but we do whatever we can to avoid Chicago!

      The check in office                                     Leading us to our site

Our site #23  The lakeView from our captain seats

There!   Bailey & Bob, across the pondA relaxing spot to sit 

    Fire time!

September 03rd:  Explore Downtown Champaign

Pay for parking app is a little weird, Allan figured it out 

       Draining the hydrant

Leave it to us to find the, perhaps, largest liquor store 🙂  Binny’s 

Fireball 1.75 L Bottle $17.99

It’s that time 

“The legendary Milwaukee Mile on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, Wisconsin is one-mile oval that truly drives more like a road course because of the 9-degree banking in the turns, which produces some of the most exciting racing. Drivers can’t go flat out on the course, which creates overtaking opportunities in the turns as well as the straights. The Mile opened in 1903 and little has changed to the configuration.”

So excited for this Labour Day weekend’s double header, race on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  There are also several concerts sprinkled throughout the weekend. I won’t add them as Allan did them proud on his FB page.  We are now also following the IndyCar NXT series which is the feeder for IndyCar.

We’ve been here before but it’s been so many years ago it’s like seeing it again for the first time 🙂

Walking to the track (10m walk) we see.. 

Can’t get into on Thursday but tomorrow we’re in.

Tomorrow is here; interesting sounding cocktails

Friday 430-6p:  Practice   

The skies are threatening fortunately the rain held off

Practice Results:    Josef 1; Pato 3       Hurray Josef

More sights     It’s Rosie!

Kyle, I drank this one for you! Dill Lemonade, NA. It was OK, I would have preferred it with sour pickles.  This is a 1 & done.

Who is this celeb?   

Saturday 215-315 Qualifying Results:  Race 1:  Josef 2; Pato 8   Hurray Josef

Saturday 350-505p NXT RACE:  My drive Jacob Abel, Allan’s Caio Collet.  Our bet is winner gets breakfast where ever they choose. 

Results:   Jacob – 2nd;  Caio – 8th.  Super surprisingly Allan chose a green car!! I’m tasting my breakfast win!

Saturday 540-8p NTT Race 1:

They do driver introductions every race.  Rather boring, the drivers walk on stage high 5 Fire Hawk and shake the dignitary’s hands.  Rinus VeeKay, the dude with the green pants, is the exception, he comes on stage does a twirl, high 5 Fire Hawk and shakes hands with the dignitariesSuspect they have been doing this forever but we rarely sit at the start/finish line, the flagman when it’s Go time follows the car with this motion (was fun to watch).  He does it with all flags.

Saturday 540-8p Race 1:  Results: Pato 1: Josef 26     Boo Pato

Why was Josef 26?  His and Marcus Ericsson’s days ended early after a hard crash, that’s Josef on the left. It was Marcus’ fault!   #IndyCar

Sunday 230-530p  Race 2:   Josef 1; Pato 7   Hurray Josef

Pato 24 (mechanical issues) Pato on the radio “You got to be fucking kidding me” when told to get out of the car.   Josef: 27 (out of 27 cars)  Josef on the pole heading for a green flag when at the last moment they aborted the start and stayed yellow.  The driver behind, Marcus Erickson, spotter did not call yellow and guess Marcus didn’t see the still yellow light.  He accelerated and rammed Josef.

Pato the winner 🙁   Fun fact: Pato in Spanish means duck.  Who names their kid after a duck, oh ya, Pato’s parents.  He does look happy.

Allan takes great pleasure, as he should cause it doesn’t happen often,  in moving the in-house cars, boohoo to meOverall standings:  Pato 6th with 419 points; Josef 8th – 365

These are 2 races would love to have do overs for

Guess which one it is today!

Next leg  We were here, Wisconsin State Park RV Park, at the end of May, after our breakdown screwed up the early part of our trip. This was the second park, (yep it’s more of a parking lot) we were able to get to and where we left Bailey to go to our first race of the season in Detroit.  This time we are here for this weekend’s, Labour Day, double header race at the Milwaukee Mile.

Bailey & Bob finally get clean 

August 27th:  Today is our much anticipated, pick up our Amazon orders at our first ever Amazon Locker @ Mawer.  Leave it to us to pick one of the most humid, hot day to go for a 30m each way walk.  Well 30m if you walk there directly, we unfortunately, took the scenic route. With the humidex it was 104f/40c  Site B3

Morning, right before the storm                              Afternoon, clear skies

Strangest street lights

A quick visit with the gator

  Downtown West Allis, nope we shouldn’t be here

Mawer, where the heck are you?  I map again and we’ve gone too far, back we go.  Lot’s of extra steps we don’t need in this heat we go into Burlington Coat Factory to cool done.  Spin the store and on our way out, there it is MAWER.  Allan doing his magic of opening our compartments.  Not sure why Amazon doesn’t say, Mawer, in Burlington Coat Factory.  Perhaps they have cameras watching folks struggle to find it.

Stuff in hand we head back to Bailey and arrive just in time for the storm to let goThe neighbour left his awning out, the high winds had fun with it. Cleared up enough to go for a walk on the trail behind the park.

Our view of the entrance from the trail and from the front

Bees on the trail   

Back home it’s bevy followed by dinner time.

August 28:   Stock up day.  First stop Costco, where we think it’s way too early for this

Next stop – local grocery store Pik N’ Save

Did score these delicious rubs and Caesar salad from Costco.  Not much excitement today.

August 29th: We’re excited today, off to get Allan a hair cut at Great Clips.  Fun fact it costs the same in Canada as it does here and you use the same app.

Our reward is a bun & beer at Nico’s

Steps when we got back to Bailey 

Excited for tomorrow’s begin of our Milwaukee race weekend!!

Today’s outing Mid Continental Railway  for a train ride..

First stop, pick up our tickets, then walk around the corner to the gift shop where Allan buys a cool mug

 Second stop, the museum

Wooden snow plow that can plow snow drifts up the 16 feet. The plow was last used in 1959

The engine… Third stop, the train.  Allan is standing by the caboose, we’ll be riding on the top floor

 Sheldon, the brake guy.  He’s going to give us interesting info on our trip

They didn’t tell us how high up these seat are, we made it.  All set to goSights along the way

Looking back out of the caboose 

End of the line, the turn around point

After a brief stop looking at the engine and stuff it’s time to hook the engine to the caboose.

Having a chat 

Our ride back with the engine attached to the caboose

Sorry, tried but couldn’t resist

Why are Allan & his buddy looking so fiercely disappointed?  Cause they just figured out the Coors Red is not a new amber beer rather  LETS GO RED is the Wisconsin Badgers football slogan

Wisconsin known as the badger state?  “It was the nickname given to lead miners in the 1820s who lived in tunnels burrowed into hillsides for shelter during the winter. The miners were too busy digging for lead and too poor to build houses, so they lived in the mines like badgers. People mocked them for living in burrows like animals, but the miners were proud to be associated with badgers, which are known for being tough, strong, and ferocious. The miners were also known for their digging skills, similar to badgers.”

Back to today’s outing at Buffalo Phil’s Grille; their claim to fame is food delivered by train.The restaurant is done up with trains in the centre along with a village and more tracks along the side walls.

While we are waiting for our train delivered food, a train comes by blowing bubbles.  The blue thing in the middle is the bubble blower. Look for the bubbles on the right bottom… Look up, a passenger train is on the move Train bearing waters, the waiter carried our drinksHere comes our food

Allan reaching for it 

Another outing under our belts

Only fitting that a great day ends with a great fire.

Haven’t walked on a trail for it feels like forever but here we are!  But first, who’s that in there?

Whoops wrong way 

Here we go, trail starts a little not picturesque

It is rather scenic   ,

Haven’t seen these Rewards in some time.  1/2 way, we deserve them 🙂    Looks like grapes to us. Do bears eat grapes?  Should we be concerned?

Saw deer up ahead too late to get a photo, but that made me wondering what sound does a deer make?  Not what I expected  https://www.youtube.com/watThech?v=RX0K9rBqxLYAnyday that ends with a fire is great 🙂 but what’s this message?

Reminder of the questions: 

Answers: 

Today’s fun outing!  Super cool land & water tour on a Duck.

The DUKW (colloquially known as Duck) is a six-wheel-drive amphibious modification of the 2-ton capacity CCKW trucks used by the U.S. military in World War II. DUKWs are still in use today, as well as purpose-built amphibious tour buses, primarily as tourist transport in many attractions world-wide.  Ducks were used for troop landings. The Ducks most famously played a pivotal role during the Normandy landings. Around 21,000 Ducks were produced between 1942 and 1944. It’s hard to determine how many are left today but we think the number is only around 1000.

Spenser, our tour guide, giving us safety instructions and driving

A way we go   

The Wisconsin River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At approximately 430 miles long, it is the state’s longest river

What makes the Wisconsin River Brown?   Turns out, the amber-brown color of the water comes from tannins. Tannins are the bitter and astringent compounds that come from the wood, bark, and leaves of oak and fruit trees in the area.

Back on dry land

Back in the water; Lake Delton

Dry land, there is a deer in the first photo, I can’t find him either, he was by the tree

It was a fun, unique hour tour.

Alligator Alley Adventure!  You even get to feed them, no, not face to face 🙂

You walk into the alligator room to encounter several alligators one on top of the other in a large aquarium type enclosure.  They seem to be smart enough to be at the entrance looking cool so you’d feed them.  I was concerned about the feeding, it turns out up high they have a tube that feeds into the enclosure.  There is a plunger you use to push the meet from the tube into the enclosure, then the race is on for which one gets it,

Here’s looking at you!

Such a handsome profile 🙂

He’s a big one and Allan’s favourite.

Got anymore meat? 

Tried to get Allan’s photo with his buddy, was not successful.

Hey Kyle, these are for you 🙂

The other residents   

My favourite, think it may be a     

Whatever he is how can you not love this face?

A fun, rainy day!