WI, MN – Jun 2025

Look what I found – my old buddies The Three Stooges!  For those that know me well, know that I was once an avid collector of Three Stooges memorabilia.  Out of necessity, I sold off my entire collection before moving into the RV and going full time.  I’ve not seen any Stooge stuff for the seven plus years I’ve been on the road, so it was nice to to see them represented.  In fact, I saw them again in a different venue just a few days later as described below.  So let’s get to it!

Calendonia, WI

My next stop during this journey takes me for the first time into the state of Wisconsin. Calendonia is about 15 miles south of Milwaukee, which was the prominent target of exploration during this stop.  First up was to meet up with Peter, and his friend Stephanie for a scrumptious breakfast.  Pete is the son of one of my longtime coworkers Judi. I’ve known her and her family for decades, and in fact my daughter Samantha had babysat for her kids a couple times one summer.  I’d also taken Peter and his sister Carley on a camping trip back in 2007, as well as engaging with him in several battles with the collectible card game called Magic the Gathering.  It’s been a long time since I’ve last seen Pete, and he’s certainly all grown up now, doing grown up things like having finished college, working hard, and planning to purchase some land and build a house.  Great seeing you Pete and very nice meeting you Stephanie.  Best wishes to you both for continued success and prosperity.  Next, I visited my first Dambo Troll.  What a thrill!  Made from recycled scrap wood, pallets, and branches and twigs, Danish sculptor and recycle artist Thomas Dambo has created these massive and amazing creatures all throughout the country and in fact the world.  My brother Dick introduced me to this artist and creation series and I’ve been looking forward to seeing them since.  There are six of them alone in the Pacific Northwest area that I will undoubtedly see later this year.  This particular one was really clever – holding a bouquet of lamppost flowers that he has seemingly picked from the area park.  All the damaged posts from his picking are located throughout the park, and serve as a sort of scavenger hunt to interested park visitors.  A Ted Talk from the artist Dambo tells the story of his passion of recycling, and shows many of the trolls he has created.  Check it out HERE.

I spent the better part of a couple days exploring Milwaukee and the surrounding area – discovering many interesting things, mostly from Roadside America.  First up was this original pagoda style 1927 Wedhams Oil and Grease Company station that was among a chain of gas stations in the Milwaukee area and is now a registered historic building. Next, I visited the Lakefront Brewing Co. to visit with my old friends the Three Stooges.  These crazy characters were once part of a set of beer fermenting tanks used by the brewery.  Apparently, the US government requires all tanks to be named in order to be registered, so they named them Moe, Larry, and Curley and had commissioned a local artist to decorate them accordingly.  The brewery eventually outgrew these tanks and when they were taken out in favor of something bigger, the owners decided to have the ends with the beautiful artwork cut off.  They then added the bodies to them to become an outdoor welcoming to the brewery.  Even the backs of the faces are further decorated, but clearly not in Stooges form.  But creepy non the less!  Next, I visited the town of Greendale.  It was often thought to be a Norman Rockwell town – likely because the town planner was from New England, and gave the village a definite New England feel.  So, in 2012, this lifelike sculpture of the famous painter was created sitting at an easel, painting what he was seeing.  A pretty cool art piece in a pretty cool town.  Last up in this group, is this storage tank turned soup can located outside of a Campbell’s Soup company plant.

A few other interesting Roadside attractions in this area included these gems.  First up, this building with giant lady bugs crawling along its facade.  They were added in 1999 by the building owner – reportedly because he liked them.  Also in downtown Milwaukee was this Mastodon – made from a large old rusty factory boiler, with 10 foot long tusks, and eyeballs made from 1929 Ford Model A headlights.  This is a recent addition to the landscape having been unveiled in July of 2023.  Next, this truly epic Roadside oddity was in the town of Cudahy.  Homeowner Rick Serocki started decorating his yard in 1995, and has been adding to it ever since.  I was fortunate that Rick, his wife Trish, and four-legged companion Oreo were out and about outside when I arrived.  Rick was very gracious to pretty much give me a private tour of his collection – which is quite extensive.  All kinds of TV and company mascot characters were present, as was a number of creations Scott created himself.  He was notably very proud of his collection, and thoroughly enjoys sourcing new pieces from the likes of FB Marketplace, Craigslist, and the like.  His fun, colorful, character littered house certainly stands out uniquely within the neighborhood.  I can only imagine what some of his neighbors might think of his hobby.  Thanks Rick for your time and generosity in sharing your amazing collection with me.

A truly unique place that I checked out was here – the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum.  What started out as a single bobblehead to founders Phil Sklar and Brad Novak in 2002, known as Rocko, the mascot of minor league baseball team in their hometown of Rockford, IL, has grown to the largest in the world bobblehead collection.  The Bobblehead craze was really only started in about 1999, and today hundreds of thousands of them are estimated to be out there.  The museum, opened in 2019, houses some 10,000 entries from all over pop culture, sports, politics, and pretty much anything else imaginable.  New England’s hometown hero Tom Brady was well represented, as were my boys The Three Stooges.  There was even a number of find them games you could play as you walked around the museum – one of which was to find Waldo.  Here’s picture proof that among the 10,000 possibilities, I found him!  It wasn’t easy!

On my last tourist days in the area, I travelled about 22 miles south of Milwaukee to the town of Racine – located on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Racine has an extensive manufacturing history, with the headquarters of several industrial companies calling it home.  This includes such names including Dremel and InSinkErator.  Historically, the Mitchell & Lewis Company began making motorcycles and automobiles in Racine at the start of the 20th century, and it was also home to the Horlicks malt factory, where malted milk balls were first developed.  But I was there to visit another well known company – S.C. Johnson & Son.  This is one of the oldest privately held, family owned businesses in the U.S.  It was started by S.C. Johnson back in 1886, and is now led by H. Fisk Johnson – a fifth generation family leader.  I was there to visit the Golden Rondelle Theater (at left, top left) – built by Johnson Wax for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.  During the fair, they created and showed a film titled “To Be Alive”, and after relocating the domed building here to Racine, they continue to run the movie.  So, I made what I thought was a reservation for the show for Saturday, only to arrive and find out that I messed up the dates, and that the show would not be running again until later in the year.  Instead, they offered for me to join a tour of the SC Johnson company compound, exploring three of its historical buildings.  That actually turned out to be quite the wonderful tour!  Two of the buildings, known as the Research Tower and Admin building (at left, center and bottom right) were designed and built by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and were absolutely amazing.  So much so that they are listed among the top five Wright buildings in the country.  Sadly, they did not allow inside pictures, but if you Google search SC Johnson with Frank Lloyd Wright, you will see the amazing inside architecture.  The third building (at left, center and bottom left) was built long after Wright had passed, but was designed to be complimentary to the other buildings.  It houses a number of company artifacts including a Sikorsky S-38 plane used by 4th generation Sam Johnson to visit Brazil on his carnauba expidition – a recreation of the 1935 trip taken by his father using the same model plane.  Also, a collection of Johnson Wax artifacts and other historical products were on display there.  A truly cool experience and a really awesome tour.

Waupaca, WI

I next travelled a bit further north into Wisconsin to the little town of Waupaca.  While there was not much to see directly in this town, it was a good launching point to other nearby locals to do some exploring.  This included a visit to the town of Weyauwega (please don’t ask me to pronounce it) to check out Stevenson Park and the really cool silo that was painted to depict the towns history.  It was really nicely done, and tells the story of the town’s heritage.  Next I drove to the town of Seymour, WI.  This town of just over 3,500 residents proclaims to be the home of the hamburger.  A man named “Hamburger Charlie” Nagreen claimed to have invented the now commonplace sandwich when in 1885, he setup a a little food shack for the town’s annual fair.   He cooked some chopped up beef in the form of meatballs, but later smashed the beef flat into a patty and served it between two slices of bread to make it easier for festival goers to carry around and eat.  Hence, the birth of the hamburger.  The town continues to celebrate this milestone with an annual Burger Fest, and in fact in 1989 cooked up a Guinness Book world’s largest hamburger weighing in at 5,520 pounds which fed some 13,000 hungry people.  Later, in 2001, a special 22 ft x 22 ft grill was build (at right, bottom), where a burger weighing in at 8,000 pounds was created.  Just walking through this town and reading all about its hamburger achievements made me hungry!

The city of Green Bay was my next stop, with a visit to the home of the Packers – Lambeau Field.  Fortunately, this was before the NFL season got under way so parking and exploring was easy.  The primary thing that brought me to this stadium was to see their giant replica of the Lombardi Trophy.  Located in the lobby of the east side gate and standing 50 feet tall and weighing over 14 tons, this behemoth is certainly a site to see and be in total awe of looking up to it from its base.  Its other claim to fame is that it is the largest in the world single object to have been chromed.  Now that’s a lot of chrome!  Another interesting fact is that this trophy was built in Clearwater, FL, near the stadium of the likewise Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers – yet they don’t have a giant trophy!  Oh well.

I next travelled a bit south where I would find an interesting collection of Roadside gems.  Along the way, in the village of Little Chute, was this authentic 1850s Dutch windmill.  The town was founded by French explorers as a trading post, but later inhabited by Dutch Catholic immigrants.  This windmill is fully functional, grinding grain to this day.  At over 100 feet tall, it was built in the Netherlands, taken apart, and relocated and reassembled here to Little Chute.  I continued my southward trek to the town of Appleton.  Here I saw this giant tetherball attached to a light pole.  It would take some giants to play this one!  Next was this stone statue – art by sculptor Dimitri Hadzi.  This piece is both beloved and hated by the locals.  Some consider it a contemporary piece of public art, while others call it nothing but a horse or perhaps a camel nuzzling an erect penis.  I have to admit, until I read the latter description, I didn’t see it.  But now, I can’t unsee it!  I guess art truly is in the eyes of the beholder.  Last up was a visit to this famed house.  It was industrialist Henry Rogers that in September 1882  ran wires from the generator in his nearby paper mill up to his mansion on the hill, to become the the first residence to become electrified from a hydroelectric power source.

Harry Houdini, born Erik Weisz to Hungarian Jewish parents in Budapest, immigrated to the United States with his family in 1878 and settled here in Appleton.  I was excited to learn this, and equally excited to learn there was a Houdini museum located in what appears to be a castle-like building.  Sadly the so called Houdini museum only occupied a small portion of the 3rd floor of what used to be a Masonic temple, and mostly featured replica artifacts and cheesy stations that were supposed to showcase some of his most famous acts.  While it did have a few original pieces including some handcuffs and leg irons actually used in his acts, along with one of his full body straight jackets from 1905, it frankly was an overall  major disappointment and a waste of $12.  I would have expected more from his self proclaimed hometown.  Oh well, I guess I’ll have to make a visit to Scranton, PA to check out the other US based Houdini museum.  Maybe it will be better.

Hixton/Alma Center, WI

My final stop in Wisconsin takes me further west to the central part of the state to the area around Hixton and Alma Center – both villages, and each having populations of less than 500 residents.  So, this part of Wisconsin is very heavily geared towards farming – mostly of the diary variety.  But that’s a good thing, as it means lots of really good Wisconsin cheese.  In fact, I had to visit a local cheese place so that I could pickup up a couple samples of their most iconic product.  I picked up these two fine examples of their finest cheese – a mixed bag of Cheese Curds, and a chedder variety infused with smoked bacon (yummy!).  I’m going to save these in the fridge for a couple of weeks until my brother Gerry catches up with me in Wyoming.  There, I can share them with him along with some great local wine.  Cheese curds are a particularly curious cheese variety, and I had to ask the store clerk what they actually were.  Curds are the moist and fluffy solid byproduct produced when milk is seperated, while the liquid remnants are known as whey.  Typically, the curds are pressed to remove all remaining moisture, then aged to produce cheddar cheese.  Some of the curds are saved before pressing, and sold as is as a fresh pre-cheese treat.  I’ve not had them before, so I’m looking forward to my brother and I giving them a taste.  I’ll report my findings in a future blog.

Despite my immediate area being relatively free of interesting things to visit, there was an area within an hour of here worthy of road trip.  Just about 40 miles to my south is the town of Sparta.  A booming town with about 10,000 residents, they self-proclaim to be the “Bicycling Capital of America”.  They make this claim due to their bike trail segment having been among the first to officially become part of the Rails to Trails Conservacy in the mid 1960s.  Well, I’m not sure how much of reality that proclamation is, but it gives them something to celebrate and it is a cool town.  Its centerpiece is this giant world’s largest high wheel bicyclist named Ben Bikin.  This thing stands 32 feet tall, and was made by F.A.S.T Corp – a hometown fiberglass company (more on them later).  Then in downtown, they have a really cool combo Space and Bicycle museum.  That seems like an odd match for a museum, but when you’re a small town, you take what you can get.  Deke Slayton is a Sparta native, and was an astronaut aboard the Mercury 7 mission.  Lots of information and memorabilia about him was present in the museum.  Then, there was a cool collection of bikes – some old, some newer.  There were regular bikes, two-up tandem varieties, recumbents, and high wheelers, to name a few.  A nice collection for a rural small town museum.

I mentioned this company call F.A.S.T – which stands for Fiberglass Animals Shapes and Trademarks Corp which operates here in Sparta.  Having operated over the past 50 years, this small town small business has quite the pedegree of producing some of the most iconic fiberglass pieces.  While the actual production plant is small and unimpressive, the massive collection of saved product molds that occupy the many acres of property behind the building is that which draws Roadside enthusiasts like me to a visit.  They welcome folks to peruse their back lot filled with over 600 molds from previous jobs that they save in hopes of reusing them once again.  A lot of work goes into making these unique, often one-off custom creations, so they’ve decided to keep them all for a possible future opportunity to remake the product.  It was amazing to see all sorts of animals and characters and company logo negative molds ready to use once again.  Being made of fiberglass, they are mostly impervious to rot or other types of decay, and happily live out there in the tall grass (or feets of snow in the winter).  Definitely a unique visit to a unique place.

Last up from here in central Wisconsin is this very interesting home made grotto.  Known as Wagner Grotto, it was German immigrants Paul and Matilda Wagner who otherwise lived a normal farm life for 44 years here in Wisconsin.  After they retired in 1929 they took a trip south where they happened upon the Dickeyville Grotto.  They were so inspired and enchanted with what they saw, that when they returned home they began building a grotto of their own.  They used similar construction techniques as what was used by Dickeyville, which consists of concrete and broken shards of glass to provide color and mosaic designs to the exteriors.  They began this new venture in 1929, and slowly cointinued to build new pieces up through 1936.  The centerpiece of the collection is a 7-person chapel.  Today, the grotto is a county park and has nicely survived the tests of time. No doubt due to the sharp shards of glass that protrude from every element, keeping any potential threats far away.  Despite neither husband or wife having any formal art training, they managed to create these wonderful pieces simply from a vision and imagination.

Jordon, MN

My first visit to Minnesota lands me in Jordon, just a bit southwest of Minneapolis.  My single most important visit here was with this guy – my old Air Force buddy Keith.  It’s been almost four decades since I’d last seen him, and we only recently got reconnected via FB.  I met Keith in Computer Programming school when we both were cross training into this new field from other Air Force careers (I was leaving Base Supply).  We both shared a love of things geeky, and as luck would have it, not only would we be together in school, we both were being shipped off to Fort Meade, MD as our first duty assignment.  In addition to being good friends and hanging out, we were also competitive.  The Air Force Electronic Security Command (ESC) had an annual competition called Comfy Olympics.  It was not a physical challenge, but rather an academic competition to see who was the best in their field worldwide.  Each Air Force speciality first competed at their local base level, taking a test to see just how much they knew about their particular speciality.  So computer programmers took a test about computer programming, radio technicians took a test about fixing radios, etc.  The top three worldwide who scored the highest for each speciality, totaling 54 people representing 18 different career fields, were chosen and given a trip to ESC HQ in San Antonio to then compete head-to-head to eventually win Gold, Silver, or Bronze medals.  This final stage of competition was a live intense Q&A session before a board of highly skilled senior NCO’s and Officers who quizzed you on technical specifics, as well as overall Air Force trivia.  Pictured here was my second year’s running in the competition (I won Bronze in my first attempt), this time taking home Gold, while my buddy Keith took home Silver.  I left the Air Force after this event, but Keith would continue competing in the coming years, winning another Silver and two Golds.  He remained in the Air Force for over twenty years, moving up through the ranks all the way to the top most enlisted grade of Chief Master Sgt.  He was always an over achiever!  It was so great seeing you again Keith, and catching up on so many decades of our lives.  Be well until we meetup again.

There was a fair amount of interesting places to visit and things to see in the Minneapolis metro area.  First up was a visit to the largest candy store in MN.  This place was massive, and had sweet products from all over the world.  It also featured various rooms, each having their own theme.  Marvel, Star Wars, Dr. Who, and Harry Potter were all well represented.  They also had an impressive collection of soda with all imaginable (and some unimaginable) flavors.  The front of the store also featured the largest puzzle in the world.  This Guinness Book of Wold Records puzzle is 22.5 feet long by 6.25 feet wide, and is made up of over 40,000 pieces.  It took the builder 428 hours of focused effort to assemble this behemoth.

There were a number of interesting Roadside quirks in the area to visit.  This included the half ton, 22 feet tall world’s largest raspberry.  This is located in the town of Hopkins – self proclaimed to be the raspberry capital of the U.S.  It was unveiled in 2017 as part of their 83rd annual Raspberry Festival.  Next was this artsy house by artist Mari Newman featuring a colorful, yet somewhat deteriorating facade.  I’m sure the neighbors love it!  Next, this rock with a plaque signifies the location of the 45th parallel – the midway point between the equator and the North Pole.  Interestingly, each location is 3,109 miles away.  Downtown Minneapolis has this beautiful mural of famous hometown boy Prince.  It’s eight stories tall and was painted in in 2022, sadly 6 years after his death.  Finally, this billboard from 1954 features SnoBoy, an icon from a company that has been in the business of selling fresh produce.  They started selling apples in Tacoma WA in 1925 and are sill in business to this day.

Next, I visited a really cool, really geeky museum.  Joe Pavek was a radio collector filling his paint store basement with thousands of them.  As he prepared to retire and end the lease to his business, he was desperate to find a place for his collection.  Having no success in that endeavor, he began the process to put his entire collection up for auction.  A couple of folks got wind of the impending auction and jumped in to save the collection.  Thus, the museum was born.  Lots of radio and television artifacts make up this museum.  One of the pieces that I found most interesting and had never seen before was this phonograph lamp (at left, center bottom).  It’s from the early 1900s and was definitely unique.  It was a fun ride down memory lane, but a bit disheartening – specifically seeing a few computers in the museum that I had once owned.  I guess that also makes me an antique!

There are a few people who are synonymous with Minneapolis.  As noted prior, Prince was born here and very much established his unique music style in Minneapolis.  For my older audience (like me) that might have watched the Mary Tyler Moore show back in the day, would remember that the storyline was about Mary moving to Minneapolis to start a new career.  The house (at right, top right) that was featured in the show as her rented residence is actually located in the swanky Minneapolis neighborhood of Kenwood Park.  Also, in downtown, there is an iconic statue of her throwing her hat up in the air – exactly where that took place in the show.  Likewise, you older folks might also recognize the name Herbert Buckingham Khaury.  Well, actually you might better recognize his stage name as Tiny Tim.  Though being born and having spent much of his life in NY, he would eventually find his way to Minneapolis.  It was there while playing at a gala benefit hosted by the Women’s Club singing his signature piece “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” that he would suffer a heart attack while on stage.   He collapsed and never regained consciousness and died.  He is interred here in a Mausoleum in Minneapolis.  He also has a star downtown, among many other famous musicians.  I actually had the pleasure of seeing Tiny Tim in concert (well, performing in a school auditorium) back in the early 70s.  In fact, I brought a neighborhood girl to this venue as a first date.  Probably not my best move as it was also my last date with her.

Also located within the same cemetery as Tiny Tim is the gravesite of Hubert Humphrey – the Vice President to our 38th President, Lyndon B. Johnson.  Hubert was a Minnesota native, also serving two terms in the U.S. Senate.  He lies here in Lakewood Cemetery with his wife Muriel Buck – who herself became a U.S. Senator having been appointed to the seat that was occupied by her husband following his death.  She serve most of 1978, and in doing so become the first woman to serve as a senator from Minnesota.

Final Thoughts

Well, another blockbuster blog, filled with lots of interesting people and places I’ve seen during this leg of my travels.  Next I’ll travel to Sioux Falls, SD – a place that I was supposed to visit a few years ago, but missed it due to having to repair my truck from damage when a deer jumped out in front of me (that entertaining video HERE).  Then it’s off further west through Wyoming where I’ll meet up with my brother Gerry to visit Devils Tower, then on through Montana and beyond. It’s been an awesome journey so far and I haven’t even reached my designated focus area yet.  Just goes to show that it’s about the journey and not the destination.  When you travel, do so slowly and explore the areas along the way.  It’s amazing how much there is to see in this country, and there’s certainly no shortage of fun places to explore.  Till next time, be well and safe travels.

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!