Adventures in Oshkosh

"What do you think Junior? You think these hands - they've been soaking in Ivory Liquid?"


A long highway ride took us to Darwin, MN, home of the world's largest ball of twine (rolled by one man.)




Not quite as big as the twine ball from Sam n Max Hit The Road.




A fireman reads a plaque.






Self portrait.


It's more of a twine gumdrop.

That night we stayed outside of Minneapolis with my sister's pals Alice and Allyn. They have a really huge house and made us delicious dinner and cookies! The next morning, we stopped on the other side of town and I got a new rear tire mounted. Mike the mechanic even found the time to change our oil. He was a swell fella.


Onward to Oshkosh, Wisconsin! Nice campground.








Our neighbors were loudly cursing like sailors. To be fair, they did have a boat. Then their neighbor on the other side opened her camper window and yelled at them for their poor behavior. Then they whispered to each other.


Sunset over a nearby prison.


The Airventure Museum in Oshkosh is the EAA's year round home for their planes and other cool stuff. Nice place!


This is a really cool Bugatti air racer from the 1930s I think it was. Those are counter rotating props!








This full scale replica of Spaceship One moved, just like the real one. It was very impressive.




















It's OK, those guys were jerks anyway.










Paul I and Paul II. Who names their plane Paul anyway? And why Paul I? Was he certain it would get shot down and he would need a second one? I guess he was wrong.


Me and my old favorite plane.


Me and my new favorite plane.




There is a little theater inside the S-38.

We Saw Bears!

We saw a bear when we were in Canada! Well, there were several, but this one was a biggy, and he was just going about his business like all the people pulled over to watch him didn't even exist. And don't worry. This is WAY zoomed in.

More Canada Than You Can Hanada

Montana was really pretty great. It was like the best of Canada, but in America.




The roads outside Glacier National Park were a little on the boring side at first. You couldn't see all that much. But once we got past the park and turned onto a smaller road, it got a lot more adventurous.



That evening, we made our way to Brenda and Rodger Sloan's house in Medicine Hat, Alberta. After relaxing a while, we went on a tour of the town.



Medicine Hat is home of the world's largest tepee. It was apparently left over after the Calgary Olympics and some eccentric Medicine Hat resident adopted it.




Strange angle for a portrait. Also not the most flattering slogan for a city.


Any town with a blood version is bound to be exciting.







Then the whole Sloan family teamed up to make a great dinner of curry chicken, home made pita and "chocolate Monday." What a great time! We even got to do laundry.



Thanks Brenda!


68 MPH is easy. That's 110 KPH.



On the way out of town, we ran very low on fuel in Saskatchewan. They are not big on gas stations there. We ended up finding one, but it was a bit of an adventure. An old man backed his car in right behind my bike and grabbed the pump while I was waiting for it to reset after Paul used it. I said, "Hey, what do you think you're doing? I'm up next." He said, "You using diesel? Meh!" And he grabbed the diesel nozzle and stuck it in his Jetta. I said "You can't use the pump as the same time as me." He didn't care. Just kept pumping while smoking his cigar. The clerk later told me he is a local celebrity. He is some sort of competitive logger, which is a sport there or something. It seems the further east you get in Canada, the ruder the people get. Or maybe it's the closer you get into the center.



Saskatchewan is really buggy. But the bugs there are tiny and not so squishy. Nowhere near as bad as the love bugs.





Crappy cold war Soviet diner.


The worst meal I have ever payed for. That is supposed to be a turkey sandwich.




The pride of Saskatchewan.




Canada has its own Very Large Array too. It's made of hay and it's half French.


Saskatchewan. They made a province and no one bothered to show up.