We still had to drive almost 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the Love's Travel Stop where we'd slept overnight to get to our first stop, Sheboygan (we love saying the name of this city!). It's nicknamed the "Malibu of the Midwest" as it's located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, and it's considered one of the best places to surf in the region.
Kohler Design Center
The first place we visited was the Kohler Design Center, which is described as a "bathroom supply store" on search engines. Yes, we like quirky, but toilets? But why not? Kohler has been around since the 1873 and today is well-known around the world for its bath and kitchen fixtures. The Design Center is 3 levels, including a museum on the lowest floor that talks about the company's history to present day. The company is still a private business, and now run by the 4th generation of the Kohler family.
While we're not going to be building our dream home anytime soon, we did get a lot of ideas for our tourism project by walking around and looking at all the different kitchen fixtures (including all the different combinations of faucets, table tops, and sinks), as well as the bathroom fixtures (showers, toilets, tiles, etc). There was even an artistic wall aimed at showing off the variety of Kohler designs, with showers at the bottom, followed by a lot of toilets and bathtubs stacked all the way up to the ceiling! Even if you're not in the market to build or update your kitchen or bathroom, it's simply entertaining to walk around each floor and be inspired by different designs.
John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center was founded by Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, whose father was an executive at the Kohler company. She was fascinated by artist-built environments (ie, spaces transformed by an artist to express their identity, culture, or history), and the Arts Center is a free art museum, with several floors showcasing artists' works from Wisconsin and all over the world.
Examples of art works we admired included Dr. Charles Smith's African American figures in concrete that speak to racial identity and inequality, L. F. Ames' small handmade wooden boxes that each contain wooden sculptures (super intricate when you look up close at the hand carving), and Nek Chand's imagined kingdom of concrete "immortal beings" from India. This just gives a small sense of the variety of artist-built environments, using natural materials, that's displayed.
Since the Arts Center is associated with the Kohler family, what's unique about it compared to other art galleries is that every restroom is also designed by different artists, so it's definitely worth a look at each of these as part of the visit!
Bookworm Garden
We wanted to visit Bookworm Gardens, a botanic garden inspired by childrens' literature, as it looked fun and reminded us of the incredible and fun Storybook Island, which we visited in Rapid City, South Dakota. From the street, we could already see a magic school bus, little figurines of characters from the classic book "The Wind in the Willows", and other statues. Unfortunately, we couldn't go in as there was a special event on, and it was teeming with kids and families enjoying the event. It's definitely a fun activity to do for the summer, and perfect for families!
Sheboygan: The Malibu of the Midwest
We drove right to the coast of Lake Michigan, where the remains of the Lottie Cooper schooner are in Sheboygan. On April 8, 1894, the wooden schooner was carrying cargo and was caught in a strong gale before capsizing and sinking. Some of the shipwrecked remains were recovered and are now on display on shore, although they look like they're continuing to erode as they're exposed to the elements.
There's a lovely riverwalk that we walked along, passing the retro Marcus Sheboygan Cinema that's been around since the 1970s and is still showing movies. The parking lot was also closed, as it seemed that there were preparations for a power boat race, with lots of boats and jet skis waiting to get out onto the water.
Rural Wisconsin & Making A Murderer
Leaving Sheboygan, we drove to Manitowoc County in rural Wisconsin. Along the way there were endless miles of agricultural fields that we passed, and lots of corresponding big red barns and silos. The U.S. definitely grows a LOT of corn, and if it's not corn, it's soybeans or wheat as the top crops! We also briefly stopped at the Sputnik IV crash site, when a chunk of the Soviet satellite slammed into a street in Manitowoc in 1962. It's an interesting factoid, although these days most people drive over the only sign that it ever happened: a marker on the road, and a corresponding small plaque on the footpath that gives it a mention.
If you watch or tune into a lot of true crime shows, you may be familiar with Manitowoc Country, and Lisette remembered it from the documentary "Making a Murderer," which first aired a decade ago. We'd watched both seasons, and it was hugely popular around the world at the time. While we won't go into depth on the show, a crucial part of the crime centered on Avery's Auto Salvage, a vehicle wrecking yard that continued to operate up until a year or so ago. There's a sign on the highway before turning into the road where the salvage yard is that is still advertising the Avery's Auto Salvage. We headed a bit down the road, where we could see part of the infamous fenced area where law enforcement had been looking for evidence. We didn't dare venture any further as it's probably now private property, and it gave us chills thinking about what transpired!
Our last stop in Manitowoc County was the Maribel Caves Hotel, which we didn't think we could visit based on Google directions (as it sits today on private property and we were being instructed to drive into someone'e residence), but as we got back onto County Road R it turns out that it's perfectly visible from there. The hotel was built in 1900 and was originally named after the Maribel Limestone Caves. Visitors could relax in a hotel that looked like a medieval castle, and was also a popular place for religious retreats. In 1985, the hotel mysteriously caught fire, and in 2013 a tornado further damaged the property. It's since been thought to be haunted, as it was once apparently a stopover for gangsters including Al Capone, and people have reported seeing eerie lights, floating objects, and hearing strange footsteps. Whatever the case is, it'll remain a riddle as the place is off-limits for visits.
Green Bay, Wisconsin
About 26 kilometers (16 miles) from downtown Green Bay is the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, a Catholic shrine where where a Belgian-born lady, Adele Brise, is believed to have seen an apparition of Mary in 1859. It's the only apparition approved by the Catholic Church in the United States (other sites include Lourdes in France), making this a pilgrimage site for Catholics. Besides the shrine, there's a museum, gift shop and gravesite that includes Adele. The area we were impressed with was behind the chapel, where there was an outdoor path and garden where people could reflect and pray. There were slim black speakers strategically placed to face this garden, playing choir singing that made it sound like the singing was coming from the trees, and echoing around you and immersing you. The effect was almost eerie and very powerful.
We don't know much about Green Bay, but it's apparently the smallest city in the U.S. to have a professional sports team. The Green Bay Packers is its professional football team, and while we don't watch NFL, we're familiar with them. We checked out the huge stadium--very impressive, and we could almost picture fans lining up to watch a game in the freezing cold, snow falling on them as they cheer in the stands, as we've seen on TV occasionally. Despite us being in the city, it smelled very strongly of cow dung here--not sure why, but perhaps the rural Wisconsin state smells surround this city!
We'd enjoyed our first taste of Culver's the other day, so had it again for dinner. We were more familiar with the menu so didn't over order this time, simply getting a burger and a frozen custard each. Each Culver's restaurant has a "flavor of the day", so Michael ordered that while Lisette ordered a vanilla-flavored frozen custard with bits of cheesecake and raspberry. The frozen custard menu is so extensive that all the possible flavor combinations aren't listed, but regulars will know the names of these combos when ordering (there's a bunch listed here). Basically you pick the flavor base, and what add-ons you'd like from a huge list--everything from different types of nuts, candy, fudge, cookies, marshmallow, and more. We did enjoy the frozen custard and burgers, although Lisette will definitely ask for a "well done" Harvest veggie burger like last time, because this time it wasn't as hot and crispy!
The Hamburger's Home (and Missing the Festival!)
About 24 kilometers (15 miles) west of Green Bay in the heart of dairyland is the town of Seymour, otherwise known as the "Home of the Hamburger." In 1885, Charlie Nagreen, a 15 year-old vendor at the Seymour Fair, was having little success selling meatballs, so he smashed a meatball and placed it between two slices of bread. It was a hit, and the hamburger was born.
We visited Seymour to see the statue of "Hamburger Charlie", and when we got there we saw that a few folks were setting up for its Burger Fest, its annual celebration of the birth of the burger! Celebrations were kicking off the next day (Friday), with most festivities on Saturday. We wished we could be here for this small town festival, but we had to keep going and were bummed to just miss it!
The festival includes a burger eating contest, and a hilarious "ketchup slide" contest. Here, men and women compete on a water slide that's filled with ketchup instead, to see who can slide the furthest. The longest slide for women is 174 feet and 2 inches, while the record for men is an incredible 260 feet and 4 inches! We couldn't believe these numbers, but apparently the trick is to grease yourself from head to town before getting on the slide, and having the right technique where you're making little contact with the slide and staying as streamlined as possible. If we were around for this fair, Michael would probably have competed!
The centerpiece for the festival is a massive, 90 kilogram (200 pound) cheeseburger, that is prepared, cooked, and eaten at Burger Fest. We saw the grill ready to go, and it's definitely a huge contraption that'll be up for the challenge!
Further north and passing through more of rural Wisconsin, in a small park there's a marker for the 45th parallel of north latitude, indicating the point halfway between the equator and the North Pole. There's not much else to see there, but it's one of those quirky things we enjoy stopping at, like when we found the Continental Divide in Yellowstone National Park.
And before we knew it...we were crossing into Michigan, state #26 on our epic RV trip! We drove further along the coastline, following the curves of the terrain along Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes are so massive, that it truly feels like we're by the ocean. There was a generous shoulder by the side of the road where we stopped for the night, with forests next to us. We'll start exploring Michigan tomorrow!
Route Map
