September 20-22, 2006 - Chicago

We are in a campground west of Chicago in Tinley Park. We are about 1 mile from the train station for the train that runs into Chicago. It is $8.00 round trip and takes about an hour so it seems better than driving and trying to find a parking place.

We took the train into Chicago on Wednesday, Sept. 20 and walked along the lake to the Field Museum. Look at some of the captions on the photos for info about the walk. The Field Museum was started a little before 1900 by the Marshall Field family of department store fame. This new bulding, which looks just exactly like a museum SHOULD look, was built in 1923.. Some of the original display cases made in 1902 are still used. They are magnificent. They remind me of the way the Smithsonian used to look... The animal specimens were quite extraordinary.

We visited the King Tut Exhibition which is traveling around the world. There were LOTS of employees to watch people and advance the crowds. They did a very good job of keeping the flow moving and not allowing too many people in each room at any one time. King Tutankhamun (Tut) became King when he was about 9 years old in about 1334 BC. His father (at least they think it was his father...) had eliminated all gods except the sun disc. The people were not happy about it. When the father died, and the boy became King Tut he reinstated the gods in their rightful positions of worship. However, King Tut only lived for 10 more years. He died at the age of about 19. Recent (last 5 years) CAT scans have revealed that he might have died from an infection from a knee injury. His death was very unexpected and they had to find a tomb to bury him in since he hadn't had enough time to finish his own tomb! He was buried in a small tomb that hadn't been meant for him but was available, probably the tomb that had been prepared for his advisor.

The audio tour that was an option told us how a body was mummified...something I always wondered about. The heart, liver, stomach/intestines and lungs were removed from the body. They were placed in 4 separate jars called canopics along with salt to dry them. The canopics were then placed in the tomb. Then (lovely...) the brain was removed by pulling it through the nose with a hook. It was disposed of. For some reason they thought it would be bad for the body to be buried with it... The thoracic and abdominal cavities were filled with herbs, spices and bitumen and then sewn closed. The body was placed in salt for 40 days. Then the body was wrapped in hundreds of yards of fine linen the had been soaked in cedar and other oils. In between the layers of linen were herbs, spices and valuable ornaments either from the body's previous life or for its afterlife. Each layer of cloth was kept in place with gum arabic to seal the body from the atmosphere.

King Tut's body had an elaborate mask over it. Then it was placed in a series of three nested coffins with the innermost one being the most elaborately decorated. These were placed in a sarcaphogus which was then surrounded by 3 nested "shrines" (wooden cases).

Also in the tomb with him were boats to carry him to the afterlife--by the way, he would only travel to the afterlife in the dark of night. There were also many shabtis--small carved figurines with Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead carved or painted on them. These figurines were instructed (through the verses) to perform all of the work and duties of the mummy in the afterlife. This way, all things were taken care of for him and he could just enjoy his afterlife without working. (Anybody want a shabtis?)

The exhibit was very well done, but I sure would have like to have seen more about the search for the tomb and the actual excavation. About the only real info given was that the man who was paying for the expedition, Lord Carnarvon, was disappointed with the lack of progress and was about to withdraw his financial backings. On Nov 26, 1922, Howard Carter, the expedition leader, was directed by a boy water carrier to a "split" in the earth that was actually the stairway down to King Tut's tomb.

On Thursday, Sept 21, we again took the train into Chicago and this time went to the Navy Pier. It was used for training during WWI and WWII. About 15 years ago or so they began a renovation of it with shops, food, amusement park, ballroom, conference center, etc. The amusement park has a 150' tall modern replica of the 240' tall, wooden, very first Ferris Wheel that was exhibited at the (I think) 1903 World's Fair. The original Ferris Wheel held about 40 people in each gondola. It was the largest hardened steel axle ever made up to that time. Can you imagine the trouble Ferris had getting the first group of people into one of those gondolas?

One of the things they added to Navy Pier was the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, built like the original theaters where Shakespeare was performed in England. The seating goes around 3 sides of the stage and no seat is more than about 12 rows from the stage. We got tickets to see Hamlet that night and our seats were right on the center row 5 seats back. The show was almost sold out so we don't really know how we got such good seats... It was an excellent show with excellent acting. We didn't get out until 10:30 and had to catch a cab and then the 10:50 PM train. We made it. I'm sure glad because the next train was an hour later!

In between the Pier and the show we took a double-decker bus tour of Chicago. It was only OK.

We are spending today catching up on paperwork and these travel logs!

You probably have at least a week until the next update!

September 9-19, 2006 - Wisconsin

Wisconsin Photos

We left the Green Bay area and drove south of Milwaukee toward Racine, WI on Sept 9. We camped at a Yogi Bear Jellystone Campground. This is the second time we have stayed at one, and it makes us feel very guilty not having any grandkids with us to enjoy all that they have to offer! For those of you who are wondering, most campgrounds for a 40' motorhome in a pull-thru space charge about $30-35/night. I remember the days of $10/night being high!

We spent a couple of days doing paperwork and getting those last travel logs sent! On Tuesday, Sept 12, we had SO much trouble with the "lo dc" on the motorhome that we called another (6th!) repair center and drove the motorhome in for service. This time we only had to drive 10 miles down the road! Well, we finally found the right guy. This repairman started at the very beginning and had Mark work with him to isolate the problem. Within an hour they found that the ground from the batteries had never been tightened and was not making a connection. He tightened and tightened and tightened. It has now been 10 days and we have not had another problem!! Before that we sometimes didn't go 1 hour without a problem! Burlington RV near Racine, WI, if anyone wants to remember that name!

TREK Bicycles Assembly Plant
On Wednesday, Sept. 13 (the day of Brian's interview with Southwest!) we drove to Waterloo, WI, to tour the TREK assembly plant. They really had a lot of good stuff that they COULD have told us and a lot of good things to look at but the tour was very uninformative. The only way we got info was to ask the question! We saw the bikes Lance Armstrong rode in the Tour de France. A lot of the famous bike riders ride TREK bikes. They ride stock bikes, no fancy specially made bikes. You can order a bike (if you have lots of money to spend) made exactly the way Lance's bike is made. TREK does, however, make changes to the bike's design when Lance requests it. However, those changes stay in the line and are put on all of that model bike. The bikes can be ordered made entirely of carbon fiber, or a combination of carbon fiber and aluminum, or all aluminum. The carbon fiber is made in a mold and then two halves are put together. Where they are put together, they need to be sanded down to have a smooth transition. (They said they can't tell us about the carbon fiber -- it is proprietary information.) Threaded aluminum inserts are put into the carbon fiber to attach other parts of the bike. The more carbon fiber in the bike, the more it costs, but the lighter it is. They seem to think that there is a huge difference between a bike that weighs 15 pounds and a bike that weighs 18 pounds. One of the completely carbon fiber bikes was on display for us to pick up. I could pick it up with one hand and hold it with NO trouble for a long time. The bikes are not fully assembled in Waterloo. They are sent to another factory for wheels and final assembly.

Circus World
We continued on to Baraboo to Circus World. It is a tribute to the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling Brothers grew up in Baraboo and the circus wintered there until they figured out that if they wintered in the east they could get to the lucrative eastern cities faster in the spring. There were 5 Ringling brothers involved in the circus and they never had a partnership agreement. Each did what he was best at and the others accepted what he did. (That sounds a little too-good to me but they say it is true...) They started with a small circus and continually bought out other circuses until they became big enough to buy out even Barnum and Bailey. They did a very nice job getting the story across and giving you a feel for each of the brothers and for circus life in general. The best part was their collection of circus wagons. There are a lot of beautifully restored wagons on display in a huge building. Their restoration division works on circus wagons now as they become available. As an aside, the winter quarters after Baraboo were in Sarasota, Florida. There is a Ringling Museum there also, but it is a museum of art that John Ringling collected. His home is adjacent to the museum and well worth a tour. Because of the financial success of their circus(es) the Ringling brothers became wealthy. However, when the depression hit at the end of the 1920's they lost everything. (From Mark)


Wisconsin Photos

GM Assembly Plant, Janesville, WI
On Thursday, Sept 14, we drove to Janesville, WI, to tour the GM assembly plant where they assemble the Tahoe, Suburban and Denali. The "attaching" part has a lot of robots to do the work. Most of the final work is done by real people. We were impressed (maybe not quite favorably) by the lack of a real "frame" for the car. The frame is really only stamped sheet metal. It would have been a WONDERFUL 2 hour tour, but they only spent 1 hour and took us by tram car. We didn't really have time to watch the processes.

We drove home through Lake Geneva. This is a really nice lakeside resort with a beautiful lake, homes around the lake, boats on the lake, park between the road and the lake. Lots of golf courses and other resort type activities. See photos.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed Administration Building at S.C. Johnson Co
On Friday, Sept 15, we drove to Racine to the S.C. Johnson Co. They have a tour of the Administration Building that was designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939.

He designed it so that as your job increased in importance you not only moved up an invisible ladder but your desk location showed your new increased importance. All of the clerical workers are in the center of the bottom floor of the building. As an employee advances, he moves to the outside of the bottom floor, then to the second level which looks down over the workers on the first floor, and then to the top floor which looks down on all of the employees on the two floors below. There are no cubicles and the desks are all just lined up in the open area. On the edges, there is a little bit of separation from the center area with a little more privacy. The outside walls are round glass tubes laid on top of each other to let in light but not provide a "distracting view" of the outside! As with many architectural wonders, the roof has leaked for many years. Finally they built a new roof over the whole building and built a new ceiling inside so that when you look up you get the same feeling of light that you would have from F L Wright's original roof. We weren't allowed to take any photos of the building. You can see some comments on the photo of the Research Tower next to the Administration Building.

Frank Lloyd Wright also designed the office desks and chairs. (See photos) The desks look very practical and useful. The four legged chair also seems very comfortable and useful. However, as I have noted in the photo of the chair, the original three-legged chair was not so practical.

It is interesting that S. C. Johnson only makes consumables. Everything they make will be used up and you have to buy more to replace it. Good thought...

Case/IH Plant, Racine
On Monday, Sept 18, we went for a tour of the Case/IH plant in Racine. This was a three hour tour that really let you see everything! It was at least a "9". We saw where the castings that make up everything on the tractor such as frame, transmission, hydraulic pump, hydraulic valves etc. are machined by computer to exact tolerances. (The engines come from Cummins and are made elsewhere) We saw the assembly of the tractor and lots of its parts. The employees were very friendly and eager to explain to us what their job was. The body of the tractor (that the cab sits on) is incredibly strong, heavy and well made--not at all like the frames for the cars at the GM plant! We watched them build wiring harnesses, install windshields, install seats, check and align the doors, put the cab on the frame, put the roof on the cab. We got to see and actually WATCH most of the assembly process. There are lots of "inspection points" along the line so that any defects can be discovered and remedied before the bad part is enclosed and too hard to get to. Great tour!

After that we closed up the motorhome and headed south toward Chicago. We spent a night at a Wal-Mart parking lot so that we could be absolutely certain that our "lo dc" problem was fixed. We had no problem. That is a great relief!

I'll start the Chicago portion in a new email!

Love, Georgie

June 30-July 7, 2006 -PhotoBlog> Rachael & Abby in St Louis Hannibal

1. Motor Home and St. Louis Arch

2. Becky Thacher's (McDougals) cave, Mud Volleyball, Carnival

3. Paddlewheel, Pete the Horse, Swimming Center, Campfire

4. Hannibal carnival, mud volleyball finals

5. Lover's Leap, Fireworks, Dancing at the Concert

6. Abby, Rachel Photos Cahokia

June 4-12, 2006 - Oklahoma and Arkansas

Hi Everyone, We are in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This has been a National Park since the 1830's (yes 1 8 3 0 ' s) when the Federal Government decided to preserve the Hot Springs for everyone. Now NO one can go into the baths unless you pay $20 or so! Oh well... Dad and I went for a therapeutic bath and massage today. They do it just like they would have in the 1940's and acutally use an old bath house building. You can wear a bathing suit if you want to, but no one did while we were there. The men bathe on the first floor and the women on the second floor. You undress in a private room and the attendant wraps a towel around you. They run the special Hot Springs water from the Hot Springs mountain ( that is located right behind where the row of bath houses used to be) into a private old-fashioned tub in a separate little cubicle. You soak in the 102 degree water for about 15 minutes. Then you sit in a sitz bath with really hot water that soaks your lower back for about 10 minutes. (Dad said it REALLY felt good on his back.) Then you go to a steam cabinet or steam room, just like the old pictures show. They close you in the cabinet with just your head sticking out and they wrap the towel loosely around your neck to stop any steam from inside the cabinet from escaping. They usually keep the women in for 5 minutes but Dad said the men stay in a steam room for 10 minutes. Then you go to the "needle shower" for a few minutes. This is a shower where all of the water comes from small nozzles on pipes that run veritcally from your knees to your neck and 3/4 of the way around your body. Kind of like a whirlpool shower... Then you go lay on a table with hot towels on various parts of your body and a cold towel around your face. You relax there for about 15 minutes. Then you go in for your massage. Yep, I did it. All of it felt good except when they worked around the base of my neck and my upper back. Dad said ALL of it felt good to him!

The National Park has preserved the old bath houses that were in use up until about 1980. After the 1950's people stopped coming for the baths and started using medicines instead so the business really died down. The Hot Springs used to run along the street in front of the bath houses. In the 1890's (or so) they built arches to cover the springs with a concrete roadway and built a really nice promenade along the front of the bath houses. There is only one bath house operating on Bath House Row now, but there are a few hotels in the area that offer the baths and the massages. We went to the original one since we wanted to see what it used to be like. There is a really nicely restored bath house that the National Park Service has as a visitor center. There are a couple of informative movies and you can walk through all of the old areas. There was a gym with exercise equipment designed in the late 1800's/early 1900's. The bathing rooms and waiting rooms were very opulent and reminded me of the old Roman baths. Stained glass windows, lots of marble, solid wood doors on the dressing rooms. It was all first-class for the time.

After we did that we drove through the Ouishita National Forest area again (it continues from Oklahoma).

We are going to a Science Center tomorrow that I hope is neat. Then we are leaving to head to the Bufalo National River area north of Hot Springs.

Email me back about what is going on in your life this week!

Love, Mom and Dad

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June 13-15, 2006 - Mountain View, Arkansas

Hi Everyone,
We left Hot Springs and drove to a really out-of-the-way place called Mountain View, Arkansas. Dad picked it out because of the Blanchard Springs Caverns and it was a really neat place. The drive up on little "red" roads was steep and curvy... However, after we got there we found that it was the center of old true country music. Every evening in the town square musicians (and wanna be musicians) come down to the square just like they were coming for a game of "pick-up" basketball. They just sit down with some other musicians in some section of the square and they start to play music. No electrical instruments, everything must be acoustical. Also, no songs after 1941. (They want to keep the heritage of the old music alive, and after the men returned from the war and radio was introduced to everyone the true nature of the local music couldn't be guaranteed.) Everyone brings a lawn chair and just moves around from group to group listening for as long as each one wants. We were there for a couple of hours!

The next morning we went to an "outfitter" to canoe down the Bufalo National River. It was set aside in 1972 as a National River to preserve its beauty and keep it from becoming commercialized. We parked our car at the haul-out point and the outfitter took us by bus to the put-in point. They provide the canoe, the life jackets, the paddles and a trash bag. The water was warm, the day was sunny, the scenery was BE U TI FUL. The river flows about 2 mph and our section was about 4.5 miles long. It was a really fun afternoon.

Then we came back to the motor home and got ready for a concert just up the hill from the RV park. Again, all old music played on only acoustical instruments but much more professional this time!

This morning we went to the Blanchard Springs Caverns and took the "a" tour. (The "b" tour included 700 steps and steep winding walkways. The "c" tour included a harness, hard hat, rope and light and took you to undeveloped areas of the cave.) The "a" tour was approved for wheelchairs and strollers... The "a" tour was really nice. The cave was only discovered about 50 years ago and has been a national park for only 35 years or so. It is very big, very pretty and very nicely lighted. The guide was great also.

After that we came back, hooked up the motor home and headed to Springdale, Arkansas, for (can you believe it??) some more motor home repair work!

We are now parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot and I am doing this with the battery power of the computer and the Verizon internet hookup!

June 16-22, 2006 - Wal Mart, Fayetteville, Branson and Ozark Mountain

On June 16 we went to Bentonville, Arkansas, and visited the Wal-Mart Visitor's Center and drove around Bentonville to see where all of the Wal-Mart offices and warehouses are. The Wal-Mart "campus" is about 3 miles by 3 miles of huge buildings. I won't bore you with the details but Wal-Mart is quite a success story as they grew from one store to the chain it is today!

On Saturday we went to an air show in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The forecast was for an 80% chance of rain. When we woke up in the morning it was raining but we decided to go ahead and drive down there anyway. About noon it stopped raining, the cloud cover went to 12,000 feet and the visibility was excellent. We saw an excellent air show with the cloud cover providing a beautiful backdrop for the planes AND a temperature of about 77 degrees AND keeping the sun from beating down on us! We even had a guest appearance of a B-2 that flew in and made 3 beautiful passes.

On Sunday we drove from Springdale to Branson, Missouri. We went to a show on Sunday night, Monday afternoon, Monday night, Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday night and Wednesday night. One of the shows, the Hamner-Barber Show was an EXCELLENT show with a ventriloquist and a magician. All of the shows were good and were fun.

On Wednesday morning we decided to stop at this place we passed on our way to and from the campground every day that said Ozark Mountain Underground Storage. (The photos are in the last batch I sent.) We went inside to see if we could get some information about what it was and a man said he would give us a tour if we could wait a few minutes. We did and he came back and as we were introducing ourselves we learned that he was from Rockport, was a house builder there, flew airplanes and had an aerial photography business and also had a bunch of rental apartments. Do you think we found anything to talk about?

In the 1950's the mountain front was blasted away for rock and stone and gravel. It was decided that instead of blasting away the entire mountain, they would stop removing stone from the face of the mountain and would start to drill tunnels and blast the rock from INSIDE the mountain. That way they would not leave a big hole in the ground and a scar on the face of the earth. They can drill, blast and remove 2000 square feet of tunnel each day. The area that we walked around was 210,000 square feet but they have more than 7,000,000 (7 million!) square feet of tunnel under the mountain. The floor of the tunnel is 150' to 185' below the top of the mountain. It is like a maze with 30 foot square pillars of rock left in place every 35 feet. The height of the tunnel is about 14 to 18 feet. IF they wanted to, they could actually dig another whole set of tunnels below this set of tunnels as long as they kept the pillars lined up with one another to support the mountain above. They don't intend to do that though because they are using this tunnel maze for storage. For years they have been using the tunnel system just like a giant warehouse. It is a constant 54 degrees inside and has very low humidity. As you could see in the photos, there are doors cut into the face of the mountain for tractor-trailers to back up to and load or unload. In the past they have stored "powdered chicken", liquid chicken broth and "rendered chicken fat" in there for a big chicken processor. The containers come in from the processor and then are shipped out as people order the products. However, after 9-11 there has been a lot of interest in the tunnels in the mountain for high security facilities. They are building (and we got to see!) huge sealed rooms inside the tunnels for the computer server systems of Fortune 500 companies. They are phasing out the storage of low-tech food products and concentrating on high-security business uses. It is TRULY cutting edge technology and experimentation. We were in there touring for an hour and a half!!

Then we went to a new area in old downtown Branson where a developer has taken a dilapidated section of town and cleared it and has built a GREAT outdoor shopping mall along the river front. The anchor store there is Bass Pro! Bass Pro will have a pavilion out in the water where you can test the boats before you buy them! Some of the stores just opened a month ago and more are opening as they are ready. They put stores on the street level and time-share apartments in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th stories. VERY nicely done.

After that we went to the local airport and hired a plane and an instructor just to go up for a sight-seeing ride. As always, you get such a great perspective of a place from the air. We went up in a 152 so Mark went first and took pictures and then I went up! (Photos in the last batch...)

When we came back to the motorhome to have dinner before the 8 PM show, we had a knock on our door!! It was the guy from the Underground Storage who figured out where we were and came to invite us to dinner with him and his wife Thursday night! We would have loved to have gone and talked some more, but we had to be in Mount Vernon by Thursday night.

So that takes you up to today!

Sorry, I know it is a long email but we are having SOOOO much fun!!

We can't wait to see Abby and Rachel on Friday and then Sarah and Ronnie after that.

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September 1, 2006 - Harley Davidson and Miller Brewing Tours

On Friday, Sept 1, we drove to Wauwautusa for a tour of the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Factory. There are 3 of them in the area. It wasn't a very good tour. They just lead us through the factory floor but didn't really explain very much. As tours go I'd give it abut a 4 out of 10... But it WAS neat to look at the motorcylces parked outfront that belong to both employees and visitors.

Then we went to the Miller Brewery for a tour. This was a little better, but again they really didn't explain very much. It REALLY seemed that everyone else on the tour was just waiting to get to the end so they could have the free samples of 3 kinds of beers! On interesting fact is that Mr. Miller was the "brewmaster" to a ruler somewhere in Europe and came to the US to make his fortune. He arrived in Philadelphia but then travelled down the east coast, around Florida and up the Mississippi looking for the perfect place to start a brewery. Water, crops, etc. were important. When he reached the Milwaukee area he felt that this was the proper place and started his brewery.

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September 6, 2006 - Kohler Tour

On Wednesday, September 7, we drove to the town of Kohler, WI. (Kohler makes toilets, sinks, tubs, faucets as well as generators and engines.) Mr. Kohler originally manufactured farm implements in a town east of Kohler. In the late 1800's he took a watering trough (aka "hog scalding trough") and enameled the inside of it and put it on sale as a "tub that can be used for bathing inside the house". It was a very popular item and business increased. He decided that the town they were in was getting too congested and wanted to move the plant west. In 1899 the new plant was started, but it burned down and was rebuilt. In 1900 Mr. Kohler died. His two partners were not able to run the business so Mr. Kohler's three sons bought them out. They finished building the plant and one of the brothers died in 1904. Then another brother died in 1905. (They never told us what these brothers or the father died from but I'd really be interested in knowing...) The final brother took over running the business. Houses for the workers had been built up around the factory but there was no plan to the development of the area. Mr. Kohler hired a planner and toured Europe looking at planned developments. They came back to Kohler and decided that the houses would be built on wide tree-lined streets near the factory but with the factory completely hidden from sight in order to be aesthetically pleasing but not far from work. He had a huge brick residence built to house all of the immigrant workers and called it the American Club. The men paid for room and board out of their pay but the rates were very inexpensive. When the men were not working they were provided with lots of recreation activities as well as tutoring so that they could become US citizens. The current president, Herb Kohler, has decided that Kohler will have a newer, BOLD look and has made some real changes in the way bathrooms are designed. You have probably seen some of the Kohler ads on TV. Another member of the family (maybe a sister) is very interested in The Arts and supervises an Art Institue that Kohler supports. (Each year 16-22 artists are invited to come to the Kohler plant and use its facilities to complete a project of their choosing. The only stipulation is that one of each of the items they create must be left on the Kohler grounds and one must go on display in the Art Institute. From what we saw of the finished projects, Abby and Rachel have done better projects in grade school!) Kohler is a privately held corporation so they have no public shareholders to hold them accountable for what they do. (Good thing...) Herb Kohler decided in the 1990's to turn the old American Club into a five-diamond hotel with appropriate ammenities. There are 4 large, well respected golf courses in the immediate area. Lots of people thought that he had lost his mind doing something like this in the middle of nowhere but apparently it has worked and the Hotel is full all of the time. People come just to be pampered and enjoy the five-diamond luxury.

The tour was first class: a 9 1/2 on a scale of 1 to 10. First we saw the forms for the clay toilets and sinks and how the forms are removed from the poured products. In the brass foundry area we saw how a sand mold is made to be placed INSIDE of the form for the item to be molded so that the hollow areas stay hollow when the VERY hot liquid brass is poured or ladled into the form. For a faucet, for example, a sand form is made for anyplace the water is going to flow. That is put into the mold for the brass, the mold is closed, the brass is poured in. It flows everywhere except where the sand mold is (up, down, all around). After about 30 seconds the mold is spread open and the molded faucet is removed. The sand mold is then disintegrated and washed out of the product. Then it is sent along the line to be cleaned up, shined up, plated, tested and shipped out. We saw a HUGE machine that automatically sets the form, set the sand mold, puts the top of the mold on, pours in the molten cast iron, cools the mold, removes the mold and sends the tub on to the next step. Mr. Kohler knew he wanted a machine to do this process, but he couldn't find one anywhere. Finally he met a man who said he had such a machine but he couldn't get it to work. Mr. Kohler told him that he had so many engineers on the payroll that if the man would sell him the machine HE would get it to work. He did, they did, and they are using it today.

The BEST part of the tour was watching the robots enamel a bathtub. The enamel goes onto the tub in a powdered form and the tub (or any other item) must be 1750 degrees for proper enameling. From a HUGE furnace, a robot arm lifts an ORANGE HOT bathtub out and moves it over so that another robot arm sifts the powdered enamel on it. The furnace robot turns the tub this way and that so that the enamel robot can get every section adequately covered. However, since this takes a few minutes the tub starts to cool down. It is moved into the furnace again until it is again 1750 degrees and then the process is repeated for a second coat. This time the robot moves the tub onto a conveyor belt that takes it through a cooling section for about 5 hours. It was just incredible to see the ORANGE hot tubs. One lady asked why they painted the tubs orange first. It REALLY did look like that!

We saw the men doing the same thing with tubs and sinks. The automatic machines do the 3 most popular colors and styles of tubs - White, Almond and Bisque. If another color is ordered or a style that is not popular, the men do this process in a different section of the plant. As we walked around we were told not to touch any of the finished products. You could feel the heat coming off of them from about 10 feet away. I can't believe they actually let us walk around there.

It was a GREAT tour!

After lunch we went to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. They have the submarine Cobia there and we toured it. The museum was very well done and again Mark got some ideas for the Port Aransas museum.

September 3, 2006 - Wisconsin Dells

The Wisconsin Dells are about in the middle of the state. About 500 million years ago (give or take a million years...) this area was an inland sea about 100 feet deep. Layers of sediment settled to the bottom of the sea during this Cambrian period. During the past 1.8 million years there were several glaciers covering parts of the area. The last glacial period started 26,000 years ago and ended 18,000 years ago (again, give or take 1000 years...). The glaciers were several hundred feet thick and used so much of the earth's water that the sea level was lowered by about 400'. The last glacier dammed the Wisconsin River and since the water could not flow to the Mississippi River it backed up behind the ice dam and formed the Glacial Lake Wisconsin. As the glacier melted, the ice dam became weaker. When the water in the lake finally broke through the ice dam, all of Glacial Lake Wisconsin emptied into the Mississippi River in just a few days. The torrent of water cut a path about 100' deep through the sedimentary rock of the area. This path is now where the Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi. The resulting cut through the sandstone is what is known as the Wisconsin Dells. It is very picturesque.

There are boat trips of the Upper and Lower Dells (a dam divides the upper from the lower), a jet boat trip of the Lower Dells and a DUCK boat trip of the Lower Dells. There are also the required number of tourist shops lining both sides of the street on both entrances to the Dells.

In the 1800's there was a lot of logging in the area. (Actually, there still is.) The lumbermen would float rafts of logs down the river. In 1856 the river was dammed to generate power. An accident happened when a lumberman tried to get his raft of logs past the dam and the men got so angry that they blew up the dam. This prompted the new dam to include a 60' wide log chute so the lumbermen could still get downstream. Of course, then the railroad came along and made the lumbermen who rode rafts obsolete.

In 1859, one of the lumberman who was out of a job decided to start the boat tours of the Dells. The first tours were in rowboats. You not only bought your ticket but one person in each boat got to row. The tour guide only guided, he did not row. This is the tour boat company that is still doing the tours today.

We took the boat tour of the Upper Dells and a DUCK tour of the Lower Dells. We have never taken a DUCK tour before even though we have seen lots of them It was fun. We went into and out of the water twice with a "drive" through the forest between the river and a pond. The commentary by the driver was excellent!

After the Civil War photographer H.H. Bennett came to the Dells and just fell in love with the area. He took thousands of photos and turned them into the "stereoscopic" photos (that are viewed with special glasses to make them look 3-D) to entice people to travel to the Dells. The railroads promoted the photos to get people to take excursions on the train to the area. He enjoyed taking photos of nature instead of people because he said "nature was easier to pose and easier to please". Soon after 1900 Bennett's son-in-law became alarmed at the development along the river and bought up much of the riverfront property. He then turned it all over to the state with the stipulation that it remain natural.

In about 1886 Bennett had his son Ashley jump across the 5' distance separating Stand Rock from the main rock mountain so that Bennett could demonstrate his new "stop-action" photography. He wanted to demonstrate how fast his new shutter was. He had Ashley jump back and forth 20 times while he took pictures to prove his new camera worked. However, when other photographers saw it they called it a trick and didn't believe him. On the boat tour they "re-enact the jump" but they use a dog instead of a person. It was truly hokey but fun!

Bennett built most of his own equipment. He built an "exposure room" that moved around in a circle so that a skylight that "followed the sun" would give him more time each day to do his work. The H. H. Bennett Museum was very well done. Mark is working with the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association (PAPHA) to get a museum of sorts in Port Aransas. This museum gave him some good ideas for Port Aransas...

This area was very nice. The tours were very good. The shops were omnipresent! There are some huge waterparks and an amusement park in town. It would be a very nice one or two day trip. We spend so much time that that we ended up driving back to the motorhome in the dark!

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September 7, 2006 - StoraEnso Tour

The last email was just getting too long for anyone to read at one sitting so I decided to continue to the StoraEnso tour in another email...

On Thursday we went to Wisconsin Rapids to see the StoraEnso paper plant. We weren't allowed to take any photos but this tour was also a 9 1/2 on a scale of 1 to 10! StoraEnso is a Finnish company and has locations throughout the world. StoraEnso calls the HUGE machine we saw their "16 Machine" because it is in Location #1 (Wisconsin Rapids) and was the 6th machine installed there. When they decided to build the machine in the late 1990's, the parts for the machine were brought in on barges through the Great Lakes and on railroad cars and by truck. They had to close down some highways and some parts of the city to get the huge parts through the streets. The machine is 40' wide, 30' high and 500' long.

The first step in the process (long before things advance to the above machine) is that the logs are brought in and the chipper eats them up and spits them out. The chips are then mixed with water and chemicals to make a pure white pulp. (There are photos of the chipper and the logs coming in by truck and railcar and the rows and rows of logs stored waiting to be used.) The pulp is piped to the 16 Machine to start the paper making process. The 16 Machine is 500' long and completes the entire process from pulp to finished glossy coated paper. The pulp goes onto a "screen" and the moisture is shaken out of it. Then the screen with the pulp is pressed between rollers to press the moisture out of the bottom of the screen and then through another set of rollers to press the moisture out of the top. Then it goes through a series of steam rollers to dry the paper. It comes out of the machine and is rolled onto 21' wide rolls that weigh 23 tons. Automatic optical scanners check the paper as it is being wound onto the roll and if they find a defect it is marked on the edge of the roll. This roll of paper is then rolled onto another roll so that any defect can be cut out. It then goes through a coating machine that sprays a finish on the paper to give it a matt finish and then is wound on ANOTHER roll. At this point the roll weighs 33 tons. If the paper is to be sold with a gloss finish (magazine covers, annual reports, etc.) this roll is moved to another machine which uses air to buff the paper to a shine. The paper is held off of any rollers with air pressure so that no marks are put on the gloss paper.

The machine can turn out 4200 feet of this high grade paper per MINUTE (more than 45 miles of paper in one hour). It usually operates at about 3600' per minute though.

The paper that comes off of this machine is still on a 21' roll, but consumers can't use (and truckers can't carry!) a 21' wide, 33 ton roll of paper! The roll goes to another machine that puts cardboard "cores" on an empty roller. The paper is fed onto this roller and the paper is wound yet another time. Then blades slice through the paper to match the width of the core. The core is not cut by these blades. There might be 5 different width rolls on 5 different width cores after the cutting process. Some customers use the paper on these rolls, but most people use sheets of paper to print on so most of these rolls go to the "sheeting department".

In the sheeting department, the rolls are loaded onto a machine that cuts the paper into sheets of roughly the size that is needed. At the next station the huge stacks of paper are divided into smaller stacks that can be precision cut to exactly the correct size. Sometimes these final cut sheets are packaged in boxes (about 1000 sheets) and sometimes they are placed on a pallet (maybe 10,000 sheets) and wrapped in brown shrink-wrap for bulk shipping.

The next step is the BEST part. Each box and each pallet is automatically loaded onto an AGV (automated ground vehicle) - actually robot cars - and carried to a space in the warehouse. The AGV sets the package down on a stand. An automated "loading robot" comes along and picks it up, scans its barcode and places it on a shelf in the warehouse. At this point, it has been entered into inventory and its precise location has been noted in the inventory computer. There are 11 layers of shelves in the warehouse (it is approximately 9 stories high). These 11 layers have a front storage section and a rear storage section. When an order is placed the loading robot moves to the space where the item is stored. If something else is in front of it, it picks it up and moves it to the nearest empty space. When it moves that package to the nearest empty space its NEW inventory location is noted in the computer and the loading robot does NOT have to move it back after it gets what it was looking for in the rear space. The loading robot puts the ordered package on a stand, an AGV comes along and picks it up and takes it to be loaded onto a truck to be shipped. There are very few lights on in the warehouse. The robots do not need lights and there are NO people there at all. By not having the lights on, the company saves about $60,000/year in utility bills.

We took the scenic route back to Green Bay and saw some great looking farms and countryside.

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September 8, 2006 - Lambeau Field and Green Bay Packers

OK, this is the last one for a while!

On Friday, September 8, we drove to Green Bay to visit Lambeau Field. We had a tour of the stadium and this was an excellent tour also. Probably 9 out of 10...

I am going to tell this story as I remember it from the tour. If any of you know that the facts are not quite perfectly correct, forgive me, but I think they are close... For those of you who are not real football fans, you'll get the idea.

Curly Lambeau was a Green Bay boy who played football in High School. He went to Notre Dame and played on their varsity team as a starter his Freshman year. When he came home for Christmas vacation he got sick with tonsillitis and could not go back to school in January. When he finally got better he decided to get a job and when September rolled around he was making so much money ($250/month) at the packing plant that he decided not to go back to school but to keep working.

However, he really missed football so he talked his boss into funding $500 for uniforms and supplies for a local football team. The bosses even threw in a practice field next to the plant. The team played other local area teams and was very good. The packing plant was sold. The new owners still supported the team and the new name of the plant was Acme Packing Plant so the team became known as the Acme Packers. In 1921 the plant owners paid $50 to join the brand new National Football League. (The Houston team just paid $800,000,000.00 to join...) Now the Acme Packers played other teams in the league when they weren't working at the packing plant. Eventually the team needed more money and the citizens of the city of Green Bay bought 1000 shares of stock for $5.00 per share and the team became the Green Bay Packers. This has ensured that there was never an individual owner of the team. The citizens of Green Bay own the team. Green Bay has 45,000 residents and is by far the smallest city with a professional football team. However, tickets for the games are sold ONLY on a season basis (although you can buy 3, 5, 7 or all home games for your season ticket) and tickets have been SOLD OUT since 1960. In 1999 it was decided to build a new, bigger, more useful stadium that could be used year round for many different events. The city voted for a 1/4% sales tax (but only be a 6% margin) to help pay for the new stadium and there were a lot of corporate sponsors who put up a lot of money. However, they were still short of the money they needed so every season ticket holder who wanted to keep his full season ticket had to pay $1400 per ticket as a one-time surcharge. The season pass is based on the price of the particular seat times the number of home games the ticket is for. Most of the seats are in the $50-$90 range. You are allowed to pass your season ticket to any relative as far away as a first cousin in your will. There is a waiting list of 75,000 people for season tickets and only about 25 tickets are relinquished each year. The new stadium holds 72,000 people.

The private boxes are between $60,000 - $160,000 per year with a 5 to 7 year lease. There is a waiting list of about 80 companies for the boxes but they are almost never given up by the corporations that hold them.

The new stadium has an Atrium with food areas and 2 Pro Shops. The Pro Shops in the stadium grossed about $17.5 million in 2005 - the most of any Pro Shop in the country.

The second floor is Curly's Pub and Dining Room.

The fourth floor is the Legend's Floor and has the private corporate boxes.

All of the administrative offices for the team are in the stadium. Also, all of the training rooms, classrooms, health care, diet control, etc. are in the building so the players do everything right there.

We got to run out of the tunnel to the field (but not ON to the field) just like the players do for the game. It was fun because they put on a recording of all of the fans yelling and cheering and the announcer saying "Here come the Green Bay Packers!" They have removed some of the bricks from the tunnel of the old stadium so that they new players can run across the same bricks that the Legends of the Past have run across.

We spent quite a bit of time in the Hall of Fame. It was VERY well done and fun.

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