My gosh, it's Oshkosh

Six weeks now. The olive green Rogue, loaded

to the gunwales with “stuff”, is the one constant thing in our roaming world.

The landscape ever changes, even when it doesn’t.

As we purr into Wisconsin, we are still amid lush rolling farmland with corn, corn and more corn.

I find myself using the word “lush” a lot. Lushness prevails. These are rich, productive realms. Rural Wisconsin is just gorgeous. Streams, woodlands.

It is field and farms, darling barns and silos, silos, silos.

Every farm has its own silo.

Wisconsin is the great cheese state of the USA. At sporting events, Wisconsin people proudly wear absurdly ugly yellow giant faux cheese chunk hats and call themselves “Cheeseheads”. Truly.

We start seeing cheeseries.

We pause in Osseo for lunch. It is not much of a town.

But it has Moe’s Diner which makes up for everything. Out there on the landscape it sits as a classic American diner. It's huge sign brags that it is "almost world famous:.

Inside it is the whole experience - the red-topped bar stools, shining tubular steel, laminex table tops. Interestingly, I note the use of little diamonds of carpet on the wall as a decor feature.

We order proper diner food from the proper diner waitress, who is all good cheer. The food is absurdly ample. Bruce has meatloaf and mash. I have a fried chicken sandwich which comes with a mountain of the most exquisite french fried potatoes. Of course, one cannot and must not eat mountains of chips, however yummy. Of course I leave most of them on the plate just as I have seen everyone doing all over America. Restaurants are hooked on oversupply of french fries. I’ve been noting the mountains of leftovers in cafes, restaurants and diners across the country. Incalculable millions of tatties are being turfed. The country is swamped with homeless people asking for money for food and restaurants are throwing out ton upon ton of potatoes.

As we pass towns with odd names, it entertains us to moot how to say them in the Americans’ fractured French. St Croix is pronounced Saint Croy. Wonder how they say Menomonie. What a dire name for a town. I wouldn’t like that as my address.

We’re off Interstate 90 and on the lovely, easy country road called 10.

Shiny milk trucks. More corn and now some forests,

accompanied by roadside watering holes such as Lady Lumberjack’s Restaurant and Saloon, the Speakeasy Saloon…

We pass Neilsville, a neat little town with lots of car dealerships and even a car show. More green and luxuriant countryside with bars and round-topped silos.

We find a cheeserie and swing in to do the right cheesy Wisconsin thing. There’s an immense range of cheeses from parmesans to cheddar curds, We buy a caraway cheddar which turns out to be sublime.

Maple syrup Is on sale down the road.

A tiny town called Chili.

More miles of agriculture and dear little towns with homes and barns and Lutheran churches.

Ponds and livestock.

A settlement called Rudolph. We note they don’t post the populations in Wisconsin.

Ron Paul, the Libertarian former presidential candidate, is on the radio advertising freeze dryers to preserve your food for long storage - up to 20 years, he touts. This razzes us up a lot. How far can a presidential candidate fall? Advertising goods for survivalists?

We are so amused that, oops. We miss a turn.

Now there’s a huge a building with an elephant outside it - in back yonder Wisconsin? How exotic. It turns out to be a taxidermy store.

We cross the Tomorrow River. Then cross it again. And then again.

From taxidermy to the Bard.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace

from day to day…”

And then a roadside sign: “Fudge and Free Wine - Turn Now.”

What an hilarious combination. A complete turn-off. We don’t turn.

Lots more prosperous farming land. We cross the Rat River.

The sun is shining and the corn shimmers and glints in the fields.

And here comes Oshkosh, population 60,083.

Yikes, and lots of them dead. There is a cemetery lining one side of the road into town

and it goes on and on and on. An on!

This is a massive cemetery. Welcome to Oshkosh.

The town itself is quaint and olde-worlde, a little bit camel coloured, crumbly and down at heel, but characterful.

We will be staying in the Best Western Riverside Hotel.

I’ve booked a river view room and when I say I hope it

has a lovely view, the receptionist tells me that it is only a partial view. But I booked a river view. Not all river views are the same, she says. Huh? That is bait and switch. I booked a river view. Well, the river view rooms are taken and we can’t move people, she says with more than a bit of attitude. I am not impressed.

So the room has a view of the river across the expanses of parking station and buildings. It is a partial

view. But it is a view and it is also a big sky view over the carpark. In itself, it is a nice room.

We chug out for an exploratory walk, crossing the bridge, walking the length of the town’s main street, admiring the urban art and listening to the glorious mournful cries of the herring gulls which are wheeling proprietorially about the town.

There’s a funny old cinema called Time, looking as if time forgot it. There are some gorgeous old buildings. There is some striking urban art. There are lots of bars.

There is a shoe shop displaying Cher’s strident lime second-hand platform shoes. And Christine Aguilera’s red stilettos. And John Travolta’s black boots. They don’t seem to be for sale. Just there.

I want Oshkosh postcards. Or something bearing that famous name.

I pop into a couple of what I think are likely shops to sell Oshkosh postcards and maybe even an Oshkosh baseball cap. They look at me as if I am mad. No. No one has anything like that.

I check the hotel’s efficiency store. Oshkosh? No. We have Green Bay Packers things, though.

Epic fail.

We take a photo at the town’s information sign in the main street. Even there the name is not prominent.

But, hang on. Look at the sewage plates underfoot! Gorgeous. I photograph them as my official Oshkosh souvenir.

The hotel is perched right on the edge of the river with a fabulous restaurant both indoors and out on a riverside patio. We score a rock star table for two on the waterline and settle down with a glass of wine to watch Oshkosh at work and play. Luxurious speedboats putter in to tie up at little docks along the river path. Tanned couples, fit and rich-looking, disembark and merge into the restaurant and bar crowd around us.

Boats cruise to and fro. Bridges open for them. The Oshkosh sheriff is out there on a motorboat. We watch him picking up a boat and issuing a ticket right there in front of us on the water. We wonder why and ask a chap sitting beside us. “Making a wake,” says the man who turns out to be one of the local boat owners.

In the morning, after a stormy night, and a hearty breakfast, we resume my quest for Oshkosh memorabilia. I’ve become a bit fixated by the weird dearth of it. One of the girls on reception says that Walmart sells Oshkosh souvenirs. Off we go. I forage and inquire and find a couple of outsize t-shirts but no postcards let alone caps. We try a big service station. No. Nobody had ever asked for Oshkosh cards before. But Walgreens may. We try Walgreens. No, but we have t-shirts for the big air show.

We give up.

It’s time to hit the road.

But first, we investigate the massive military carpark we have seen across the river. A dense lineup of armoured cars and trucks and tanks. It turns out that, while Oshkosh no longer makes the children’s clothes for which it was once to famous, it now is the country’s leading manufacturer of defence vehicles. And here they are.

Good for you, Oshkosh.