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.

Mt Rushmore, the mighty

Nothing prepares one for Mt Rushmore.

Not all the photos or documentaries. Not even North By Northwest with Cary Grant dangling from Washington’s nose.

It is a stunning rock formation which seems to glow with the finesse of the faces looking down from it.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Grand, wise, good faces. Huge. High and huge. Sixty feet high. Noses 20 ft long. Eyes 11 feet wide.

Beneath the sculptures the rubble waste cascades down the hillside like an avalanche. Rocks were not just jackhammered to make these images;

they were dynamited. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, even blasted one completed face off of the cliff - because it did not meet his aims. The project involved some 400 workers and took from 1927 - 1941.

It towers there in a magnificent landscape. Other peaks have similar boulder formations and one can imagine how they could inspire an artist to create a major work.

As we stand and gaze, clouds move across the sky and we see the sculptures in changing light. The clouds bring a different and even sharper perspective.

Oh, they are mighty.

They are serene as they gaze out across the

mountain landscape to infinity.

They imbue the world beneath with a sense of its smallness.

Of course, the sculptures have created a bit of a tourism industry.

A grand avenue has been erected where people can walk to a viewing area. It has been constructed of granite and marble and given an arch and an honour guard of the flags of all the United States of America. This gives an added sense of respect and gravitas.

Its grandeur hints a little at great

archeological sites like Ephesus and Olympia.

Of course it swarms with visitors, most of them Americans exploring their own land with curiosity and pride.

There are official information centres and souvenir shops up there, too.

But down the mountain, the real tourism industry has made its merry explosions.

There are two whole villages of ticky-tacky shops, cafes, and bars. They are set out rather as one would find in a wild west movie set.

Since there are only so many Mt Rushmore souvenirs people can buy, the shops sell souvenirs of almost everything. There’s even a

Christmas Tree shop tucked in there selling Chrissy kitsch.

There’s an old period hotel and lots more recent accommodation. There are rides and activities for the kiddies.

There are serious cultural museums, waxworks, wood sculpture yards, gold panning….something for everyone. This is America, after all.

I love it all.

Except, perhaps, for the religious exploitation which takes us rather by surprise.

At the memorial there is an evangelical pod set up on the grand avenue beneath the sculptures. A grey-haired man in a dark suit sits under an umbrella amid acolytes and promotional paraphernalia suggesting that the Bible could tell us something about all this. Bruce is unusually irritated by the bad taste of this display in this place which is about nation, art, and human endeavour.

He actually pauses and gives the missionary some feedback. “Mt Rushmore is not the place to be advertising your religion. I’m of a mind to open an atheist stand right opposite you to tell people my view,” he declares. The missionary does not respond.

Worse was to come when we spied a huge sign carved out on a large wall beneath a large development just down the valley. It was a URL, “whatisthis4.com". Bruce looked it up. Oh, no. A massive missionary centre devoted to sending people en masse out to shine their light to people of other faiths? What the?

In the shadow of those wise old men of American history, those men who believed in secular government, education, and progress?

Extraordinary arrogance.

We are here!

We’re 3000 miles in and settled

into quite a routine.

The luggage is more rationalised but is nonetheless fairly hefty.

We carry a mini kitchen - a chiller basket with our Bloody Mary makings and our morning milk and another basket with knife and cutting board, pickles and limes, chilli sauce, wine glasses etc.

Then we have a snacks bag, of course. Americans are expert with

snack food. Oh, Chex Mix, I love you. We also have our suitcases. One stays in the car and holds things we don’t need.

We have purchased cloth overnight bags, one each, to make the luggage more contained. I also have two pillows and a patchwork quilt. Bruce has two favourite cotton blankets.

They are fallbacks when hotels don’t suit our patterns. Bruce sleeps with

light covers and I sleep with lots. We have a bag which contains shoes we are not wearing. It stays in the car.

And we have coats and shirts we leave hanging in the car. Oh, and of course, we have my computer bag with all the cords and books.

There is a rhythm to our travel.

We do a couple of days driving and a couple of days resting.

On travel days, we try not to drive for more than 4 hours. And we take regular breaks to explore and find places to explore and to stop for lunch.

This week we happened upon Gillette which is a pretty gritty little town in among coal mining and

coal-seam gas operations. Little oil rigs plug away in the landscape outside the town. There’s a massive open cut coal mine exposing a great black band. Endless trains heave slowly across the landscape, some of which reminds one of Broken Hill. Signs such as "Good Food. Cold Beer. Live Bait” tell a lot about the lifestyle.

The elevation is 4700ft.

But in the main street as one comes into Gillette, outside the newspaper office, is one of the most striking pieces of urban art I’ve seen. It is a rock, paper, scissors sculpture.

Our quest in Gillette is a cup of coffee and a pee.

We spot a cafe next to an art framer’s shop.

What a lovely find.

They have never made a macchiato before but they easily follow the simple recipe and, with the lovely coffee they are using, make a glorious specimen. Utterly refreshing.

The other occupants of the cafe are a four well-groomed women intently involved in knitting. The local knitting circle.

What a contrast to that rather harsh old mining town spirit outside.

On the door of the coffee shop also is a message.

A few hours and many miles later, we stop for lunch in a town called Sturgis.

This South Dakota town is famous for an annual motorbike festival which attracts hundreds of thousands of bikers. The reason they flock to Sturgis is because helmets are not compulsory in South Dakota - just as in New Hampshire which brags the immense Laconia bikers' festival for the same reason.

Sturgis is much smaller than Laconia and when the bikers are not there, it is very small. But it is entirely biker ready at all times. It has come to live the biker life.

It has biker promos and biker

shops and biker saloons and even biker lawyers. True story. The most prominent advertising in the town is for Jack Daniels and for a motorcycling lawyer. He has banners right across the streets and dangling from light posts. Shades of Better Call Saul.

The people generally are tattooed and pierced. They are of the biker ilk. They look a bit scary really. Some wear cowboy hats. Lots are wearing black.

Well, when I say lots, there are not too many people around at all.

We potter around looking for somewhere acceptable to eat. Not a lot of options. So we brave Bob’s Family Restaurant which looks pretty dodgy. Inside it is very blue with low ceiling and fans.

All sorts of rough dudes are sitting around at tables. An immense man in an Uncle Sam suspenders belt sits alone at a table in the middle. An old chap in cowboy hat is at a table in a wheelchair. Everyone is really, really, really quiet. They don’t look like soto voce types but they are murmuring so softly, it is eerie.

The only lively voice is that of the

waitress who is very spirited and down-home and is tending to all the tables alone. The kitchen is somewhere behind a black curtain.

We order iced tea and salads. Very quietly.

Everyone else is ordering burgers which come with mountains of fries.

The food is lovely. Phew.

Hotels have changed. We tend to stick to a few favoured chains - ones with really good wifi, pools and parking. Generally they are most satisfactory and we grab luggage trolleys and rumble in with our gear.

The interesting change is that almost all hotels now cater for animals. There are dogs everywhere, dog exercise areas and special rates for dog accommodation. I just saw two dogs with balls in their mouths trotting through the breakfast room. America is very, very laid back about doggy travellers.

Then there are children. American hotels are gearing themselves for child occupancy. They are here in swarms. One sees them checking in with their parents, each pulling their own little suitcase. The last hotel had a magnificent under-cover waterpark for children, separate to a large pool for adults. This hotel, Clubhouse Inn and Suites, to my chagrin, has a pool just for children with water slides and umbrella waterfalls. It is very popular. The pool is only 2 - 3ft deep. Nothing in the world will get me in there with all those ankle-biters.

Better luck next stop.