Lake Village
Campground
Pioneer Family Campground
This turned out to be one of the quietest campgrounds we've stayed at. It is a bit remote, not much for "city" near it. We picked it because it was near some relatives we wanted to visit. The campground is quite large so it was nice to be able to run with Polly right there. It had a pond that some vacationers swim in but just didn't look all that inviting.
Motorcycling
Ride with Troy and family
Carli rode with Troy and Alek rode his own motorcycle down. We were so excited to have them come see us! It was a brutal, boring ride for them - 6? 7? hours. Butts had to hurt.
Barb and I travel with our motorcycles, so we all went on a ride together. Carli rode with me. I didn't record where we went so I don't have a cool map of that route.
To make a long story short ...
The house that built me (part 1)
We lived in this house until 1973 when I was 9. As a child, I remember the street being so much longer! It really isn't. My dad drove semi trucks for the steel mills and would park his truck and trailer in front of the house. Interstate 94 was constructed while we lived there. Again, as a child, it was so much fun watching the construction equipment.
One story I remember is that a spare tire from a semi came bouncing off I-94 and crushed the cab of one of my dad's trucks!
My brother, Rich, also drove cross-country trucks. Whenever he was passing through this area, he would park his truck right up the hill from our house and just walk down to visit us.
The neighborhood was so much fun, as a kid. We'd ride our bicycles all over the place. Do you remember attaching playing cards to the frame of your bike so the cards would hit the spokes? Yes! Sounded exactly like a big motorcycle, didn't it!
While we were in this area visiting various relatives, we decided to go see this house. Feeling odd about just knocking on the door, I did anyway. This cute old couple came out to greet me. As soon as I explained why I was there, their eyes lit up. They were the ones that bought the house from my parents! Forty-eight years later, and they remembered us! They had heard that dad died and they always wondered what happened to us.
They were so excited to show us around and talk about what the house was like when I was little. They talked about the "growth marks" we left on the kitchen doorway frame. They left them and added those of their own kids and grand-kids.
Since visiting, I have dug up some old pics of when we lived there and have sent them to Phil. How much fun to talk to them!
In 1973, we moved to Almond, WI. You can find part 2 of this story in the "Bancroft WI" page.
Crisman Elementary
This is the original location of Crisman Elementary, the school I attended while growing up on Bailey Street, 1964-1973. As with most memories, I remember the playground being huge. I also remember the building itself to be a multi-story (3?) dark brown brick.
The shocking truth about electricity
Did I mention that there really wasn't much to do at this campground? Yeah. So one afternoon, we decided to wash our shoes on the back deck. We've got the hose going, spraying off the shoes, and I just happened to reach down and touch the aluminum frame that goes around the deck. I felt a little tingle. Not thinking it was anything strange, I just thought I had reached in a way that pinched a nerve or something like that. Next time I touched the frame, sure enough, the tingle happened again. I was standing there touching the frame on purpose, probably with a slightly confused look on my face when Barb looks at me and asks "Did you feel that too?".
We both knew we were getting shocked. We're both standing there in our bare feet in the dirt with water all over everything and we're getting shocked. We immediately stopped touching things on the camper. We always carry a multi-meter with us, so I got it. Turned it to both A.C. and D.C. settings and, sure enough, the aluminum frame of the camper deck was reading 20+ volts. The amperage was very small so we weren't getting hurt. But where is it coming from?
First test, turn off the 50 amp power that feeds the camper. No change. Next, disconnect the two marine batteries. No change. Next, go so far as to completely unplug from the electric source. No change. Where is it coming from?
A few days prior to this episode, Troy and kids were here. Troy mentioned that those power lines that cross over the camper are pretty close. Yup, they sure are. At one point, I was up on the roof of the camper and could have stepped over the lowest line. I chose to crawl under instead because, as a guy, I may be a little sensitive to having my private parts near something that carries electricity. That's how close the wires were to the top of our camper.
We hooked up the truck to the camper and moved it out from under the power lines and probably 100 feet away. Sure enough, no more electric charge running through the camper. Also, just to experiment a little more, I pulled the camper back under the lines with the rear of the camper right under the lines, closest to the deck frame. The multi-meter showed MUCH more voltage and, still (thankfully!), very low amperage.
Also, because, well, SCIENCE, I held the ground wire of the multi-meter in one hand and held the other wire up in the air while I walked under the power lines. Five volts! Just walking with the wire in the air! Not actually touching anything! The term to know here is "induction". That's what was happening.
We really didn't have a choice but to try to position the camper to reduce the induced voltage. We had no where else to go and we were only staying another couple days and it didn't appear as though the voltage was causing harm.