May 26, 2014 Cambridge, Wisconsin, Middletown, Devil's Lake, Cranes

May 26, 2014

After a noisy night at Walmart, we decided to head to the small town of Cambridge where we attend the Fire Department’s Annual Memorial Day Breakfast.  French toast, eggs, sausage and applesauce, plus coffee, milk and juice for $4!  

 We got there early, about 7:15 and they had been serving since 6:30.  We ate and chatted with a woman who sat near us.  She  was a letter carrier and said this past Winter was the worst ever.  She suggested a few places we could visit and called a friend over to ask whether we could overnight at their church (the friend, secretary at the church, said sure but we didn’t stay in town that long.)  By 8:00 the line for food was long and by 9:00 even longer!  Diane, the lady we talked to, said that everyone from this town and from the next town over was there.

They had great wi-fi at the firehall, so after a while I went to the Trek (in the adjacent parking lot) and did some writing while we waited for the parade at 10:30.  It rained a little, but stopped for the parade which was on Main Street, of course, and lasted about 20 minutes.  It was led by a color guard of veterans who got a nice round of applause from the crowd.  Greg found a great viewing spot which was up a few stairs in front of a closed shop. 

The middle school and high school bands marched by.  The tuba player from the middle school was the grandson of the people next to us.  They were an older couple who told us a bit about the town.  Greg mentioned the number 20 on the fire house and it turns out it is the number of a nascar driver from the area.  They were big racing fans and kind of ho-hum about the Packers.  They have traveled quite a bit and seemed to enjoy sharing.  The man was retired military, then was a truck driver for 12 years or so,  ran a bowling alley for a few years,  and currently is retired (again).

Assorted antique cars, a float,  a group of people with dogs, a pink contingent who the man next to me proudly said raises almost $30,000 every year,  boy scouts, a Luthern church , kids on bikes, etc.  The  4-H club had a float pulled by a John Deere tractor, and then there was a whole parade of tractors driven by men and women.  The fire department’s equipment brought up the rear.  Many of those in the parade threw candy to the crowd so kids were excited and scrambling.

We decided to head out after the parade finished.  Next stop the International Mustard Museum in Middletown.   It was pretty busy!  The upstairs was a shop, selling a couple hundred different mustards, including French and Polish ones as well as Wisconsin made and others.  They had pretzel sticks and samples, so we tried a few.  They were also selling hot pretzels and you could get any of their mustards.  Greg and I shared one and I had the Raspberry Mustard and Greg had a spicy brown mustard.  Washed down with a local root beer.

Downstairs was the mustard Museum.  They had a video about growing and making mustard (Canada is the biggest producer) which must have been made in the 60’s when they opened.  They had a few thousand mustards on display, with each state represented as well as many countries. Texas and Pennsylvania had quite a few! A few cute stories and cartoons like this “Men in Yellow” poster,  medicinal uses,  etc.

We had to smile when we saw that you could get mustard with personalized labels for birthdays, anniversaries – even as wedding favors! 

  We next headed further north to Devil’s Lake State Park and the town of Baraboo.

It began to rain as we got near the park.  We decided to get a campsite and then go to the International Crane Foundation.  The Memorial Day crowd was leaving in droves, so we were able to get a campsite with no problem.  They had been fully booked for the weekend – all 400+ sites!

The Crane Foundation was about 12 miles or so away and we found it with no problem with directions from the ranger at the park.  There are 15 kinds of cranes throughout the world and this is the only place in the world where you can see all of them!  The Foundation was started by two graduate school ornithologists on one guy’s parents’ horse farm.  They began to collect cranes, many of which are endangered,  with the idea of breeding them to keep species alive as well as learning more about them.  The Foundation has grown quite a bit and has members all over the world. 

They had an introductory film and a young man,  Ben, who talked a bit and then gave us a tour of the four African cranes.  These are beautiful, huge birds!  In addition to Africa they had  the two North American cranes,  the whooping crane and sandhill crane, as well as birds from Europe, and Asia.

We did the rest of the tour on our own and particularly enjoyed a close up look at two whooping cranes, one of which was sitting on a nest which held a single egg.  All of the cranes are in pairs and they mate for life.  They can live up to 70 years in captivity, but only about 20 in the wild.

A gentle rain continued to fall, so we headed back to the campsite, took showers and had soup and sandwiches for dinner.  A fun day!