I have already done the ski boat, skull and paddle board, so canoe was next on my watercraft list was the canoe. Martin’s canoe came from a garage sale for $60, and it has a very well-worn look with patches of glue and fibreglass keeping the water out. We paddled the canoe around the perimeter of the 350-acre lake so we could look at all the beautiful houses. They are generally covered in white or blue aluminium siding, and the roofs are made of asphalt shingles. To my eyes, they look very neat and tidy and colourful, like Lego houses. Some are very big houses worth over a million dollars, and they are used just for summer weekends. Every house has a short pier with a pontoon boat , a ski boat and a selection of water toys. Martin’s cottage is one of the oldest and smallest on the lake and has his collection of boats at the end of the garden.
The weather was windy in the afternoon, and not conducive to more water skiing, so we drove to nearby Milwaukee for the Wisconsin State Fair. There is a permanent showground which is true to its agricultural roots by having huge barns in which buffed up livestock was being shown by teenagers parading past judges. In the dairy section there was a very useful sign explaining the nature of chocolate milk.
A more popular attraction was a vast funfair with every chunder-inducing ride you can think of. I’m way too old to go on all the spinning, whirling and swinging rides, but they are fun to watch. The most entertaining was a double seat attached to a hundred foot tall catapult. The riders are flung upwards at high velocity and then oscillate up and down. The riders are mic’d up so you can hear them squealing and swearing.
There are endless fast food stalls selling mountains of deep-fried food, I think you could get Type 2 Diabetes in a week eating that stuff. The traditional treat at the Fair is the Cream Puff. It is a bun of choux pastry about six inches across, which has been sliced across and filled with whipped cream. There is an entire building dedicated to making and selling Cream Puffs, and queues of hundreds of people who buy them and take them home in boxes. I tried one and it’s like a big chocolate eclair, without the chocolate.
There was a most interesting stall selling all sorts of dead animal material, mostly pelts and stuff creatures. Squirrels were put to great use in tableaus. What fun!
There are many different bands playing around the Fair, and we found the Cheapshots in the Budweiser Pavilion. They are a local Milwaukee covers band that played all the songs you want to hear, really really well; Shut Up and Dance, Play that Funky Music, Don’t Stop Believing, Jump, Uptown Funk. The funniest was Shake It Off, because the singer was a big guy with a baseball cap and he had all of Taylor’s moves! Drinking beer and singing along was fantastic fun, happy days!
timharnesstravels 