The Road to Oshkosh
FTLComm - Oshkosh, Wisconsin - August 17, 2003
I have not traveled extensively in the United States, a trip to Detroit and Chicago in 68, a trip to Duluth in 91 and in January of 97 a dash over to San Francisco to a conference, so Andrew's suggest that we go to Oshkosh was a real opportunity for me. Andrew used some software to put the trip together so that we had paper maps and those on his laptop that gave us the times, distances and directions from beginning to end. Remarkable software because the total trip only varied from the prediction by less than fifty kilometres. It also calculated fuel costs and those were right within the ball park. We got ourselves loaded into the van Monday morning July 28th and by noon we were on the outskirts of Winnipeg. A brilliant summer day, air conditioning on and we were at the border in no time. We registered our equipment, cameras, computer, hard drives with Canadian customs cleared US customs and headed South to Grand Forks and Fargo. From Winnipeg to Grand Forks there is still ample evidence of the devastation of repeated floods in the area with earthen berms around farmer's granaries and dikes around towns, villages and farm yards. What an unusual and chancy place to live. We had turned and headed East on Interstate 94 into Minnesota before we stopped and went into a neat little town to visit their Dairy Queen. This was a revelation, Dairy Queen ice cream in Canada tastes like it was made by a Sarnia oil refinery and costs more than motor oil which it most closely resembles in flavour but in the United States Dairy Queen ice cream tastes like ice cream and is less money including dollar exchange. I tell you this because it is the only food that we found in our trip through the United States that had any value or flavour. Later we stopped for supper at a Perkin's place and my eight dollar (US) meal was barely visible on the plate, it looked so small on the plate I wondered how embarrassed a cook must be to put that little amount of food on a plate and have it served, I guess the only way to explain it is to realise that probable he knows how really bad it is and wanted not to burden the customer with more than the barest minimum. If you have read this web site before you are aware that I have an axiom and that is that you can judge all things by the quality of the food. This trip rates as a complete bust because the food was outrageous. From beginning to end I was overwhelmed at the poor quality, the lack of cleanliness and the high prices for food that was well below what we would consider appropriate for human consumption. It became clear in an Oshkosh food store that one of the main reasons for the lousy food is the very high prices Americans must pay. Their ban on Canadian beef really showed as all beef products we saw were about twice the price as what you find them in a Canadian store. We dashed through Minneapolis/St. Paul hoping to spot a reasonable accommodation for the night but failed and out into the darkness and beyond Hudson we found a $49 room off the Interstate at Woodville. We got settled into our room then found a MacDonalds because that miniature meal from Perkin's had the nutritional value that would sustain only coyote used to starvation. Andrew ordered a hamburger and I just went for a sundae. His hamburgers was a failure, it was cold in the centre and had not been cooked he returned it and the manager returned with a cooked one and a very lame excuse plus two coupons for hamburgers. It was good Andrew was paying attention because that could have been the end of our vacation. Despite the really awful food we made it through our stay without getting food poisoning, this I consider on the same order as immaculate conception. On the map above you can see a little green sign I have added for Woodville. We arose the next morning and went into this really nice little village for breakfast. We needed to have some American money and went to the local bank and came away with a cup of coffee and some local tidbits but no money. An ATM was found in a convenience store and later that night Andrew checked and discovered that he had not been hammered for exchange and charges for the transaction as his $40 US dollars cost him $1.60 Canadian. The lady in the bank explained that though some of the people were farmers most people had city jobs and the farm was a hobby farm or a place to live.
We drove down I94 that morning and then started our cross country travel to Oshkosh. I was driving and in the collection of pictures below Andrew has given you a sample of the scenery along the way. The sixty-four pictures here are a sample of the more than one hundred images. It was not our intent to get ever detail of the trip but to sample what we saw, get a feeling for the surroundings and record that for ourselves. This explains why you will see a variety of snap shots and not all of the touristy kind.
Not Saskatchewan 18 kb Timothy W. Shire	Lakes and Hardwood 26 kb Timothy W. Shire	Pretty Corny 25 kb Timothy W. Shire	Trees 40 kb Timothy W. Shire
Interstate 94 28 kb Timothy W. Shire	Moving 28 kb Timothy W. Shire	Dairy Country 28 kb Timothy W. Shire	Minneapolis/St. Paul 23 kb Andrew Shire
St. Paul 24 kb Andrew Shire	Tunnel 29 kb	A Place to stay 21 kb Andrew Shire	Woodville 36 kb Andrew Shire
Patty's Cafe 43 kb Andrew Shire	Wisconsin in the morning 31 kb Andrew Shire	How Green is my valley 29 kb Andrew Shire	Green and underpopulated 29 kb Andrew Shire
Conifers 58 kb Andrew Shire	Hot and fast 35 kb Andrew Shire	Country roads 36 kb Andrew Shire	interstate 33 kb Andrew Shire
Rest Stops 41 kb Andrew Shire	Time warp 46 kb Andrew Shire	Time Warp continued 31 kb Andrew Shire	Time Warp continued 37 kb Andrew Shire
Til the cows come home 28 kb Andrew Shire	Where the rubber meets the road 27 kb Andrew Shire	Mirror view travel 26 kb Andrew Shire	Penske 37 kb Andrew Shire
More in the mirror 29 kb Andrew Shire	8 of 18 39 kb Andrew Shire	More Corn 26 kb Andrew Shire	Billboards 63 kb Andrew Shire
Rural Urban Mix 26 kb Andrew Shire	Softwood Explained 37 kb Andrew Shire	Up and down land 26 kb Andrew Shire	Christmas Trees 32 kb Andrew Shire
More Christmas Trees 40 kb Andrew Shire	Showing the flag 33 kb Andrew Shire	Rock 51 kb Andrew Shire	Fair weather 24 kb Andrew Shire
Bad Food 43 kb Andrew Shire	What's this - Cheese! 36 kb Andrew Shire	Bluff 45 kb Andrew Shire	More rocks 35 kb Andrew Shire
Bush road 47 kb Andrew Shire	Charm of the trees wears off 47 kb Andrew Shire	First Sign for Oshkosh 54 kb Andrew Shire	Duck Crossing 46 kb Andrew Shire
Yellow Ribbons 39 kb Andrew Shire	More wood lots 78 kb Andrew Shire	Getting close 20 kb Andrew Shire	Berlin 34 kb Andrew Shire
Video Camera 49 kb Andrew Shire	Civilised place 36 kb Andrew Shire	Right out of the Movie 73 kb Andrew Shire	Now to the lake 33 kb Andrew Shire
Down hill a bit 27 kb Andrew Shire	Hay 41 kb Andrew Shire	Edge of Oshkosh 40 kb Andrew Shire	Oshkosh 42 kb Andrew Shire
Fox River 29 kb Andrew Shire	Near the University 64 kb Andrew Shire	I would appreciate feedback on these pictures as they were selected hoping to give you a sense of the experience we had. We had no intention of getting everything or even the most important things but rather those things that seemed to stand out for us at the time. This is the first of several stories about this trip some will be much shorter and some have just as many or more images. Timothy W. Shire
Return to Ensign - Return to Saskatchewan News   This page is a story posted on Ensign and/or Saskatchewan News, both of which are daily web sites offering a variety of material from scenic images, political commentary, information and news. These publications are the work of Faster Than Light Communications . If you would like to comment on this story or you wish to contact the editor of these sites please send us email.   Editor : Timothy W. Shire Faster Than Light Communication Box 1776, Tisdale, Saskatchewan, Canada, S0E 1T0 306 873 2004