Manitowish Waters and Rhinelander, WI

The rain last night has moved on to the east and left us with a marvelous day. The locals find it hot, but it is not too humid and therefore much more comfortable than we have been in several days.

We drove north to Manitowish Waters, WI and the site of a big shootout between the law and John Dillinger back in the thirties. The law got a tip that he was there and they set a trap at what is now the Little Bohemia Lodge. In the resulting melee for locals were killed in error and Dillinger and his gang got away. They have a display case with the items he left behind which were a leather satchel and toiletries. Judging by the two tins of Ex Lax, running from the law was hard on poor John.

This area is the homeland of good friends Ted and Linda Seefeldt who now live in St. Petersburg, FL. We were dock neighbors at Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton, FL. They let us know that a fellow C dock alumni was running a campground here in Woodruff, so we decided to stop by the Fire Fox Campground and say hello. We had a nice visit with Bob Krueger. After our educational visit with the Bissen family we were impressed to see Bob has a 1950 Ford 8N tractor that he uses for camp road maintenance. It is still going strong and even the paint is holding up well. Way to go Bob!

Our next stop was Rhinelander, WI where Ted and Linda lived for several years. It is the birthplace of all three of their sons. This is such beautiful forest country and the drive was gorgeous. We stopped in at Joe’s Pasty Shop. This eatery has been in business since 1947. We enjoy eating in local places like this over the chain restaurants, and this was a real treat. For those of you that have not spent any time in England, Pasties are a meat pie like beef hash turnovers. They came to this country with Cornish miners in the 1800’s and are very popular in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

After lunch we walked around the old downtown of Rhinelander and found a farmers market in progress. The offerings included organic veggies and elk meat. The downtown has passed its glory, as have most small towns, but it is by no means dead as witnessed by the market. 

There was a contest in progress for painting large fiberglass “Hodags” which are a local mythical figure. In Linda Seefeldt’s words:

“In 1893 newspapers reported the discovery of a Hodag in Rhinelander,
Wisconsin. It had ‘the head of a frog, the grinning face of a giant
elephant, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the back of a dinosaur,
and a long tail with spears at the end’. The reports were instigated by
well-known Wisconsin timber cruiser and prankster Eugene Shepard, who
rounded up a group of local people to capture the animal. The group reported
that they needed to use dynamite to kill the beast”.

The decorated Hodags are raffled off for charity. We have seen this done in Bradenton, FL with large fiberglass geckos. These are fun, but at three feet high and six feet long I have no idea where the winners would put them.

After our downtown walk we headed back to Woodruff and a Wild Animal Recovery facility where we toured their birds of prey. We enjoy these facilities. They run on the donations of visitors and the largess of sponsoring donors. Barbara will eventually get photos into the gallery, but she needs a better internet connection than we have had for quite a while.

In the morning we are off for the UP! Munising is our next stop.