North Country 2011--Day 13

A bunch of old buildings, a stop at a brewery and some trains with a train ride.

We decided to do the museums today. First stop this morning was the Heritage Hill State Historical Park. This is a living history museum devoted to the preservation of its buildings and artifacts and the interpretation of the history of Northeast Wisconsin and its people. The park is on the grounds that was once Fort Smith back in the 1820's. Fort Howard was directly across the river. Nothing is left of Fort Smith but some of the buildings from Fort Howard were moved to the park along with the building of some replica buildings from the fort. Many other historical buildings have been moved to the park. There are four sections: Ethnic Agriculture Area, Fort Howard Area, Growing Community Area and La Baye Area. When we got to the very back side of the park, in the La Baye Area, we came upon a strange looking animal. It did not run from us and actually got within about 20 feet before it turned and wandered away. We saw this animal several times while in the park. We finally decided it was a very sick fox. Several people had reported it to the people running the place who, in turn, called the city's animal control people. By this time we had seen it leave the park through an iron fence that goes across the front of the place. It was friendly enough we were afraid a child might be bitten or have some other problem, since it did look sick. Looked to me like it had the mange like dogs get.

After the State Park visit we decided it was time to get lunch and decide what our afternoon would be. We headed to downtown to the Titletown Brewing Company. One of their claims to fame, beside their beers, was a good root beer called Sno-Cap. Not only was the root beer good but so were their sandwich's. After lunch we decided to go to the National Railroad Museum. This is a very large museum with a great collection of trains, including the train that General Dwight D. Eisenhower used as his command train in Europe during World War II. Another of their trains was one called "Big Boy". This is the largest steam driven train in the world. The picture to the right is of "Big Boy". They also had a working train that takes visitors on a ride around the perimeter of the grounds. It was a slow day, apparently, so they decided to take us around twice. All in all a very fine museum dedicated to the history of trains.