The route out of the U.P. was pretty nondescript, largely because I chose to stick to what they call the freeway up there and head straight out to Menominee. I did that in a day and stayed at a small motel, just south of there in Wisconsin, which was right alongside the main road, and, of course had a rail road track on the other side of the road as well. It is not worth any other mention, especially after such a place as The Clarke Mootel. It will be many a day before that meets any sort of a rival, either for value or entertainment. .In fact, it really ranks high on the web list, that should be compiled, of the most astonishing places to spend a night!
It was Sunday morning as I rode down the western shore of Lake Michigan in lovely weather and arrived on the northern outskirts of Milwaukee. I knew I could not visit the factory on Sunday, but thought I would find out where it was and book into a motel nearby. Cruising down the freeway, I spotted a Harley-Davidson sign which stated an exit and intersection, and not reading it very clearly, arrived at about 1030 at a relatively small Harley Davidson compound, where quite a lot of bikes were assembled on the car park. I thought for a few minutes that I
had arrived at the factory, but was surprised at how small it seemed. I parked up the bike alongside a girl who was just parking hers. I asked her where I was. She introduced herself as Janine, and said that this was a dealership, and I had arrived at the Milwaukee N.W. Chapter’s annual summer party. I hesitated a second or two, but she invited me over and so I went.This accident on my part was the most pleasant of interludes, and lead to an extraordinary sequence of friendship and occurrences. Janine introduced me to a number of the members, Dave, who was doing the barbeque, and Cindy his wife, Jim, Janine’s husband, and their two close friends, Pamela, who like herself was an air steward with an American
airline, and her husband, Larry, a special needs teacher off on the long summer vacation. I soon felt very much at home. The Chapter, and Jim and Janine, Pamela and Larry in particular, were absolutely terrific people and so hospitable and welcoming. I could have been anybody, even a homicidal maniac, but they welcomed me in a manner that I have rarely encountered, and I felt rapidly and truly at home with 
them all. Conversation was easy and comfortable and flowed for hours. I ate and drank with them and 
enjoyed the rapidly passing day and before I really had realised it, it was four o’clock in the afternoon and the party was on the wane. I had several problems with the bike, not least of which was that the cruise control was still not working, and I wanted to visit a dealer for a service. Travelling the long roads ahead with my hand constantly on the throttle would have been tiring to say the least. The actual 
dealership closest to the two couples was not the one, where I had landed, but they gave me the address and contacts there and told me that I could get booked in for a day job if I queued at 7.30 in the morning. They then asked me where I was going and what my plans were, and when I said that I was leaving soon to find a motel, they both immediately offered accommodation, which was almost embarrassing. Maybe that is the Englishman in me, but I had the options, stay with Jim and Janine and a dog, or with Pamela and Larry and two Llamas! It was a hard choice, because I could have enjoyed staying with either, but I chose Janine and Jim, because of Janine’s first friendly welcome to me. .Larry said he would pick me up from the service bays in the morning and take me to the Harley Davidson factory tour. This was just wonderful. I felt so at home here, though more at home was yet to come!I followed J and J on their bikes to a delightful large bungalow in the Milwaukee suburbs. A lovely garden, beautiful guest room, great elderly Labrador retriever and fabulous hospitality. Janine even did my washing and folded all my clothes neatly and precisely for my onward journey. Pamela had said that she fusses like your Mom! We sat and talked in the garden until it was dark, having several things in common in our personal lives. I felt as if I had known them for years, a rare occurrence when one meets new friends at 60. I spent a good night, and was reluctant to leave, but we said our goodbyes, and exchanged addresses and contact details, in the hope we may meet again sometime, perhaps offering back similar hospitality if they should come to England at any time.. I arrived duly at the Harley Dealers, at 7.40, to find that I was already eleventh in the queue. I did not expect to be seen that day, but, Larry had already phoned and asked the service manager to fit me in as his English friend, and so they started to look for the auto cruise problem very soon after they had checked me in, and kindly as a priority. And what a problem it turned out to be.
Larry arrived at about nine, in his pick up truck. We left for the factory tour, and met Dave, who had also arrived with his daughter. The only factory, that you can tour, here in Milwaukee is actually only an engine assembly plant, and it makes engines for Harleys other than mine, so my bike was a bit disappointed not to actuallymeet God, in much the same way as I was that Willie Davidson was not waiting there to greet me and to sign my pullover! However, we proceeded on the tour, with speaker phones on our heads to hear what the guiding engineer was telling us about the engine assembly plant. He was not a regular factory guide, although obviously a very experienced engineer, and his commentary and knowledge in all areas other than his immediate work was not quite up to what it might have been. We traipsed around the yellow tourist line on the floor from machine area to machine area, in a line of about 30 people, the end of which was arriving at the last point of interest when the guide was arriving at the next. The machines were all robotised, although some of the assembly line was run by actual people, and the large
automated processes were all in steel enclosed cases with small viewing windows, surrounded by metal cages. Actually seeing much at all was difficult and I wish I could say that I learned a lot about the construction of my bike, but I regret that I really didn’t, although I could now put a tick in the “visit to Mother” box, and the bike and I would have to be satisfied that we had been that close to the “Harley God”. The most interesting place, for me, was the area where they rebuild and recondition returned engines, from all over the world. They aim for a 10 day turn around time from receipt to dispatch, which seems “ah-sum” under the circumstances. (Rather hope that I shan’t need that facility, but after what you will find out in the next few blogs, I may be speaking too soon)After the tour of the factory, (and the obligatory photos to prove I had been there), Larry suggested some lunch. He had decided, I think, to treat me what he expected a hardened old biker like me,( obviously seeing the alter ego her rather than the big softee, Dad, and family doctor side!) would enjoy, and so we paid a visit to “Hooters”. Now, I did not know what to expect at Hooters. I had seen one or two around and thought they were just a fast food outlet with a strange name, but Hooters sells moderate food at slightly inflated prices by using young well endowed girls to do the waitressing and counter jobs. They all have one thing in common, big breasts. They all dress in mini hot pants, tights and tight revealing tee shirts and it was clear from the majority of clientele being men, that this was the company’s marketing ploy. We were served by a young woman who had a trainee with her, who looked somewhat like a slightly taller clone of “Lucy” from “Dallas”, for those of you who remember the T.V. series of the 70’s. In the U.K. we used to nickname her “The Poison Dwarf”. She was the spiteful, spoiled, niece of the family whose only real attribute was oversized “hooters”. I am not averse to a bit of “porn”, and I am by no means narrow minded, but I found this parade of young women offensive. It was even worse when we enquired and realised that they are paid just $2.35 an hour, about £1.20, and expected to make up their income on tips. This, to me, was simply cheap prostitution of otherwise attractive young girls. I would have detested the thought of my own daughter working in such circumstances, and I felt sorry and somewhat ashamed for these girls who did so, even though it was clearly their choice. The meal was O.K. but, it was difficult to concentrate on it or think of much else with these scantily clad beauties all around. Clearly they were there to ogle, and it was hard not too, however one felt about it.
I felt quite relieved to have left there, and we returned to see how the work was going at the service bay. Bad news. They had drawn a blank. All the components that had been replaced at Concord in New Hampshire seemed to work and yet the auto cruise still did not. They had checked wiring and voltages and fuses and had the machine half apart trying to track down a fault. They had even been on the telephone to the factory for specialist electrical technician advice, but still could not work out what was the problem. I felt a slight mood of despair comimg on. If you can’t get a Harley mended in Milwaukee, there’s not much hope of getting it fixed elsewhere! They asked if I could leave it for the following day as their senior technician, “the electrical wizard” of their dealership would be back in, he was off today. Larry immediately offered a bed at their house for that night, and again, with some embarrassment at his generosity and hospitality, I agreed.
Pamela and Larry live in a different part of town from Janine and Jim. They live on the edge of
the country in a lovely house set on a rise and surrounded by a small copse of trees and gardens. In a large enclosure at the side of the house is the Llama cage, where the two Llamas live, when they are not on ties, mowing the lawn(and the shrubs and trees!) Pamela was hardly surprised to see me and was so welcoming. She is a very chatty amiable girl, and like Janine, very hospitable. We had a nice evening meal and sat in the garden with drinks and smokes until it was dark, and in the morning, I went with Larry on a few of his errands and later called in at the service bay again. The problem was solved apparently. There is a connector from the control unit to the wiring harness which engages with six pins, male on one side and female on the other. Three of the six female pins were corroded or loose and so there was an intermittent and then constant fault. The pins, all six of them, would arrive in the afternoon. There was some question as to whether this was perhaps all that had been wrong originally, but in retrospect, it is now impossible to say, although it had been a constant fault ever since I had the bike serviced in Leeds in the U.K.We returned for the afternoon to their home. Pamela had been unable to fly that day as she had expected because she had bad toothache, and had made an appointment to see the dentist. As it happened, her flights were cancelled anyway because of pilot shortages, so it was nice to have her around. She had arranged that we should go out for dinner that evening, although I had
expected to be hitting the road later. She argued that it was too late to do so now anyway and that all I would do is go out and book into a motel, so I might as well stay, which, in any case sounded the more appealing. And so, after collecting the repaired bike, now fully working and properly adjusted after the brilliant intervention of the electrical Guru, we headed off with Larry’s son Nick, to downtown, where, alongside the river, we joined his daughter, Katie, who is at the University, for a delightful meal at The Milwaukee Ale House, which is in the historic third ward of the city. It was a delightful large tavern with dancing and a long ale bar, and we sat at tables on the covered boardwalk alongside the river. The evening, for me, was superb. It really ended my sojourn in Milwaukee on a high. I even learned to pronounce Milwaukee and Wisconsin correctly, thanks to Pamela’s tuition. Katie, a lively and entertaining girl, was also quite beautiful. She reminded me of the band camp lass from the film American Pie and had that sort of attractive curly mouth. But Katie was not just a lovely girl, she was also very bright and together with Pamela, kept a constant flow of fun conversation going. Fortunately, Pamela’s toothache seemed not to have interfered with her day too much. Friends like Jim and Janine and Larry and Pamela are not two a penny, and I was so happy and grateful to have met such lovely people and spent such an unexpectedly wonderful time in Milwaukee. Meeting them was such a privilege and a pleasure, and I hope we may continue to touch base sometimes. I was actually sad to move on, I could have settled very well in either Michigan or Wisconsin, but had to keep moving, and so on the Wednesday morning, said happy goodbyes and left for Des Moines, Iowa.Wisconsin and Iowa are beautiful States. The ride was a delight, through beautiful arable and forested areas, with similar barns and buildings to those I had encountered in Michigan. I did not regret having missed Chicago, and realise that I much prefer the country to the city. None the less, distances here are huge after living on my “small island” ( ref: Notes from a Small Island. By Bill Bryson), and it was late afternoon as I passed through the outskirts of Des Moines, some 400 miles on and arrived in the small township of Winterset.
Winterset was a must go to place. I wanted to go to see the now famed “Bridges of Madison
County”, immortalised first in the book, by their native son, author, Robert James Waller, and then later in the film version which starred Clint Eastwood as Robert and Meryl Streep as Francesca. It is a sensitive love story of two people, emotionally struggling in their own lives, who find a period of solace through each other which enables them both to continue in their respective roles after their interlude together. The photography of the film and the language of the book, was so evocative that I really wanted to see it for myself.Winterset Park has a campsite, and just before sunset, I was pitched and ready to settle. I rode back into town to eat at a small café on the main square which was a really great meal. The open salad buffet must have had a choice of thirty dishes and the small steak was done to
perfection. I looked over from here to the great stone courthouse
and civic centre on the town square and the quaint, magnificently preserved, quadrangle of early 20th century mid west buildings and small shops. It looked and felt exactly as I expected it to, and the warmth and welcome of this small town was palpable. The people in 
the café were friendly, and those on the street, passed the time of day. The town was well kept, the only disappointment being the works being done at the moment to improve the roadway on one side of the square and the footpath. I noticed a sign that indicated that Winterset was also the birthplace of the “Duke”, the epitomy of the American West, John Wayne, and somewhere here was the family house to visit. I felt I had now moved on and felt settled here after my enjoyable days in Wisconsin. It could have been an anticlimax, but I definitely felt that it was not at all. I slept soundly, despite being constantly littered with bits of pine cones dropped by a score or so of squirrels above me, and after making breakfast and packing up, set off, first, to John Wayne’s birthplace which is in the centre of town. This is indeed his birthplace, rather than the place he was brought up, because, his father, who was a pharmacist, left there for California with the family in 1910 when the young “Marion Robert Morrison” was only three. However, like Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford upon Avon at home, it has the strong association and is now a small but very interesting museum of “Duke-abilia”. This year they have celebrated what would have been John Wayne’s centenary. The single story white wooden house, is on a corner, just off the town
centre, and simply has a kitchen, a front parlour and two bedrooms. The kitchen and parlour are furnished in the style that would have been appropriate for the time, together with family portraits and some film props, but the back two rooms are filled with cabinets and pictures of local records, John Wayne’s cowboy guns, his Masonic certificates and news cuttings. All well done, and a good feeling of his early home and the famous Winterset son. His life sized, 6feet 4 inches bronze statue showed a man with an open, kindly and interesting face. He looked like a good man. I would like to hope he was. A new larger museum is currently being built there to house a great deal more in the near future.Next stops were in search of the Bridges of Madison County. There are only six left, and some of those have been moved or altered. The most famous, which I decided to see was the Cedar Bridge, now located right inside the Winterset Park and The Roseman Bridge, perhaps the most important of the bridges from the story.
[Roseman is the bridge Robert Kincaid seeks when he stops at Francesca Johnson's for directions; it is also where Francesca leaves her note inviting him to dinner. Also known as the “haunted” bridge, Roseman is where two sheriff’s posses trapped a county jail escapee in 1892. Uttering a wild cry, it is said the man rose up straight through the roof of the bridge and disappeared. He was never found, and it was decided that anyone capable of such a feat must be innocent.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseman_Bridge"]
The cedar bridge was just half a mile from my campsite. Sadly, although it is placed over a dip in the ground, it no longer functions as a bridge. Merely a tourist attraction, although it is preserved and well maintained. The Roseman is different altogether. The Roseman is the real article, although it was restored after arsonists attacked it in 1999. Likewise, the farmstead where Francesca lived in the story, and which was used in the film, belongs in private hands, and it too was attacked by arsonists and is now undergoing repair and has sadly been closed to public visits.
The big problem with the Roseman brisdge 
is that it is four miles off the highway down gravel roads, which make up most of the roads off the freeways in Iowa. This is not the best riding for a heavy motorcycle, so to try to visit it was a major effort and fraught with some considerable risk of dropping the bike. The road was also very twisty and hilly, so I traversed it gingerly with 
a lot of back brake and clutch control at about 10 miles an hour. Fortunately, I met very little traffic on it, and eventually arrived at this most beautiful of spots. The risks had been worth it. The Roseman is everything I expected and the Roseman creek underneath it is just a fairy tale place. The old road still crosses the bridge, although it is actually 
closed to all except resident traffic, and alongside it, in a sheltered dell is a log cabin visitor centre with a proper porch and rocking chair. It all felt just right. I had to do “the pose” on the bridge of course, identifying with, and role playing, as I am known to do at home when
I am absorbed in a film or a book. Sadly, no Francesca there, and no note inviting me for dinner! It was hot. I stayed there on the porch of the cabin drinking a root beer in the shade for almost an hour, relaxing in the beautiful scenery and quiet calm of this idyllic place. It must have been one that Robert Waller loved a lot to have evoked such a passionate story. Or
maybe he too had an experience here which changed his life and 
stimulated his book. Who knows!It was early afternoon when I left, and headed back to the town centre. I had two more things I wanted to do….stupid perhaps, but the first was to try to capture a truck leaving at the
intersection of the square, and the second was to have a drink in The North Side Café, where Robert had originally stopped. I did both, although, unlike the film, the truck was not leaving in pouring rain but in sunshine, and I sat a few seats down from 
where Clint Eastwood had in the film. How sad this makes me sound!!!! A guy in the café started to talk to me and took my photo there for me. He too was a biker, and I told him of my trip. “What you need is a trailer” he had said, “you’ll get one, possibly second hand in Sturgis. I’m going there myself for the end of the week” He kindly wrote down two names of places where I may possibly find one, although, I felt that a trailer, or a sidecar or any other attached paraphernalia on the bike would render me less of a purist motorcyclist! I had always thought they looked a bit silly, but I was actually struggling with all the stuff I had on board, the racoons had torn my top bag, and I couldn’t find anything in the tight packing or store any food from day to day. A trailer may be a good idea.Wisconsin and Wintersett had been wonderful times. The trip was blossoming and my heart was lifted up. I returned to the Park and packed up and then rode out through the square, following Robert Kincaid's truck, also with no Francesca on board, heading westwards en route for Sturgis.
Best wishes,
Doc
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