Cougars and Dells

17-22 Jul 2023

On my way to Indiana, I stayed overnight at another Boondocker’s Welcome. I love this program because you meet the nicest people

My host, Jeff, was awesome. His wife and son were out of town, so I didn’t get to meet them. I was tucked in between his 2 garages, and he had electric and water for me use. It was level so I didn’t even have to unhook the trailer – nice! He has a beautiful property with a walking trail and firepit by my campsite, chickens that Sage was fascinated with, and lots of room for her to run and play. We got a good night’s sleep before heading out the next morning.

Since we were passing through this way to Wisconsin, I wanted to stop in Elkhart, Indiana to visit the Keystone RV factory and take the Cougar tour. No, I don’t mean the older woman/younger guy type of Cougar. My trailer is a Cougar and I wanted to peek behind the curtain so to speak and see how/where they’re made.

We stayed a couple of nights at another BW in Goshen IN. Rick and Amy were great hosts and they had a beautiful wildflower garden in the back of their property.

Queen Anne's Lace, pink and red poppies, Black-eyed Susans

Once again Sage loved having all that room to run and chase her ball. I think I finally wore her out!

The factory tour was interesting. The workers were already gone so it was quiet and we could take our time. They were building a 5th wheel model. It’s quite interesting seeing it go from just the frame to the finished product. They can manufacture up to 22 units a day.

Scott, who is the Product Manager for the Cougar line gave the tour. Here is station 1, the basic frame.

Station 2 where they flip the frame over so they can work on the underbelly.

A few stations down they have the wheels on and starting on the wiring. The white tank is the fresh water tank. I always wondered what they looked like.

Here they're working on the flooring

Several of the walls are stacked up waiting for install

View from above. You can see the progress being made on the roofs at each station.

Further down the line of roofing stations

Time for slides!

And the finished product. Scott was very interested in feedback and took our opinions/suggestions to heart. He was really great and loves his job.

From there we went to Wisconsin Dells. We camped at Mirror Lake State Park which was nearby. My campsite was huge! Look at all this room!

I had no one behind me, so much vegetation between my neighbor to the left I couldn’t see them and a road down the hill on the right. It was an electric only site but that was fine, I filled my water tank up before we came. We walked around the park but didn’t do much there. It was nice though and we enjoyed it.

Serafina stalking two little birds (they're up near the fire pit)

I have to say, I was disappointed with the Dells area. There was virtually no public access to the river and it’s very touristy. You had to stay at a resort, rent a boat or go on a boat tour to see anything. There were lots of water parks and kitschy stuff. I guess I should’ve done more research. I “assumed” since it was named Wisconsin Dells, the main attraction would actually be the Dells and have more nature and less tourist traps.

I did find one hike for me and Sage to go on that led to a secluded little beach on the river. We did the Chapel Gorge Trail in the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area. I found two letterboxes here! What was really interesting, was the hike started out in a pine forest (above) and turned into lush wooded forest (below) very quickly.

It was quite the hike down the hill to the water but we found two other people there with dogs and we all agreed it would be fine to let them off leash. They ran and frolicked and had a great time.

Part of the hill we had to climb down...and back up!

I'd heard there was a little area in Devil's Lake State Park where dogs could go off leash so I took Sage there. It was sooo small and hardly worth it but she was fascinated by the geese taking off.

Don't ask me why there's a pig mobile. I just had stop and get a picture though.

We stopped in the little town of Baraboo and I kept seeing all the old cars tooling around town. I found their staging area and found out it was the 66th Annual Rusty Roads Tour of the Model T Ford Club. So cool!

I wanted to see Witches Gulch, so I had to take the Upper Dells Boat Tour and it did not disappoint.

On the boat ride we passed several sandstone rock formations. This one is High Rock.

This one is Chimney Rock. To me it looks like a really tall stack of pancakes.

This is the beach Sage and I hiked to. Lots of boaters anchor there and picnic (drink).

I find it interesting that the grooves worn into the rocks go in different directions. Some are horizontal and some are diagonal.

Steamboat Rock. Around this bend is Witches Gulch.

Witches Gulch is a sandstone slot canyon that got its name from H.H. Bennett, a prominent photographer who made the Dells famous. He thought the rock formations looked dark and mystical.

It's kind of a shame the boardwalk hides the waterfalls and features, but I guess there isn't another way to allow people to walk through the gulch without them.

I loved the ferns and how green everything

Our ride. They don't give you long in the gulch. We had one more stop to make.

Does this image look familiar? It's what made the Dells famous. H.H. Bennett invented a stop action shutter which allowed him to capture action shots such as this one of his son, Ashley, jumping Stand Rock.

Now they use a dog to demonstrate. It's hard to see but jumping the chasm is a black and white dog. Yes, there's a net under there. Here's a link to the video https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076452810948

That's it for this time. Next, we head to Minnesota and some gorgeous waterfalls and hikes!