Midwest Road Trip
Part 5
Monday, November 6 was the day on our trip that I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading. I looked forward to it because it was our Wisconsin day, and I was looking forward to seeing parts of Milwaukee and Sheboygan. I was dreading it because the main thing that we were doing required that we be there no earlier than 8:30 AM, and it was all the way up in Sheboygan, which was 130 miles and two hours’ driving time away, which meant that we had to get up and hit the road super early. Our goal was to do the factory tour for Kohler, as in the company that makes toilets and various plumbing fixtures, among other things. Elyse is quite interested in toilets, and so this was for her, and we had made reservations to that end a few weeks prior.
We got up around 4:00 AM, met up with Sis at the hotel (Chris couldn’t come because of other commitments), and we were underway by 5:30. Our route took us through Skokie and then onto I-94. We followed that for a while, and then Google sent me back onto local roads, taking US 41 for a while before rejoining I-94. Go figure, but it saved me a toll. The drive was fairly uneventful, as we went through Milwaukee on the freeway, changed to I-43, and then went through a whole lot of road construction. I didn’t enjoy the road construction all that much, but I got through it.
By the time that we reached Grafton, we had been making amazing time. We had traveled about 100 miles, and were ahead of schedule. Seemed like a fine time to take a break. Everyone needed to go to the restroom, and no one had eaten before leaving the hotel, owing to the desire to get on the road quickly. We were originally going to just dip into a convenience store to address our restroom needs, and maybe get something small from there. Then I spotted a Hampton Inn. The way that I figured, the Hampton Inn would have a nicer restroom, and maybe I could get a banana or something. So we parked, we went in, and then went to the restroom. Then I was like, you know, while you’re here, you might as well eat something. That led to my just casually helping myself to the breakfast service. This was so out of character for me, crashing a hotel breakfast service like that, because let the record show that I have made fun of Elyse for doing similarly at other hotels in the past when I wasn’t there. And then once one person does it, you know, Elyse and Kyle did it. I don’t remember if Sis joined in or not, but at least three of us had breakfast. Considering all of the walking that we were expecting to do on the factory tour, I wanted to have some food in me. All the same, I still contend that I am not one of those people who crashes the breakfast service at a hotel that I am not staying at, even though I totally did exactly that (though for what it’s worth, we were staying at another Hilton property, and hit the road before our hotel’s own breakfast service started, but all the same, we weren’t staying at this Hilton property).
With the ill-gotten food in our tummies, we continued on our northward trek towards the Kohler factory just outside of Sheboygan, completing the final 30 miles in no time flat.
At the Kohler Design Center across the street from their main corporate campus, we got checked in, signed our waivers, and were given various pieces of equipment. We each got visitor badges, a pair of safety glasses, and an audio device that was connected to a microphone that our tour guide was wearing. Neither cell phones nor photography were allowed on the tour, so our phones stayed put away.
With that taken care of, it was time to begin the tour. We started out by going across the street from the design center to the factory campus. Our first stop was their foundry building. This was where they made their cast iron products, consisting mostly of bathtubs. That was a very warm, smoky space, as we saw the iron as it came to the factory, we saw the large furnaces where the iron was melted down and then cast. It was amazing to see a giant vat of iron get poured out into the mold to make a brand new bathtub. I also never realized that bathtubs were still made of metal. I thought that had stopped being a thing long ago, assuming that modern tubs were made of either ceramic or fiberglass (for what it’s worth, I have a fiberglass tub in my house, as do my parents in theirs). We also got to see freshly cast tubs glowing bright orange as they came out of their molds and then were transported around the factory. The tubs looked pretty rough straight out of the molds, but their rough shapes would be corrected further down the line as the process continued. I was also surprised to see the way that unfinished tubs were hanging around everywhere, much like slabs of meat.
The enameling process was another part that I paid particular attention to. For that, the tubs were heated back up to a nice orange glow, and then several coats of enamel were applied by machine. It was all so intriguing, because after all, up until a very short time ago, I didn’t realize that iron tubs were even still a thing. Then it clicked: the finished tub with its enamel finish was what I had always assumed was ceramic growing up. Now I know that it’s actually metal, and that I had used an iron tub for ten years when I lived at Hewitt Gardens. I don’t know whether it was a Kohler tub, but it was made of iron all the same.
While we were still at the foundry, our guide showed us various other cast iron products, explaining that Kohler also manufactures iron products for other companies. They won’t manufacture anything that competes with their own product lines, but they will happily manufacture just about anything else out of iron. It makes enough sense, I suppose. You have the infrastructure, so you might as well make full use of it for everything that you can use it for.
One thing that really surprised me was the amount of discussion about Kohler’s use of artists-in-residence. They actually have a very big art program, and studio space for many independent artists from all over the place. It was never quite clear to me what benefit Kohler gets from giving these artists space to do their thing under their stewardship, but we got to visit with a few of them on our tour and see their work. The reason why I questioned what benefit the company got was because from what I could see, they were just making straight up art pieces, and not necessarily something like developing new product designs. It’s a neat program in any case, but I definitely was surprised to see it.
We also visited the pottery building. That was where they made toilets, sinks, urinals, and other ceramic products. Going into the pottery building, we were warned that due to the heat in the building, the employees were allowed to wear shorts, and the men were also allowed to go shirtless. As such, we were asked not to gawk at the guys with their shirts off. Fair enough. I caught a glance at one of them by accident, and regretted it, because while he was shirtless, he also was displaying a little bit more than any of us wanted to see. I didn’t need to see his butt crack, but there it was.
Otherwise, the process was pretty neat. We saw freshly formed urinals, sinks, and toilets that had not been fired yet, and we saw the massive kiln where they fire these products. Elyse, being a toilet enthusiast, recognized a number of the products and could name them by name. They explained that they test their products after firing by running water through them, and if water comes out in the wrong places, they put it through the kiln again and fire it some more. Therefore, if you ever find some water in a brand new toilet, that quality testing is the reason why.
And that was the factory tour. From there, the group returned to the Kohler Design Center across the street from the factory, where we returned our headsets, visitor badges, and safety glasses, and we were done. We spent some time looking around the Design Center, as this location not only functions as a product showroom, but it also contains a small museum on the lower level. We looked at the museum a little bit, and also took a moment to rest after several hours’ time spent walking around this massive factory.
Artwork on the wall in the Kohler Design Center.
Finishing up at the Kohler Design Center, Kyle caught a bus to check out some other things in the town, while, Elyse, Sis, and I headed over to a nearby shopping center. There was a Kohler chocolates store over there, so we checked out what they had. I was impressed about what these looked like. This chocolate was all kinds of crazy colors and patterns, rather than the usual brown, and it had a hard outer shell and various flavors of fillings. We each got a chocolate from the display case, and a small cup of ice cream.
After we had our chocolates, I wanted to fly the drone around a bit to get some aerials of the Kohler facility, as well as the shopping center, while Sis wandered around the shopping center a little bit. We then regrouped and headed to downtown Sheboygan. There, Elyse wanted to see buses, while Sis and I went to get lunch.
I was looking forward to having lunch with Sis, because while we talk on the phone on a regular basis, I had not had some quality one-on-one time with her in person in quite a while. Either Chris, Elyse, the parents, or someone else is usually always around. I really appreciated getting that kind of quality time with one’s sibling. We went to Parker John’s BBQ & Pizza, where I got the Carolina BBQ. You can never go wrong with barbecue in our family. I’m pretty sure that we get it from Dad. We spent about an hour there, and had a great time.
We then checked up on Elyse in order to round her up. We found her at Stefano’s Slo Food Market, which is a little independent organic grocery store. Neat place. As we were leaving there, Elyse spotted a siren on a nearby building owned by US Bank.
The high-rise building in the background, home to the siren that Elyse spotted.
I love photographing sirens with the drone, so I wasted no time in taking it up for a quick flight to check that siren out. We were all a bit surprised to find out that there was not one, but two sirens up there. Besides the Federal Signal 2001 that we spotted from the ground, once I got the drone over there, I also found a Federal Signal Thunderbolt. I suspect that in this case, the 2001 is in active use, while the Thunderbolt is likely abandoned in place.
Kyle eventually joined us, and we all then headed over to the Sheboygan Youth Sailing Center, where we used their parking lot as a base to fly the drone over Lake Michigan a little bit. I saw a lighthouse beacon at the end of a breakwater that I wanted to photograph up close, as well as get some general photos of Lake Michigan in the Sheboygan area.
My flight was pretty uneventful for the most part. Up in the air and out over the lake, then out to the lighthouse, where I photographed it up close and from afar, and got my general lake photos. I even hovered over the water to get a two-minute video of the waves on the lake.
The waves on Lake Michigan.
Then it was time to bring it back, and I used the return-to-home function to bring it back automatically. However, the winds coming back were a bit stronger than I had anticipated, and while I was still out over the lake, the drone indicated that the battery power was critically low, and that it was initiating a forced landing. For those unfamiliar with this, a forced landing is where the drone begins to descend to a landing whether you want it to or not, i.e. it is coming down one way or another, and it’s not going to abort the descent under any circumstances. I was still relatively far from my launch point, but I was coming up on potential landing sites, if I could only get to something. There were two rock jetties in range, and then a bunch of boat docks behind them. One jetty was connected to land, though it was a long walk to the end of it, and the other was freestanding in the lake, not directly connected to land. I had just enough flight distance left to reach a jetty, and so I aimed for it. I hoped that I had gone for the one that was connected to land. I found what looked like a suitable place to land, and then I checked on the drone app to see where it had come down. Fortunately, it was on the jetty that was connected to land. So we got in the car, and I moved the car down to the other end of the lot in order to start walking out to the drone.
Now it was time to start going out there. The first part was easy: a walking path that ultimately leads to the lighthouse. I took that as far as the jetty. Then came the hard part: I had to walk about three-quarters of the way down that jetty to reach the drone’s last reported location.
The jetty. I clearly had my work cut out for me, as it was made entirely out of boulders, i.e. big rocks with lots of gaps and uneven surfaces. But when you’re trying to get a $1,000+ piece of equipment back, you do what you have to do. I was initially moving somewhat slowly, nearly falling a few times, but I eventually figured it out and made pretty good progress getting out to the drone’s last reported position.
Getting out to the spot that the drone app told me to go to, I looked all around, and I found absolutely nothing. Considering that there is a wiggly pattern at the end of the flight record, I suspect while I thought I had landed it on one of the rocks, the wind actually pushed it a little bit and it landed not on one of the rocks where I could retrieve it, but rather, it went into Lake Michigan. That water was cold and murky, and so as far as I was concerned, that drone was gone, along with all of the photos that I had taken with it that day that had been stored on the SD card carried onboard (you wondered why I didn’t show you any of the shots that I had taken earlier, didn’t you?). The equipment and the photos all went right in the drink, never to be seen again. The video of the water that I showed you above just happened to be cached on the remote, so I was able to pull that off of there, making it my only surviving take from the drone that day.
I was really bummed out about that as I navigated my way back across the jetty, empty-handed. Losing the aircraft was one thing, because that was just hardware, and could be replaced without much effort (I had bought the service plan, and this sort of thing was covered). But I had also lost all of my photos from that day, and those could not be replaced so easily. Especially when you consider that this was the furthest extent of our travels, and who knows when we would be back in Sheboygan again. In other words, while all of the photos that had been lost could conceivably be redone (none of those subjects were expected to go anywhere), it would be a big hump to get back out there again with another drone to reshoot them all.
That was the end of our time in Sheboygan for the most part. Though before we completely left, Elyse and Kyle wanted to find an elevator in an apartment building that another friend of ours had filmed in the past but didn’t want to disclose which building it was, and much to my surprise, they actually found it. So Sis and I waited in the car, while Elyse and Kyle checked it out.
Then we got back on the highway and headed back towards Evanston. I was still sad about the loss of my drone, but I was starting to feel a little better about it. All was not lost, since I had brought the Mavic Mini along on this trip as well, so those batteries could be topped up overnight and I would be fully operational again with a drone, albeit a smaller and slower one than I might have liked.
On the way back, we drove nonstop through Milwaukee, and didn’t stop again until we got to Kenosha. There, we visited Mars Cheese Castle, which I had last visited in 2013. There, everyone got some various food items, as Elyse and I got cheese curds and some spicy microwave popcorn, while Sis got some stuff for home that Chris wanted.
We then went over to a nearby Culver’s and got something to eat. Then we went to the brand new Kwik Trip store across the street to fill up the car. I didn’t go into the store, but all the same, I was favorably impressed by the experience. When I was filling the car, while the pumps still showed advertising, they very helpfully marked which button muted the sound.
The mute button. I appreciated that they told us exactly which button mutes it, because gas pump advertisements with sound are obnoxious, and I always tap around on the various buttons to find the one that mutes the ads.
While I was filling up, Elyse went in and bought some bagged milk. This was a first for us. We had never seen bagged milk in the States before. We’d seen it in Canada before plenty of times, but this was legit US-spec’d bagged milk, complete with a proper bagged milk pitcher.
Then we went to the car wash, in order to blow all of the gunk off of the HR-V. I paid for the wash, and then went into the car wash building, and the machine malfunctioned. We were in there, and it wouldn’t start. Lovely. Fortunately, Kwik-Trip had included their phone number in a prominent location in the car wash, so I just called them up. That call went pretty well, in a “Hey, we’re in the car wash, and it malfunctioned on us,” kind of way. The guy was great, saying that he would be right out, and then he was out in no time. He ended up rebooting the entire wash system, and queued up a top-tier wash for us. I was surprised about that, because I had only paid for the cheap wash, since the only intent of this was to blow off the goo. But, you know, I’ll take it.
From there, we headed back to the hotel via the toll road, and parked the HR-V. I also got the batteries for the Mavic Mini on the charger so that I could continue with drone photography. It was not my intention of flying with this drone (I brought it for Elyse’s use), but it ended up working out.
After that, we visited Sis and Chris at their house. Since the last time I had been to Chicago, they had bought their own place, and now we finally got to see it. Their place is quite nice, with high ceilings that create a sense of spaciousness. It also has an industrial vibe to it, with exposed infrastructure such as ductwork and pipes placed and styled in such a way that you know that it’s supposed to be visible as part of the design of the space. We also got to see their doggy cam, which they use to keep an eye on Juni while they’re at work, and which can also be remotely activated to dispense treats. Pretty neat.
Finishing up there, that was our day. It was now time for bed, since we had gotten a very early start, plus we had a full day planned for Tuesday.