Ashland, WI, Mural Capital of Wisconsin…

It was raining when we woke up so we took it easy at Eddy Park until the rain let up and by 11:30 we were ready to hit the road. We are heading up the road about 40 miles to the Bad Water Casino in Wisconsin. We are leaving Michigan after having spent the last 39 days in the state. We have really enjoyed our stay in Michigan but are now in a new state for us, Wisconsin.

When we pulled into the Bad Water Casino we didn’t have a great feel for this place and when we checked in we asked to stay for only one day. We paid 21.10 (including tax) for the privilege of parking in the edge of the small parking lot with water and 50 amp electricity. The down side of this park is it is also near a convenience store and I have never been too fond of the type of people that show up at convenience stores late at night. They did give us $5 bucks free casino money for signing up as new members and another $5 for staying at the RV park. We played their money and left with about $17 s our stay only cost about $4 or so.

The next morning we decided to go just 10 more miles up the road to a Kreher RV Park in Ashburn, Wisconsin. We found this little gem of a park while grocery shopping the day before. It is a first come first served park and we were lucky to score one of the 50 amp sites right on the water front of shores of Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior. I mean check out the picture of the campsite above. No sewer here either but since you get a discount for a weekly stay we will be here a week for $180. We set up and just love this large site with great views of the water…

We noticed some murals when we first drove into Ashland so we decided to spend the rest of the day exploring this neat little town. Ashland Wisconsin was once dominated by a massive ore dock but it is being dismantled and is nearly down at this time. Once a thriving city supporting the mining and logging industries it is now a more quiet town but retains much of the charm of its past. We printed out a list of the murals in town and most of todays photos are of them.

As were walking around and admiring the murals a local stopped by to chat with us named Maria. Maria informed us about much of the history that went into the murals and some about the town itself. She even told us to be sure to visit the nook in the city library where we could see some of the old windows that use to front a lowered street that doesn’t exist now… pretty cool! What a treat is was for us to serendipitously run into Maria… These murals are pretty amazing as they were all done by two ladies and some of them take up the entire walls of building running a full block in length!

To end the day we stopped by the one and only brewery in town called South Shore Brewery. It is set up as one business but there are actually three different businesses in one, two restaurants and a bar setting. Since we only wanted to sample the crafted beers we set at the middle bar but our bartender was a bit  lacking in people skills so we got up and went to the smaller front bar. The bartender here was wonderful as we sampled all but one of their crafted beers where I settled for one of their Rhoade’s Scholar Stouts (attributed to its designed Alan Rhoades) and Sharon had their Honey Nut Brown. We found their beers to be unremarkable but still tasty and a nice ending for our day…