And fun was had by everyone

The day of the family reunion dawned cloudy and windy. They had about 50 plus relatives show up. Dad came from a family of nine. He's only got on living sibling left. that's Aunt Ida in the middle with the sunglasses on. She's 91 years old, Dad is 90. It was pretty great to see all of the first cousins and first cousins once removed and second removed and so on.


Here's Lee and Dad with a couple of his first cousins once removed. We had a good time getting re-acquainted with his relatives.

Madson Farm Visit

Here's a little video about the milking operations. They milk twice a day and rotate 2 shifts of cows through. This is the first shift. It was noisy, stinky and you really have to careful not to stand too close to the back end of the ladies!



They don't hand milk them any more. It is a vacuum type system. The milk travels up through a pipe into the "well" house where it is cooled and stored in a refrigerated tank.

A tanker comes once a day to haul the milk to processing plant.

MOOOOOve out of the way!

Several of Lee's cousins live, own and run a farm. A couple of them run a dairy operation. The recession has affected them too, but they're hanging in there.


This lady is one of the milking cows as you can see from her udders. She is actually getting ready to give birth.

We visited Lee's cousin Natalie Madson who Mom always "Lives out in the country". To be exact she lives on a farm in Oconto, Wisconsin. Actually, her son now lives on and runs the family farm and she and her husband Russ built a nice new house away from the barns, flies and animals.

They have a lot of calves. The brown ones are jerseys and the black and white ones are holsteins.

Jersey are a more energy efficient cow according to Russ. The a smaller, eat less feed and produce just as much milk.

They also have an assortment of other farm critters. These are pygmy goats. Aren't they cute?



I seem to recall my oldest wanting one of these things when we first moved up to Montana.

We visited the milking barn. There are a lot of cows to be milked. They say a cow can produce 10 gallons of milk a day.

That's a lot of feed, hay, poop and maniure!

As we were discussing all of this, one of the cows baptized me!

Technology you must have

Josh bought a refurbished Garmi Nuvi 360. Before he got it we discussed that he would lend it to us on our trip. It also plays audible books which I think a great added benefit.


The unit did a great job getting us through Wisconsin, but directed us through ALL of the TOLL highways. It cost us around $15 to get around Chicago and Indiana. Although we have it set for fastest time I think it took us a long time to get around the Chicago area going that route. I don’t think this unit has the capability to figure out the best alternate fast route.


After the fact I saw that there’s an option to avoid Toll roads, duh!

Another thing we did was add broadband connection onto our Verizon plan. It’s $60/month but it’s a month to month option and we can discontinue after our trip.


The best thing about using cell phone as a modem is you can be surfing the internet as you go down the road. I wouldn’t advise driving and surfing simultaneously.

On the road again

We’re on our way to Wisconsin today for the Henning Family reunion this weekend which will be held in Peshtigo, Wisconsin this Sunday.

I think that Grandma and Grandpa are enjoying their travels.


Us, not so much but it’s a lot better than traveling in a car.


Lee's back has been hurting him for the last couple of days but today it was really pretty bad. Good thing we're at the midway point!

Bay City Recreational Area

Before we left I got online to search for a site to 'camp' at. Surprising, Michigan and Wisconsin doesn't have a lot campgrounds - at least not in the area that we were heading to.

This campground is state run and got high marks on www.rvparkreviews.com.
I have to say, the reviewers were correct. This is really a nice campground. You're not on top of the other campers, it's clean and very pretty. It's also by the bay and there is a beach here. We haven't even been over there yet but maybe tomorrow....

Maxwell Relatives

I think there is are two broad categories of vacations that people take. The first kind is for personal pleasure and relaxation. The second is to visit relatives. That's not to say it can't be relaxing and pleasurable but the focus of the second type of vacation is to connect with your relations and build a sense of family community.

The only family we have in the Tri City area is Mom's family - Aunt Nettie-Merle. That said it doesn't mean we only see her. She had 10 children, many who still live in the area. We asked her how many grandchildren and great grandchildren she had. She couldn't remember but Cindy who keeps count told us that Aunt Nettie-Merle around 38 now and counting.

Here's Cindy with one of Aunt Nettie-Merle's great-grandchild Wyatt. Wyatt is 2 months old and weighs 14 lbs. He one big boy - but very mellow.

We showed them the bus yesterday. Lee was in his lecture mode.

One of Lee's cousin, Kathleen graduated with a biology degree and has worked at an animal hospital here in Saginaw for thirty years. She gives another meaning to bringing your work home. This little kitty is 1 week old, it doesn't even have its eyes open yet. She has to feed it every 2 hours. So you thought you had it hard, eh Becky?

This little cutie is 4 weeks old. Anyone in the market for a cat?