Northern Wisconsin Volkswagen Club's Picnic
Menominee Park, Oshkosh, WI
Saturday, July 21, 2001

Campout
Howard's VW Farm, Oshkosh, WI
Friday & Saturday, July 20 & 21, 2001

We had a great weekend, even though it was hot. Nick, myself and Howard, Jr camped on Friday night out at Howard's farm down by the pond. Thanks to Howard and Joyce, for letting us use your farm for the weekend and putting up with us. Saturday, we stopped for a sub on our way to Menominee Park for the picnic. Keith and Jenny had arrived shortly before us. It was a good thing we had a shelter reserved.

 Thanks to Jenny for planning well in advance and reserving the shelter. Folks began arriving shortly after that. At one point, we had more Bugs than Buses but it soon became more Buses than Bugs. We ended up with about 17 Dubs lined up in the parking lot row. It was great to see all of the people driving by and pointing at the Bugs, Buses, and Jenny's Thing. Most of us brought sandwiches due to the heat. Jenny brought her famous Brownies.

 A couple new members showed up at the picnic. Pete and his 1974 Super Beetle stopped by to meet the club. Also, Dennis & Kathy Geier stopped by with their white Baywindow Bus. They heard about the picnic from Billy and stopped by. Thanks Billy, for letting them know about the picnic. The heat was pretty bad, but we still had a great time talking and looking at everyone else's Dubs. Isaiah's Birthday is in a couple days so we decided to take a drive to Ardy & Ed's (a local car hop where the waitresses deliver your food/ice cream on roller skates) for ice cream. It has officially been named "The Annual Isaiah's Birthday Bus Ice Cream Bash". We look forward to doing this again next year.

There were a few of us who managed to form a small caravan through town and it was fun to see people pointing and gawking. I even saw a couple kids punching the heck out of each other. I hope they're ok. At Ardy & Ed's there were several people who got out of their cars to look at our VWs while we were parked in the cul de sac behind the place. We headed back to Howard's place after our ice cream.

By now, we were really hot so a few of us jumped in the pond to cool down. It really helped beat the heat. I felt much better after that and soon the sun went down. A few of the club members joined us around the campfire and stayed a bit for the fun. There were 4 or 5 of us that camped overnight. We had a couple screenhouses up to get away from Wisconsin's unofficial state bird, the mosquito. The kids and some of the adults had fun roasting marshmallows for a late night dessert.

The next morning we awoke to the blazing sun again and you could feel the temp rising already. We packed up camp and went to Wisconsin Farms Restaurant for breakfast. After breakfast we went to the Pierce Park Old Car Show to check out the swap meet. The Pierce Park show had a good turnout as usual. I was surprised by the amount of vendors this year. The number of vendors seemed to be up. We didn't find anything we couldn't live without but there were a couple good deals. Nick wasn't in the buying mood, though so we left them for someone else to find. 

The car corral had quite a few good deals, too. We saw a gold/silverish 70 Bug, a dune buggy, John Benz's Karmann Ghia, and Howard and his son's Bugs that were entered in the show. We didn't stay too long at the show, as we were beat from the weekend of heat. The A/C at home would feel great after the hot weekend. We arrived home safely and headed for the A/C without even thinking twice. About an hour later, the rain came and cooled everything down for a bit. Thanks to everyone who braved the heat and helped make our picnic/campout weekend fun. Hopefully our next event, the VW Show in Appleton and camping at Howard's will have much more bearable weather. Just think, soon we will be wishing for these hot days when there is a ten below wind chill and 2 feet of snow on the ground!

Sherri

The Line-Up:
New members Dennis & Kathy Geier's white Baywindow, Nicholas' blue 1978 Baywindow, Nicholas' 1968 Chop Truck, Kevin's recently purchased Baywindow, Brian Z.'s Baywindow, Keith & Jenny's Thing, Sherri's Sun Bug, Jesse's black Custom Chop Top Bug, Howard, Sr's 1966 Bug, Howard, Jr's 1966 Bug, John M.'s yellow Bug, Isaiah's Split  Window, New member Pete's red 1974 Super Beetle.

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