Dragons, Planes, and Caves

August 8^th, 2026

Beloit, WI

Woke at 8:00am and slowly got ready.

Loaded the bike and prepared to leave.  Dropped the room key in box at desk, no one there.

Today we have multiple stops to make, but not a huge distance to cover.  Some of the stops and routing are just to burn time so we can arrive after 3:00pm at the hotel.

Fist we headed back north, back tracking a bit, to reach Wisconsin Dells.  While there are lots of interesting things to see here, I mainly came just to see Golspur.

This huge dragon statue is located at the entrance to the Dellshire Resort, which appears to be a medieval themed resort (and expensive!).

The dragon actually breathes fire every 15 minutes during the day.  I guess they had some safety and regulatory issues to get past, but sounds like the issues were resolved and the dragon is breathing as scheduled.

I arrived and took a few photos, and then waited around to see what would happen.

I was not paying close attention when it just suddenly does 3 short bursts of flame.  I managed to get camera going to catch the last one is all, but the 360 was running on the bike, so it should have caught it all.

Was a bit of a letdown, would have expected some music or sound effects with it.

Once done, we retraced the path back to the highway that would take us a bit west and south.

We stopped for fuel and then sat along the side of the road trying to figure out why Google Maps was not working correctly.  The route was in the system, the turn prompts were good, the audio was coming, but the path on the map was not showing and map kept drifting all over the place, not even close to the road.

I finally just had to delete the routing and plot a single route to the next stop instead of using a multiple stop routing. (To be honest, the multi stop routes have been giving me grief every time I use them).

I left the fuel stop and headed onto the highway.

It soon had me turn off onto some local road, which had a 1 mile section of gravel on it due to road works.  Then we turned onto another small highway, only to come back to the highway we were just on.  It basically bypassed the small town it went through, but not sure why as there was very little time savings and almost no distance savings.   Another issue Maps has been causing me. 

Since I was not in any hurry today, it was an interesting detour, but there are times when this happens and it annoys me.

I stopped in one of the smaller villages at a fuel station to use the restroom and buy some food as I was hungry.  Ate out by the bike and then got going again.

I headed south on the highway now and we passed through the town of Green Springs.

Just south of there is the location of Taliesin, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright in this area and where one of the design schools is located.  There is also a visitor center nearby, and a bit south is more of the school in the small village of Wyoming.

I did not have time to stop and take the tours, but did see the buildings from the road.

I pulled off the highway a bit farther for a scenic overlook.

Walked down the path way from the parking lot only to find a small viewing area, but no view.  The trees were so overgrown in the area that you could not see past them other than one small spot that barely let you see the hills in the distance.

I went back up to the parking lot and walked the path up hill which came to a bridge that goes over the highway. 

The parking areas are setup so you have to use the parking on your side of the highway, you cannot cross the lanes to get into the other (well, you can, but signed otherwise).

The bridge allows the far side of the roads parking to reach the viewpoint.

The bridge itself has a far better view though, and the wire mesh covering is loaded with lots of pad locks and other trinkets, most dedicated to someone who passed away, or a couple celebrating their togetherness.

I left this area and not much farther south reached my next planned stop.

The Don Q Inn is a hotel on the edge of town that had a huge Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter Aircraft sitting in front of it.  The hotel itself is interesting in that most of the rooms are theme rooms, dating back to the 70s, though many have been updated from what I was able to find out.

I had thought about staying here a night, but all the really cool rooms I would want were booked, so dropped that idea.

The plane is accessible to the public, and you can walk up some stairs to get inside.

The interior is beat up, age, exposure, and probably years of people taking bits have left it less than it was originally.  The cockpit is missing lots of equipment, though some of that might have been removed before the plane was sold off.

While it has a paint scheme with the hotel name on it, you can still see the former paint lettering for the California Air Guard on the side.

After exploring the inside and taking some photos, we left and headed down the road a bit.

Stopped at a convenience store to get some food as I was hungry again and needed something to drink as well.  Also needed to use the restroom.

We then took a small county road that would link up with the highway outside of town to avoid going through the middle of town.

Another 20 minutes and we came to the next stop.

We pulled off the highway and a bit north to reach the Cave of the Mounds.

This small park contains a small cave that was accidentally discovered in 1939 when they were blasting at the quarry site that existed at the time.

When the smoke cleared from one of the blasting sessions, they found the gaping hole in the ground and soon after they entered the cave.

The cave had been a closed system, no access point beyond cracks and seams in the ground.

The cave is a bout 1/3 of a mile long and goes down at least 70 feet below the surface.  It appears there might be small passages going deeper, but those are not accessible to tourists, and may not go very far either.

Both ends of the cave taper off and disappear into cracks, and while they did search, no other chambers were found in the area.

I bought my ticket and then went over to the gift shop which is where the tours start.

After getting scanned in (which took some time, scanner was not working right), the lady helping me gave me the safety and rules speech, then took me inside the cave and took my photo (so they can sell it to you later).

She did explain that today was one of the museum tour days, which means instead of having a guide take you through the cave, you get to wander the cave at your own pace, and they have staff at various points to explain the features and answer questions.

I really like that kind of setup.

Once photo was done, I got in behind the group that had entered just before me and followed them for a bit till I could sneak past them.

The cave descended a bit and had some narrow passages to navigate.

Then it went back up and passed by the entrance, and into a much larger chamber.  From here you go up some, and then along a small passage and back down.

Then you enter a very narrow and small passage that I barely fit through and the formations get really interesting along here.

The cave then becomes much smaller and a large number of formations.  To protect this area, they did not want to make passages in there, nor would they have been easily accessible anyway, so they dug a passage parallel to the real cave and exposed sections of it along they way so you could see into it without entering it.

At the end you can see down a long passageway toward where the cave ends.

You then return back around the really narrow passage (you could take this way in as well if you wanted) using more of the man-made cave.

Then you back track through the same large chamber and the stairs go up from there to the starting point.

When I reached it, the girl doing the photographs now asked what I thought.  Then she said that I could stay in the cave and explore it again if I wanted, which I took advantage of and went back into the first sections that I was stuck behind the larger group.

I was able to see some of the stuff better this time.

Also did a bit more filming where I could talk since there were less people around.

I did not go all the way back again, since it was now busy, and left the cave at that point.

Once out I used the restrooms, and then went back to the bike.

I had been a bit worried when I pulled up as the parking lot was quite full, several dozen cars, so it is a busy place.  There was no motorcycle specific parking, so just parked in among the cars, and since I had all the gear on the bike still, and you could not take anything in the cave with you, nor would they store it, it had to be left on the bike (or in your car).

I wore the riding jacket as I knew it would be cooler inside, and then dug out the bike cover and put it over the bike.  It actually fit nicely over all the bags.

Since everything was covered, not easy to mess around with anything, though a really determined thief could have just removed the cover, but that would be more noticeable if someone was doing so.

I got back on the bike and headed back to the highway.

Once there I rode along till I reached a turn off that would take me on some smaller highways instead of going toward the Interstate which is what Maps wanted to do.

Once on the back highway, things were going nicely until I reached a point where the highway was closed going farther.  Had to detour, so followed that for a bit until I reached a point where it was going to take me back north, so instead took the south bound highway that would eventually take me to the town I needed.

Well, maybe not.

Few miles down the road, that highway was closed as well.

Wisconsin sure does not want you travelling south east in this region.

I stopped at a gas station to figure out the best route to take now and then bought some more to drink.

I ended up taking the highway that went a bit north, but it would drop me over by the Interstate.  The other routes would take longer and leave me on far side of town from my hotel.

The Interstate route would take me right to the hotel almost, just off the exit a short way.

Reached the exit, turned off and found the hotel.

Checked in and then took my helmet and jacket up to the room.

Came down and went outside to move the bike closer to the building and just as I was backing up, some car pulls into the lot and takes the spot I was going for.  3^rd time today that I am 2 seconds too late to do what I wanted to do.

Had to move a few spots down as the idiot also took up two parking spots.

Went inside and grabbed the luggage cart and unloaded the bike, then secured and covered.

Took the cart up to the room to unload and then back down.

Then we got out of the riding gear and took a cool shower before sitting in the room to rest a bit.

Finally decided to go get dinner and walked over a few blocks to a local Mexican place.

Food was good, and not badly priced.

Came back to the hotel and completed another video, and then worked on the blog.

Now I am going to go to bed, will upload the blog tomorrow.

I have two places I will visit tomorrow.  One is just a few miles south of here, and should take about 2-3 hours to see.

Other is an hour east of here, and should also be a 2-3 hour visit.

Then I will return to the hotel and take care of any other uploads and hopefully work on more video.

Catch ya down the road.

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