2011’s Ride to The Highground (WI Veteran’s Memorial Park)

Hi Everyone,

Yep, time is flying by and we are almost wrapped with our warm weather activities here is Wisconsin. The good news is: that means we had a little time to sit down and get our sharings current -yay!

So are you ready to see some fascinating things occurring that we stumbled onto on our way to The Highground this year? As we departed, I told Chris that “I wanted to find 4 neat things to take photos of for the blog”. He laughed and doubted we would…. but we did!

So when you click on the link below you will see something special about a cool little Wisconsin town with unique history, something that is very difficult to find still functional in the USA, something strange that is growing in our cornfields, and what happens during harvest season! Enjoy the captions below the pictures to help you along the way!!!

For Picture of our 2011 Trip to The Highground, just click on:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102833962311171387903/2011HighgroundsTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLMqp_v2srdJg

… And come back tomorrow to see pictures from the actual visit of The Highground- we even have a picture of the “fly-over” while we were there and one of the Veterans featured in the Learning Center who came during our visit- what a great honor for us to take this picture of her and her grown daughters 🙂

Semper Fi~ SSgt. Chris Mongan & the Mrs., Maggie Mongan

Trip to Racine’s Historical Lighthouse on the Shore of Great Lake Michigan

SSgt. Chris and Maggie Mongan are at it again… bringing you some fascinating images and stories from our motorcycle rides and trips. Why? To share the goodness of what we love doing- riding our Harley and raising awareness and funds for The Highground (WI Veteran’s Memorial Park to educate and heal Veterans and their families).

It’s hard to believe that next week we will be riding up to the Park in Neillsville, WI for their-our annual fundraiser and memorial service. If you haven’t donated yet, you still can by clicking on the Donation Pledge Form and popping it into the mail ASAP 🙂  Thanks bunches!!!

This trip we took on a bright and sunny day at the shores of the Great Lake Michigan. Racine, WI has a Lighthouse in the Wind Point area or Northern Racine. Most people don’t know this but Racine sits out in Lake Michigan about 6 miles more than Milwaukee (that’s why Racine has a much more temperate climate than Milwaukee or even Kenosha).

Now, sitting out in the lake that many miles out begins to give you a clue why Racine’s Lighthouse was critical to waterway navigation back in the day, doesn’t it? The Lighthouse was built by Brigadier General Poe, who was selected by General W T Sherman to burn Atalanta. When BG Poe destroyed 90% of Atlanta and Savannah he was honored at the end of the war with the title: Engineer Secretary of the Lighthouse Board and responsible for the building of all Lighthouses. Poe is noted for the traditional tapered design of lighthouses as well as designing the Poe Lock at Sault St. Marie during the 1890’s.

We simply can’t share all the goodness of this historically rich and fascinating sweet spot in Wisconsin; however, we can share the link to the newly renovated Wind Point Fog Horn Building Museum and Wind Point Lighthouse:  www.windpoint-lighthouse.com

Our photos are of the Lighthouse, Fog Horn Building (and all the goodies inside the museum), Keeper’s Quarters, Shoreline, etc. For those of you who are curious which ship is in some of the photos, it’s the USS Wisconsin of course 🙂

Link to: Racine’s Wind Point Lighthouse

Did you notice how shiny and reflective the stones are that Chris is sitting on? Just down the shoreline, not even 1/4 mile, they don’t look like that at all!  I’m on a quest to learn why this is so 🙂 If you know, we’d love to hear from you!

Semper Fi~
SSgt. Chris and Mrs., Maggie Mongan

Riding and Raising Funds for The Highground (WI Vet Memorial Park)

Hello All!

Well, I’m sure you noticed that we are starting to correct and re-post all our missing posts.  Yay! We finally figured out how to do it 🙂 This is going to take a bit longer than we had expected… but the good news is we are working on it as much as possible. And, most of you may not have noticed that there is a email subscribe button on the right column of our blog for you to sign up and have all this come directly to you as soon as we post- check it out!

We also want to thank you in advance for supporting The Highground’s efforts to heal and education Veterans and their families. This is a 100% donation funded project and if you would like to support the cause, please fill-out the “Donation Form” by clicking on it (in the black bar just below the veteran image above) and mail it to us- all the directions are there for you to follow!

Chris and I will be riding up to The Highground on August 19th for a Remembrance Ceremony and then the official Motorcycle Parade on the 20th. If anyone wants to join us or meet us up there, please just type your contact info in comments and we will reach out to you 🙂 Again, thanks for your support and hope you enjoy all the images!

Semper Fi ~ SSgt. Chris Mongan & Maggie Mongan

Visit to the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa, Iowa

Hello Fellow Motorcyclist Enthusiasts!

Our trip to Anamosa was to be the last destination of our summer vacation this year. Even  with the week of rain and cold which held us hostage on our first destination of our trip  and then continued to clip the fun-carefree, and mega-mile part of our trip. However, the clouds didn’t spit so much on us as we determined that we really did need our rain gear purchase at the J&P Cycles Open House . So away we drove, first visiting the museum in Anamosa and then the next morning we visited the Open House and got our rain gear 🙂

We did have to “Ride the Storm Out” (as REO Speedwagon sings) to get home. Eventhough it was a quick trip of not even 30 hours, we were pleased with the ride, museum, and rain gear…

National Motorcycle Pictures

Semper Fi ~ SSgt. Chris Mongan and Maggie

Wisconsin’s Korean War Memorial

Hello All!

Well this reconstructing and learning a new technology is kicking my butt and I am having to redo things more than I’d like! We are on a task… and it may take more than today to make this happen-ugh!  Our posts are out of order, but we figure you won’t mind and will enjoy the pics and sharings anyway 🙂

The link below is for Wisconsin’s Korean War Memorial. It’s in Plover Wisconsin and easily accessible from WI Hwy 39/51. We have been there before but it is such an exquisite memorial that we stopped in the light rain so we could share this with you. The memorial’s explanation is in the pics so I won’t say anything further:

Link to: Wisconsin’s Korean War Memorial

Semper Fi ~ SSgt. Chris Mongan & The Mrs., Maggie

 

We Ride for WI Vets takes photos atThe Milwaukee Honor’s Flight April 2011

Hello All! This is rather amazing… we think we have a way to share really cools photos with you now! It took us a little bit, but here we go….

The link below will take you to the photo album of the best all- round pix we took while waiting for Milwaukee’s Honor Flight Program to arrive in April 2011.  This particular trip had over 215 veterans experience this unforgettable trip. We were absolutely astonished- there were thousands of people there from people in their 90s to infants- all showing support and gratitude to honor the World War II Veterans.

This Stars and Stripes Honor Flight Program is outstanding. It offers WWII Veterans the opportunity to visit their relatively new Memorial at our Country’s Capital- all expenses paid for a full day’s trip. Oh, did we mention all this is through the financial support of donations? Wonderful isn’t it? What a beautiful way to say “Thank you for your service!”

Enjoy the pictures: Photo Album of Milwaukee’s Honor Flight Homecoming April 2011

And for those of you who are curious, no, we didn’t ride to this event- it was in the 40s and blustery-shucks! What an honor to be part of this “over due” thank you to our veterans!

Semper Fi ~ SSgt. Chris Mongan & The Mrs.

July 23rd 2011: noticing our more recent positings have disappeared!

As the story goes… something stinks in Denmark ! For some strange reason it appears that our positing have disappeared!!!! We don’t know why, we suspect it was the vast number of images we were posting so we have been trimming them down and came up with an alternative to how we have things presented… yep, stepping into another round of technological advancement 🙂  Hang tight! We will be working to have everything updated (I know our total recall isn’t superb, but you;ll get what we can remember) within 24 hours! Thanks for your patience and letting us know things were awry!

Semper F i~ SSgt. Chris Mongan & The Mrs.

Milwaukee’s Stars and Stripes Honor Flight April 2011

Hello Everyone! On Saturday, April 16, 2011, we experienced an extra-ordinary event: The Welcoming Home of WWII Vets – Wisconsin Vets being honored for their selfless service. This event was something amazing. Chris and I went to honor those who have served and share our “thank you”. And then we were surprised…

Yes, surprised by all of the amazing family members and appreciative citizens- several thousands people waiting at the airport for hours (the flights were delayed due to weather in DC). Young children, adult children, loved ones of our beloved vets waiting, talking, smiling and sharing their memories and love with each other while we all waited to say “Thank You”. Chris and I didn’t have any one specifically to recognize, which allowed for us to roam and meet people, hear stories, and take endless photos of this phenomenal event! More regarding this event and photos will be posted this week- we are having a little technical snafu-y on our end, but we want you to know alot of fantastic photos will appear right here later this week. Please check back throughout the week…. and feel free to check out the rest of the site and reach out for a pledge! I had one person say, “Can I write a post dated check for the beginning of August and mail it to you now?”, my answer, “Sure! We’ll tuck it away until the beginning of August.” If you are interested in supporting Wisconsin Veterans services, please scout out our “Donation Pledge Form” right above this post. Thank you & Semper Fi!

Our July 4th Getaway Adventure

July 4th Overnight Getaway Update

Hope you had a safe and fun-filled 4th of July everyone!

As we shared, this trip was a tribute to Uncle Harry Garfield, US Army.  It was a power-packed 460 mile trip that lasted only 36 hours! Gee, we rode alot, slept enough,  scouted out plenty, and then had a big surprise which ate up almost 2 hours of play time (see the slide show to learn what happened)!

We created this blog to share the fun and adventure
with you as we ride for such a noble cause:
The Highground, Wisconsin Veteran Memorial Park

What are we talking about?

The miles we ride until mid-August support the non-profit organization: The Highground, which is a Wisconsin Veteran Memorial Park located in Neillsville, WI. It is very different than most memorial parks as it exists purely on donations, honors different war veterans who have fallen, honors the diversity of our Wisconsin Vets via specific memorials, AND  it honorably assists families of vets with their healing process.

We first learned and visited The Highground last year. W learned each year there is a Motorcycle Rally in mid-August to help raise funds for their endeavors. We decided to participate and will do so next year too! Please see scout out The Highground for yourself (www.thehighground.org) and then come back here to make a donation to assist them with the fine work they do!

We still need your help raising $1000 for The Highground this year!

We placed the Donation Pledge Sheet and the explanation as to who we are and Why We Ride just below the image of the soldiers (from one of the memorials at The Highground). Sure would appreciate your support! Hard to believe that we only have 4 weeks left to raise funds for The Highground– please share this with others who would like to support the honoring of fallen vets and their families too!

Here’s our “Give Back to YOU” for your support and assistance:
We thought you’d love joining us on our rides/adventures so we created a section under ‘Categories‘ titled “Trip Adventure Photos & Stories“. Click on it and see how this all began with “Our Riding Season Begins” and then check out “May’s Riding Story- the Month of the Map” (guaranteed to make you laugh)! As a thank you to you, we will continue to post our scrapbook stories of our adventures throughout the whole riding season. If you would like to suggest a place to visit- comment back and let us know 🙂

Thanks for all your help to support and share The Highgrounds!
Semper Fi ~ SSgt. Chris Mongan, USMC, 77-88 and the Mrs., Maggie Mongan
www.WeRideForWIVets.com