August 19, 2016 at 2:44 p.m.
Wienermobile comes to town
Wienermobile comes to town
By Kayla Thomason-
The reaction was hardly surprising, however, as the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is certainly a sight to see.
Carrie Ketter and her children were excited to see the rolling fiberglass hot dog for the first time.
"I think it's really cool," Ketter said. "We've never seen it before so we wanted to come down and check it out."
Her children, and others, toured the Wienermobile virtually, enjoyed hot dogs and root beer floats, and blew whistles.
Ketter's daughter, Madelyn, had a great time.
"I thought (the virtual reality tour) was really cool, I've never seen it before," she said. "It was different and I liked the colors and the seats, they were cool."
Kim Marvin and her children also visited the cultural icon.
"I think it's neat, very neat," she said. "My kids liked it, they just really like the whistles."
They took photos with the bacon and hot dog boards, and enjoyed hot dogs and soda.
Trig's became one of the Wienermobile's stops when the store director checked out the tour and requested to be on it.
"In the last couple months my partner and I have been all over the place so one of our first assignments was actually the NHL Draft out in New York," said Francisco "Frank" Ruiz, driver of the Wienermobile.
He said his official title is hotdogger.
Ruiz and his partner, Maddie "Mustard" Murphy, cover the Midwest, so that was a rare treat.
There are two "hotdoggers" to each of the six Wienermobiles.
Murphy and Ruiz have been to 10 states so far, he added, noting the turnout in Rhinelander was strong.
"We make sure every child leaves with at least a whistle, sticker and the parents can always grab some postcards, chip clips," he said.
The biggest crowd- pleaser is the tour, he added.
"The most popular thing this summer has been our virtual reality ride so everybody always asks us if they can ride inside the Wienermobile and during the summertime with all the kids being out of school it's super hard to do," Ruiz said. "So that's why when we came up with this app (that mimics the virtual tour). We were excited that people took to it like they did."
This is the second year that the app has been in use.
Lorraine Siegman, assistant store director at Trig's, got into the spirit by serving hot dogs during the event.
The buns came from Trig's, Frito-Lay donated chips and Pepsi donated Mug Root Beer, she said.
All of the proceeds from the event will go to the Rhinelander Police Department K-9 Unit.
"(The turnout was) phenomenal, a lot busier than we thought," Siegman said. "I thought (there would be) just a few people here and there but we've been busy. The kids are loving it."
Kayla Breese may be reached at [email protected].
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