Fo(u)r Cheese and Country: Cities and Padunks

While I wished I could have stayed in Chicago a little longer, the road beckoned for me. So I headed north to Wisconsin, to the land of cheese, sausage, beer, and Brett Favre (a former version of him at least)... oh and Scott Walker. This was the point in the trip where we deviated from the most direct route to Colorado and instead took a more northern route to see some more interesting locations later on. The first stop on this leg of the trip was to Milwaukee, the home of the Miller Brewing Company. The city was surprisingly nice and had a lot of interesting architecture. We quickly made our way to the Miller Brewing Company visitor center, in Miller Valley, to take a tour of the plant. After sitting through a very entertaining and funny introduction video, we toured the plant, everything from the brewing to the bottling to the packaging and distribution. With a bunch of historical information and artifacts smattered along the tour, it turned out to be a really awesome experience, culminating in a bunch of free beer samples :)

Following the tour, we headed back into Milwaukee for lunch at the Comet Cafe. This restaurant was featured on Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Here is a clip: Comet Cafe. It was definitely a "dive" but the food wasn't. My dad got the meatloaf sandwich and I got the burger. While Guy Fieri may be kind of douchey, he does have a sweet job and he does give places notoriety when if you saw it, you wouldn't give it a second look. After lunch we headed through the historic district of Milwaukee and even passed by the Pabst Mansion. We then turned and continued west towards Madison.

One of the most notable sights in Madison was the Capitol Building... but we didn't see any teachers fire bombing the Capitol unfortunately... but I'm sure someone is cursing out Scott Walker somewhere. Madison is also situated between two lakes, Monona and Mendota, which were very nice. The only downer was that it was raining and we couldn't enjoy all the sites and thus didn't get a chance to visit Monona Terrace. We also went around the University of Wisconsin campus and even got a chance to go in to the football stadium. After a brief visit to Madison, we headed towards La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Scenic Route 14 instead of taking the Interstate, which frankly I'm kind of sick of. The scenic route turned out to be a great idea, as it meandered its way through padunk towns, rolling hills, farms, forests, amish settlements, and even a town called Kickapoo (I shit you not... and I thought Tenacious D just made up that name). Won't have photos of this for a bit since my camera battery died and I took them on my dad's camera.

The traverse through Wisconsin finally brought us to the banks of the Mississippi River at La Crosse. Awaiting at the room at the hotel was a view of the river (I'm literally watching a barge go by right now) and much to my delight, the end of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Call me a communist, but I don't care, the Bruins won the Cup and I'm esctatic! GO BRUINS!!!! Chara will eat you for lunch :P First person to send me some Bruins championship gear gets a trinket from Thailand!

Time to go enjoy the local cheese and sausage I bought from Milwaukee then catch up on some sleep. And once I get the opportunity I will upload all the photos I have taken on Facebook. See you all from The Plains!