I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here!

One of my new favorite things about our new town is all the walking/bike paths that go all over town. You can get to most places in town on a bike path. It's great. I've been taking walks on the paths after walking Ruby to school in the morning. I'm already out of the house and walking, so I might as well keep going! For me, getting started is the hardest part about exercising. I always have an excuse.

This morning we went for a family bike ride to explore the paths together. It was awesome. We rode over to a park that was a 25 minute walk for me, and we rode there in less than 10 minutes. There's another park that's about a 2 minute ride. The kids could go there themselves. The kids spent a lot of the ride pretending to play MarioKart and kept throwing pretend banana peels and shells at each other.

We decided that we want to live in one of the houses that backs up to the bike path. There are some that have a little strip of woods between the yard and the bike path, so you have your privacy, but easy access to the path. None of them are for sale, but we can keep hoping! There are some houses for sale further down the path that don't have the wooded strip, but have a really big yard that backs up to the path. Those are listed between $450,000-500,000. A bit out of our price range. Okay, a lot out of our price range. But they're so pretty!

After the ride, we decided to give a second look to some of the houses for sale near the bike path that hadn't passed muster before. There are some options that we might be able to make work. We will probably be focusing in neighborhoods that the bike path goes through, and houses near the path.

I guess it's not such a bad thing that we'll have to rent for a while. It does give us a chance to get to know the city a bit better before we decide on a permanent place to live.

Lots of things to like here!

The Sassy Cow

One thing I really like about living in Wisconsin is that they're all about dairy. Lots of little dairy farms with red barns all over the place. Some of them have their own little creameries, where you can buy all sorts of milk, cheese and other dairy products. Even regular grocery stores have a huge cheese selection. They take their cheese very seriously here.

Our current favorite is about 10 minutes up the road, in Columbus, called Sassy Cow Creamery. They have two farms they use for milk, each owned by a brother in the family. One is an organic farm, and the other is traditional. They sell the milk in the local grocery stores.

They were having an ice cream social on Aug 25th, and since the kids and I had been up there for ice cream the week before, we decided to take the whole family and John's parents who were up for something else, and check it out.

It was a big to-do, and we had to park way down the road. They had tours of the diary where they process the milk. Inside the store, they have big windows into the diary so you can watch them making cheese and ice cream. If you're there on the right days, you can watch the guy stretching the string cheese. 

Meghan, John Sr., Sam, and John getting ready to go inside for the tour.

John, of course, knew what all the pipes and machines were for, and he said he had never seen such a small pasteurizer before. We got to watch them make ice cream, though we were in the back and couldn't see well, and really we got to hear them make ice cream. But we had John with us, so we could just ask him questions.

Ruby and I went on the hay ride that went around the field.

On the hayride.

They had a big long row of tractors for kids to climb on. They had signs on the front telling what kind of tractor it was and the year. I didn't note them. Sorry.

Ruby on a tractor.

Meghan playing a cranky old man on a tractor.

John and Sam next to a John Deere. They had been to a church softball game in the morning, which Sam dressed up for.

We had ice cream and chocolate milk (their chocolate milk is super yummy). I had the root beer float flavor on a waffle cone. It was sooo good. They had buses taking people over to the farm for farm tours, but we kept missing them, and then we were really hot and tired and decided to skip the farm tour and head home.

But this is our new favorite little dairy and ice cream shop. Just thinking about it makes me hungry!

Survivor

Remember my fig tree? The one the kids have named "Planty the Potted Plant"?

He's made a remarkable recovery! All he needed was some peace, some sunlight, and water. We'll let his roots recover for the next year or so, then put him in a big pot on wheels so we can easily bring him in when it gets too cold at night.

Such a relief!

Green Bay

John was working in Green Bay this week, and while up there, he found out they were having their office summer party on Wednesday, a luau at the Bay Beach Amusement Park. He invited us to come up and join him, and we did.

Meghan was at girl’s camp, so it was just the two younger kids and me. It took about two hours to drive up there, and we checked in and took our stuff up to John’s room and waited for him to get back from the office.

After he changed, we headed over to the park, stopping on the way to check out Lambeau Field. The kids and I got out to take some pictures. 

See the big group by the doors? Tour group. Many of them are dressed in Packers finery.

The Bay Beach Amusement Park is a small park with mostly little kids rides, bumper cars, a train, a tilt-a-whirl, big swings, a big slide, etc., and a roller coaster that had been bought from other larger parks. The rides each had a little sign telling about the history of the ride. Each ride was one or two tickets, except the roller coaster, which was four. As part of the company party, we each had eight tickets, and one of John's co-workers gave us her and her husband's tickets, so we had plenty for everyone. 

Sam, John and Ruby with Green Bay in the background.

 They had a nice dinner, including a full roasted pig and side dishes. We had a nice time meeting John's co-workers and chatting with the boss. Everyone was very friendly. After we ate, we rode some rides. We started with the train and worked our way around from there. Ruby was kind of skittish and didn't want to do anything she considered dangerous.

Except the roller coaster. She was on board for that one! It was once a part of Libertyland, and one of Elvis Presley's favorite rides. The wood is all new, but the coaster is still rickety and scary as all get out. I'm pretty sure I got whiplash at one point, and my glasses almost flew off.

The Zippin Pippin.

A good time was had by all, and while we were pretty tired, we still had enough energy to go out for ice cream! You just can't have a day at an amusement park and NOT have ice cream!

The next morning it was pouring straight down, and the kids and I decided to take it easy, have a leisurely breakfast and wait for the rain to pass before we headed for home.

On the way out of town, the kids and I thought we'd swing by Lambeau Field again and get a picture of everyone tailgating. Unfortunately, we got there around 11:30, and the parking lot didn't open until 3:00. Ah well. There were people at the houses around the stadium who were setting up in their yards, so I'm pretty certain that if the parking lot had been open, there would be a party going on! We did get this nice picture of the front on opening day.

Lambeau Field, Opening Day 2012.

Our route home took us though Oshkosh, WI, which is a big outlet center. We stopped at the American Girl Outlet and bought a couple of things for Ruby's doll. We also popped in to a couple of other stores to look for some deals on school clothes. The Levi's store had lots of shorts in Sam's size, and I started to grab a bunch, then I realized that here shorts aren't really school clothes, since it won't be long before fall arrives and it will be too cold for shorts! I did get a couple of pairs, though, and a couple of shirts.

On our way home, we heard from John that he had gotten a call from the hotel mentioning that he was supposed to check out, but his clothes were still in the room. He had originally planned to check out Thursday, but had forgotten to change his reservation. Alas, it was the Packers' home opener, and they did not have a spare room for him, so he had to go get his things and check out.

On the upside, he got to come home a day early!

Wisconsin or Bust: Thursday

Last day on the road! Woo-hoo!

The plan for Thursday was to just drive to Sun Prairie and pick the the keys to the house. That’s it.

But, as we were driving through Minnesota, we saw signs for the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. And we said, “We can’t NOT stop there!” 

According to the website:

“Few experiences in life are as meaningful and meaty-filled as those you’ll have at the magnificent SPAM® Museum. Referred to by some meat historians as The Guggenham, Porkopolis or M.O.M.A. (Museum Of Meat-Themed Awesomeness), the SPAM® Museum is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of spiced pork artifacts.”

How could you pass that up? We couldn’t. We stopped.

The kids in front of the museum.

And we loved it! Well, John and I loved it, Meghan thought we had lost our minds and Ruby and Sam played with and touched everything in the place.

Ruby and Sam and the Can O'Spam.

The whole place had a great attitude, poking fun at Spam at every turn, while also presenting a good history of canned ham, Dinty Moore stew, and also Hormel chili. 

They had a section where you could dress up as a Hormel worker and time how long it took you to cook and process 6 cans of Spam, and then they told you how many cans the factory had done in that same time. Here’s Ruby all dressed up.

Ruby, the Hormel Worker.

It took me 1:19 to do all 6 cans and the factory had made thousands of cans in that same time. Here are Ruby and Sam racing each other.

How fast can you can a can of Spam?

At the end they had the video of the Monty Python Spam sketch. Here are Meghan and John watching it in the Green Midget Cafe.

I'll have the Spam, Spam, Spam, eggs and Spam.

They had what has to be the best gift shop ever. They had anything that could possibly be printed on with the Spam logo on it. We bought a small can of Spam spread for the kids to try on crackers in the car, and apron, and a couple of pencils for the kids.

And a squashed penny or two!

As I said, John and I really enjoyed it, Ruby and Sam had a lot of fun, and Meghan was in full teenage “I can’t believe I am stuck with these people” mode.

I highly recommend the Spam Museum to anyone anywhere near Austin, Minnesota. It’s great fun.

After the museum, we got back on the road with no more detours and got to the house while they were still cleaning it and picked up the keys. The kids ran around and picked out their rooms. Then we headed back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep.

We made it!!!

Interlude

We made it safely, but we don't have the Internet hooked up yet. I can't do justice to our last day of travel on my phone blogger app, so stay tuned for what is surely the most exciting attraction on I-90!

Wisconsin or Bust: Wednesday

Wednesday morning I had to do laundry, so I got up after 3 hours of sleep to get a load done before we left. I let everyone else sleep in. And sleep in they did! Sam was the first one up at 9:30, and John slept until 10:30. He needed it.

After we dragged ourselves out of bed and rushed everyone through showers, we headed down to Mount Rushmore.

We figured it would take about an hour to see it, take pictures, and go through the Visitor Center. We took three. There was a lot to learn about. They have a lot of the equipment used to drill and blast the rock and lots of information about the sculptor and the workers. Very, very interesting. Highly recommended.

Here we are!

John and the kids walking toward The Avenue of Flags, with the flags from the states in alphabetical order with the State name, date it entered the union, and the order in which it entered.

One of the interseting things I learned was that no one died while working on the sculpture. They were very safety conscious for the time. I was impressed. Another interesting piece of information, is that the sculptor carefully designed the faces to take on different expressions depending on the time of day and the season. Also, the eyes have a depression for the pupils with a shaft of stone in the middle of the pupil to make the eyes appear to sparkle.

The fifth head on the mountain.

Ruby, being impressed.

Down a ridiculous number of stairs was the Sculptor’s Studio, where you can see the 1/12 scale model used in carving the mountain. They had a clever system of measuring to translate the shape of the model onto the mountain.

The scale model, with a view of the mountain in the upper peaked window. The sun was right there, so it was hard to get a good shot.

Ruby for scale.

After we climbed up (and up and up and up) the stairs, we badly in need of some ice cream. Fortunately, they had it.

The sign says: "President Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and of the first ice cream recipe in America! Come grab a taste of history at the Memorial Ice Cream Shop." And then there's a photo of his ice cream recipe.

We enjoyed our ice cream and squished a penny and got back on the road. Meghan and I traded places and I sat in the back and slept while she sat up front and played navigator. She has a lot of space back there. It was pretty comfy and I got a good nap to make up for my lack of sleep.

I used to think that Nevada across I-80 was the most boring drive in the world, but now I’m thinking that South Dakota on I-90 gives it a serious run for its money. And it takes FOR-ever to get across. We made it to Souix Falls, SD around midnight for our last night on the road!

Wisconsin or Bust: Tuesday

We had talked about getting out at 6:00 in order to make it into the park when the Visitor Centers opened at 8:00, but I was tired and didn’t want to get up at 5:00 to make that happen. So I got up at 7:00, and we got out at 9:00, though it only took an hour and a half to get back to the park (nighttime speed limits are lower in Montana, so we were able to make better time in the morning).

Sam had his clothes set out on the floor of the closet, which was next to the bathroom. For some reason, water leaked all through the carpet, soaking his clothes. They were sopping wet. Since he had only packed four shirts and that was his last one, Meghan and I only had “women’s cut” shirts, and Ruby’s were all too small, Sam had to wear one of John’s shirts. One of John’s XL shirts. He tucked it in and wore a jacket over it until it got too hot, and then just wore a huge shirt.

The north entrance to Yellowstone in Gallatin, MT has this wonderful grand arch.

Across the top it says: "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People"
On the left: "Yellowstone National Park"
On the right: "Created by Act of Congress March 1, 1872"

The route we planned out was to come in from the north entrance and make our way down the west side of the park loop, stopping at anything we wanted to on the right side of the road until we got to Old Faithful, then to turn around and go back up the west side, stopping at things on the other side of the road, then heading over the north part of the loop, hitting the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the waterfalls before leaving out of the East Entrance. And that’s exactly what we did!

Click here to go to a large map of the park.

I know, don’t pass out, we followed our plan. At least part of it. We just took much, much longer than we talked about. We each had a “must-see” item, so we focused on making sure those happened.

Right when we entered the park, there were elk grazing in the middle of all the buildings, the Visitor Center, the post office and everything! It was a perfect start to a visit in Yellowstone.

It took a while to get into the park and we decided to eat lunch before we started looking at things. Luck shone down on us when we were looking for a place to eat. After driving past a couple of picnic areas with no tables free, we drove down the little road marked “Fountain Flat Drive” and found a quiet little picnic area with only one other family there and had a nice quiet lunch away from everyone.

See how secluded this picnic area was? 

The first thing we stopped to see was the Norris Geyser Basin. We were expecting huge crowds and we were not disappointed. We couldn’t even find a parking spot, and John had to drop us off and drive around looking for one. We walked the loop on the boardwalk and it was so exciting to see everything bubbling and blopping and steaming and shooting. The colors were bright and my camera didn’t seem to be capturing it, until I used the “vivid color” setting, which to my eye made the colors on the camera match was I was seeing in person.

Ruby at Norris Geyser Basin. She absolutely loved all the geysers.

The colors are amazing!

Fortunately, after that crowd, we found the rest of the park to be remarkably un-crowded. There were lots of people everywhere, but we weren’t driving five miles an hour in a long line of cars all day. Just when there were animals around. And then people turned into idiots.

We took a drive down Firehole Canyon Drive and saw the pretty Firehole Falls along the Firehole River in the canyon.

Next, we stopped at the Lower Geyser Basin, home of the Fountain Paint Pot and then on to the Midway Geyser Basin, home of the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was featured on the cover of National Geographic a couple of months ago, and which was Meghan’s “must-see” item. It was gorgeous. Unbelievably so. We were all very impressed. Lots of other pretty pools in this area.

Grand Prismatic Spring.

Ruby’s and Sam’s “must-see”, Old Faithful was next. There were tons of people here, but they have huge parking lots there, and Old Faithful is a mound up high enough that everyone can see it even if you’re back under a tree because you arrived just before it was expected to go off. John dropped us off and went to find a parking spot (right before it shoots up is a bad time to look for a close parking place)

It does these little spurts when it’s getting ready for the big spectacular blow, and after each one of those, the kids said, “Is that it? Is is done? I think that’s it.” And I kept telling them, you’ll know when it’s going off, trust me. And sure enough, they did.

Old Faithful, being faithful.

The kids watching the geyser.

Sam. In his dad's shirt. Old Faithful was dying down by this point.

Ruby in her own shirt.

My kids.

As Sam needed a shirt that actually fit, we stopped at the gift shop and the kids each picked a shirt. I got some moose jammies.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and we had to be getting along, so we drove back down the west side and visited the Artist Paintpots before heading east along the north part of the loop.

Artist Paintpots. It's spelled like that on the map.

We stopped at Canyon Village to get a stamp and ice before heading to the North Rim Drive to view the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. On the way we made a wrong turn and pulled into a driveway near some cabins to turn around and I spotted a black bear walking through the trees! One other car of people was there, and a few people came running down from the cabins to see, including one woman dressed only in a towel and hiking boots! At first we thought she had a bathing suit on, but then we noticed that she was very diligent about keeping it closed and pulled down. It was kind of funny. Anyway, we were among the first ones to see it, so there weren’t may people around getting in the way and we were able to get a picture and get away before a crowd formed.

Da bear.

Eventually we made it to the Canyon and walked down the path to the viewing point. This whole area is just stunning. It was also John’s “must-see”.

Lower Falls.

They're so cute. Note that Sam's shirt actually fits him.

After viewing the canyon from various viewpoints, we went back to the Village and ate dinner at the Canyon Lodge. John and Meghan and I each had a bison burger and John and I shared some huckleberry ice cream for dessert. Huckleberries are a Yellowstone thing. So are bison.

And as much as we wanted to stick around and explore some more, we still had a long drive ahead of us and needed to get going. On the way back around to the exit, we ran across a big herd of bison in the Hayden Valley. There was a little calf standing right next to the road.

We left out of the East Entrance and headed east along US-14 to meet up with I-90 right around Sheridan, WY. Google said this was the fastest way to get to Spearfish, SD, our stop for the night. It did not say that we would have to go through every mountain in the state. We didn’t see any other cars or people or anything for hours. Hours! We were in the middle of nowhere. We were on the Bighorn Scenic Byway, but since it was the middle of the night, we didn’t see anything but the road twisting in front of us. It was 4:00 a.m. before we got in, and we were tired (by “we”, I mean John and me, the kids were asleep the whole time). I didn’t get to sleep until 5:00.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about my “must-see”? A moose. We didn’t see one, and my moose jammies ended up being too small, so Meghan got them :(

Wisconsin or Bust: Monday

The plan for Monday was to leave bright and early and get on the road, and visit Grand Tetons National Park and get a start on Yellowstone. But since it’s us, you know that didn’t happen.

We had decided to stop back for another hug for Grandma on the way out of town, but we first had to pack up the car and pick up the kids. That all took waaaaay longer than it should have.

Turns out, packing the car takes forever when your little helpers are not with you. Usually it takes one or two trips to the car to get everything in there. Everyone carries their own stuff and then John will go back for one last trip while we stuff everything into the car. With just the two of us, it took us five trips to get everything down to the car, then we had to pack it.

Then, the kids were not ready when we arrived to pick them up, and Ruby lost her toy bear that suddenly was her most precious possession in the world. Thankfully, her Aunt Telynn found it in the bathroom, of all places.

By this time we were an hour late and John dropped us off to see Grandma while he went to get ice and gas. The kids all took a turn playing the piano for Grandma and I chatted with my Uncle John for a bit about a business presentation he was working on.

Sam having a turn at Grandma's piano.

We had decided to pop in quickly to say hi to my cousin Emma, who had just had surgery on her shoulder, and since she lives around the corner from my Grandma, it was on the way. We visited with her for a little bit and said hi to my Uncle Richard and then got on our way.

We stopped off in Centerville for the world’s best eclairs at Dick’s Market bakery. Only Dick’s had moved to the other side of town. So we had a little tour of the town and I showed the kids where I went to school there. After we picked up our treats at the bakery, we finally got on the road. Three hours late.

Best eclairs in the world are at Dick's Market's bakery in Centerville, UT.

Our route took us up US-89 through Logan, up around Bear Lake (which was beee-utiful!), through the corner of Idaho, and up the west side of Wyoming. It was a pretty drive, and we realized on the way that we wouldn’t make it to Yellowstone before the Visitor Centers closed.

Bear Lake.

Sign at the South Entrance to the Grand Tetons, with the gorgeous mountains in the background.

Maps of National Parks are very deceptive, because the roads are always twisty and windy, and have pretty slow speed limits. Which is all fine, unless you’re in a hurry. We did make it to the Grand Tetons Visitor Center in time to look at the exhibits and get a stamp, and we very much enjoyed our drive through the park. It is so beautiful.

Ruby at the Grand Tetons Visitor Center with the only moose we saw :(

The sign at the South Entrance.

We hit the South Entrance in Yellowstone just after 7:00, which is when most of the Visitor Centers close, though a couple are open until 8:00, but we didn’t reach one of those until 9:00. It was late. John had made reservations in Bozeman, MT, which on a map looks pretty close, but doesn’t take into account all the mountain roads.

We stopped to see the West Thumb Geyser Basin, and walked around that loop. There was an elk just hanging out munching on things right next to the only way to get back to the car. I discovered that the only way to really capture the bright colors of the springs and pools was to use the vibrant color setting on my camera. The colors in the pictures really do match what we saw in person. On regular settings, everything looked so dull.

One of the beautiful springs in West Thumb Geyser Basin.

On the way through the park, there were elk and bison around, and we were held up a bit for some bison on the road, one of which came very close to the car. It was pretty dark, so my pictures didn’t come out well. The kids were really excited. We were close enough that we could hear them grunting or snorting, or whatever it is that they do.

A beautiful sunset over Lake Yellowstone.

By the time we finally made it into Bozeman, it was after midnight. John was upgraded to a two-bedroom suite, which was nice and very comfortable. Even though the kids had been sleeping in the car since it got dark, we all zonked out right away.