Friday, September 27, 2019

No Cheese Castle, But a Car on Fire (Road Trip Days 1 & 2)

Hello? Is this thing on? Yes, it's been awhile since I've posted, but now we're on a massive road trip that will last until the middle of December. Instagram is great for little posts, but if there's going to be more than just a little banter, the blog will be the place for it (because I can't stand multi-paragraphed Instagram posts). That doesn't mean every blog post will be accompanied by extensive narrative, but there will probably be more pictures.

We'd wanted to go to the Mars Cheese Castle outside of Milwaukee, but it closed before we got there. We did, however, see a car on fire on the opposite side of the highway, which felt a bit like an attraction. I've never really seen a car in flames before. Quite dramatic. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture to share with you here, just an image burned into my mind.


As Julie, the cruise director, I've been in charge of all the accommodations, and I have the feeling the bar was set high with our Milwaukee hotel - the Hyatt Regency - which I scored on Hotwire. It was quite nice and had this crazy sculpture in the center of it.

Before we left Milwaukee, we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum, which was a beautiful building. I took a couple of pictures from the interior, but you should look it up to get the full effect.


We had to do the speed tour (needed to get to the Spam Museum before closing!), but what we saw was great. We definitely want to spend more time in Milwaukee.

A Donald Judd piece based on the Fibonacci sequence
No Cheese Castle? How about Mousehouse Cheesehouse? That was our consolation prize. Filled with Wisconsin cheese (we bought some three-year old cheddar and Thai red curry cheddar), it was pretty impressive.


I've also been trying to buy beer (so surprising) and have a mixed six pack of Wisconsin beers ready to try. Unfortunately, we only have so much room in our car, so here's a picture of one of the beers I left behind (the name of my memoir?).


But our main goal was the Spam museum in Austin, Minnesota. We managed to get there with half an hour to spare, and frankly, it was worth the hustle. The museum is free and has all kinds of interactive displays. One of our collective favourites was the international section, which featured commercials for Spam in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and more.
If a whole can is too much, you can get singles!
This Japanese version is too cute; I could've sent the recipe to myself, but I didn't
Austin was a cute town. It reminded me of Paducah, KY as well as many of the small towns in Iowa my dad and I rode through on Ragbrai last year. A pleasant surprise was the number of Mexican restaurants there. The lady at the Spam gift shop gave us a great recommendation, which was a bonus!
Not the Mexican restaurant, but a great sign
Our destination for the night was Sioux Falls, SD. Had we known we could've seen the 60' Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN, we could've made a meal of the day - hah! Couldn't resist that. Who knew there were so many museums dedicated to commercial foods? Who knew we'd want to see them?

On our way to Rapid City, SD tonight, with lots of stops planned along the way. Unfortunately we're also going to have to change our route due to an early snow storm right where we wanted to go. Julie the cruise director will have to get on that tonight.

Happy trails!