'Cheese Country' aka Wisconsin

The next day while spending the first daylight hours in Wisconsin we drove out of Madison. The first stop we made was because we thought Tom-Tom was pointing us to a Cracker Barrel, but it turns out he wanted us to turn around and go to the last town. So, already being off the interstate we decided to stop anyway, at a little cheese shop.

We went in and bought some cheese (and chees-y gifts, hehehe), took some pictures with Bessie the cow and took a little break from the drive. After the cheese shop we drove down to a small family restaurant to grab some breakfast before driving again.

On the way across we made our way to the Wisconsin Dells and couldn't help stopping to play some mini golf! Don't ask Tim about the results, he's still a bit sore about being beat by a girl! Hehehe. :)


The road from there led us across the Mississippi and into Minnesota, over to a relative that Mom wanted us to meet. It was Ruth Ellen and she lived in Austin, MN (the home of the SPAM museum). We unfortunately got there too late to attend the SPAM museum but got there with just enough time to get to know Ruth Ellen. Ruth Ellen knew my Grandfather's family while he was growing up, he used to wear her dresses while great-grandpa was starting the Mayo clinic in MN.

After leaving Mary Ellen's house we made our way up to Minneapolis/St. Paul to meet up with a fellow CIA grad I haven't seen in over 5 years. He, Alex, had just returned home three days prior from bumming and bicycling all over Asia for the past year! Oh, so jealous!

We did a bit of restaurant/bar hopping around the area and met some of his friends in the area. Later in the evening we left and got a hotel room in the area on the way out of town, for a quick egress in the morning.