Lasselle Family Vacation, Part 2 - America's Dairyland

Wisconsin!!  It truly has become my home away from home.  During the fall, it's really difficult to tell the difference between Oregon and Wisconsin.  The weather was dang near perfect the entire time we were there.  We didn't do much the first day, just laid around recuperating from the trip out there.  Jonah went to the fire station with "Papa Badger" (his name for Rachel's dad), in which he had to sit behind the wheel of every single vehicle.  I think there are 18 or so.  The next day was the hottest day we had out there, about 98 degrees.  We made our mind up early to find some sort of pool or water park to go to.  Wisconsin Dells is a city about an hour away from Richland Center, and I think it can best be described as the Vegas of Wisconsin, if water parks were casinos and it was for families rather than single people and gambling addicts.  The whole town is water parks and other attractions.  Unfortunately, our kids can't swim, which makes the idea of paying somewhere around $100 to splash around in a wading pool.  So we looked at other options.  We finally decided on a hotel about an hour in the opposite direction in Prairie du Chien.  The Country Inn and Suites had a water park that you could use for $7 a person, plus it was called "Bearfoot Bay."  The hotel is built a ways out of town, and seems to be built for the sole purpose of housing people who are visiting the local Cabela's, which is right next door.  It turned out to be great for our family, as Jonah loved splashing around in the wading pool which had all sorts of fun water features, and we got to practice his swimming in the deeper pool.  Despite the sweltering heat outside, nobody else was using the water park, so we had the place to ourselves for a few hours.  After we left, we drove next door to the Cabela's to check it out.  I'd never been in a Cabela's, and I don't plan on heading into another one.  Aside from the display of stuffed animals of North America, it basically seemed like a fancy GI Joe's.  I will say this though - they did sell some mighty tasty gummi orange wedges in there.  We left Cabela's and drove about an hour (there's something about Wisconsin in that everything seems to be about an hour from everything else) to Rural Route 1 Popcorn in Montfort.  This place sells some crazy popcorn flavors - I enjoyed some warm and spicy Cajun seasoned popcorn.  Jonah ended up picking out some Packer popcorn (green and yellow, flavored like green apple and pineapple), while Rachel got some Brewer popcorn (Blueberry, Caramel, and Vanilla) and some Chocolate. The night concluded with us watching the Badgers lay waste to UNLV and give me a taste of what the Beavs were in for the next weekend. 

The next days included roller skating at the local skate rink, trips to the apple orchard for some amazing apple cinnamon donuts, and just hanging around the house.  We stumbled across the show American Ninja Warrior, and Jonah had us set up a ninja training course for him in the yard.  It was pretty entertaining to watch. 

We also got Jocelyn baptized at a church in Cross Plains (you guessed it, about an hour away).  Rachel's mother's cousin is a priest and agreed to do the baptism, despite the fact that it was his birthday.  The ceremony was short and sweet, and then we all to the rectory for a barbecue.  We had some beef and chicken kabobs and spent a few hours visiting with Rachel's extended family.  The highlight might've been the conversation that revolved around a 3 foot likeness of Pope John Paul II, who resides at the top of the stairs in the rectory and basically is a Catholic Chucky doll.  The thing is seriously creepy and I could feel it judging all of my past sins.  No way I'm getting into heaven now that Pope Chucky has seen directly into my soul.

Labor Day revolved around an early birthday party for Jonah that could be attended by all of his Wisconsin family.  It was also a way to make Jonah feel special since so much attention was directed towards his new baby sister.  Jonah's favorite toy is an Optimus Prime toy that says things like "Decepticons incoming!" and makes a maniacal laughing noise when you rev his buzzsaw type weapon.  I'd say it's creepy, but that would do a serious disservice to the Pope doll.

The rest of the week included some day trips.  The first was to a local produce stand that also moonlights as a petting zoo and mini golf course.  Jonah got a kick out of feeding the potbelly pigs and pygmy goats. We also went to the county fair, where Jonah and I marveled at one of the most perfect looking roosters ever created.  

If this rooster didn't win first prize, I don't know what the heck judges look for, because that is a text book rooster in my opinion.  It's great having the fair in town, but for some reason they didn't open the rides until later in the day, so Jonah didn't get to do the Ferris wheel, which really bummed him out. 

Thursday brought my dad and his friends Jerry and Ralph into town.  They had flown in to Chicago on Wednesday to take in the Cubs game before heading to Wisconsin for a few days before the football game.  Jonah had a difficult time comprehending having both is grandpa's in the same house.  He kept saying "Grandpa Dale is coming?  But he lives in Oregon!!"  Dad and his friends were staying that the Park View Motel.  It's aptly named, as it is directly across the street from a park.  Jerry and Ralph just ripped on Dad mercilessly for picking this dive.  Dad kept trying to justify it by saying "But it's a little piece of Americana!" which got him absolutely nowhere, given the fact that the guy that checked them in was a dead ringer for "Peggy" from the Discover commercials. 

Then came gameday. 

Moving on.......

Actually, aside from the score, the day was awesome.  There were 16 of us that went to the game, including Grant and my friend Dave from college, who flew in from Austin, TX.  Dave was up to his typical Dave antics, falling asleep for a few minutes in the second quarter and then disappearing in the second half to wander the stadium.  I kept getting text messages from him saying he was lost and looking for an "alumni center to get a beer."  After the shellacking the Badgers laid on the Beavs, we headed down to the UW Memorial Union Terrace for some more beer and hanging out.  Seriously, I can't think of a better place to hang out after a game - it's just filled with people eating brats and drinking beer.  There was a live band doing a cover of a Blackstreet song, and we could watch the sailboats out on the water.  Dave made sure to comment to Jonah's 14 year old cousin Brett that "if he played his cards right, he could look like this someday" as he patted his belly.  Little by little, people started to head home from our group, until it was just Dave, Grant and I left.  We hung out for a few more hours, chatting with some other friends from college who made the trip.  Then we headed to State Street Brats to conclude our evening.  Dave and Grant challenged each other to drink a "boot." which was about 2 Liters of beer in a plastic boot.  Given that the game kicked off at 11 am and they'd both been drinking fairly steadily for about 10 hours prior to this, I wasn't optimistic about the rest of the night.  Dave tapped out early, then had to find half empty glasses of beer on other tables to dump out his boot and save himself the embarrassment of returning a 3/4 full boot to get his deposit back.  Grant fared much better, but also had to waive the white flag before finishing.  The Badger fans were very gracious to us Beavers, with everyone thanking us for making the journey and asking us if we were being treated well on our trip.  We made it back to the hotel around 11, and Grant promptly propositioned the front desk girl to order us a pizza.  "Justine, Justine!  If I give you $5, will you order this pizza for us?"  She declined, and I ended up making the call.  We ordered from a place called the Glass Nickel Pizza Company.  We ordered a bacon cheeseburger pizza and a chicken cordon bleu pizza, and both were fantastic.  I think Wisconsin is underrated in the pizza game.  The cheese makes it fantastic.  You can keep your Chicago or New York style pizzas....give me a Wisconsin pizza any day.  Keeping up with the good food theme, we ate breakfast at Mickie's Dairy Bar the next morning, before dropping Grant and Dave off at the airport and returning to Richland Center to prepare for our trip home.