No cheese in Wisconson

I promised to catalogue my exciting trip to middle America. Unfortunately, it lacked that important element--excitement. Milwaukee was not, and still is not, my destination of choice. It was bitter cold, reaching a high of 10 degrees, and covered in hard, crunchy snow. It is very industrial and not much to look at in the middle of January. I'm sure it has it's redeeming qualities in the summer, but at this time of year, I would not recommend making a visit.

We stayed in a small city about an hour north of Milwaukee called Sheboygan. The town was eeriely empty. On several occasions, I felt like I was the only one in the entire town. It's understandable that many people don't get out, considering the cold and lack of fun things to do, but it was still strange. Both nights we went to dinner, we were one of the few people actually in the restaurant. We wondered how the town stays in business during the winter.

The other BIG disappointment came when we started looking for cheese the one silver lining to this trip. In our search for cheese, I asked one of the few women that I saw in the city where I could buy some Wisconsin cheese. She looked at me blankly and said, "the grocery store." Of course. Why would I ask such a dumb question?

Anyway, we decided that Wisconsin is failing miserably at capitalizing on it's tourism industry.

We were able to visit Johnsonville Sausage and to no one's surprise by this point, they also don't sell any sausage there. But they do make it. We had a nice interview with our clients and in that respect, the trip was a success. Here are a few picture highlights from this uneventful, cheese-less trip.

Mary and I posing before the Johnsonville murals.

The home of America's bratwurst...

The birthplace of sausage, where no one ever goes in and no one ever comes out.

A pretty church down the road.

All in all - I salute the citizens of Wisconsin for braving the winters and sticking it out. Otherwise, the rest of us would be at a frightening shortage of sausage and cheese - and what would the world be like then? (although, now I'm not entirely sure that these two Wisconsin-made products are just a myth...maybe we'll never know.)