Day Four

Hope everyone survived the quake and all chachkes have been put back on the shelves! An earthquake! Who'd have thunk it? The view from our tent this morning:

As we travel, I've been waiting to hear a different accent, or see a new bird or plant species--new to me anyway. I was rewarded at our campsite yesterday when we saw what appeared to be a tennis ball tree. It was covered with apple sized, bumpy green balls. Turns out it is an Osage Orange, also known as a Horse Apple tree. The fruit makes people sick, and horses don't like it either. Squirrels eat the seeds, and thorns on the branches used to make it a good fence line to hold horses and cattle in an area. A really interesting, and weird, specimen!

In my effort to make things more interesting, I left my purse at the root beer place in Ohio, but when we went back, it was still there. Then I lost a ring in Mentor, but we found that, too (in the trunk). So today I decided to cut my hair very short in Madison, Wisconsin. Success! Eight hours later, my hair is still gone!

Breakfast was in Rochelle, Illinois, in the pouring rain. Our way out of town was blocked by a train so we checked out a couple of drive-by museums, a first for both of us.We found another route out of town and made tracks for Wisconsin (and Studio Quest salon).

Thinking we'd better get some Wisconsin cheese, we checked out Fromagination. It was a cute little shop, but at $30 a pound, we weren't tempted to buy too much cheese. We got a sampling and it is delicious.

Our next stop was LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where we will stay for the night. Here you can fined the world's largest (ready?) six-pack! Ha! Of course we had to take our pictures with it, which was made difficult by all the cars rushing by. Seriously. The world's largest six-pack and they weren't even slowing down!

Then we were off to Huck Finn's restaurant on the mighty Mississippi where we ate fried cheese curd, a local favorite (though the waiter told us where to get better ones!) and sandwiches and sampled the local brew: Spotted Cow from New Glarus brewing company. It was as good as the Sassy Cow chocolate milk I had this afternoon, and yes, I am feeling like a different kind of cow tonight!

One of our books instructed us to climb up to Granddad's Bluff for a fine view of the city. On our way, we learned that the bluff was closed, but we kept driving to see how close we could get. We were rewarded with the sight of a couple of deer and a very nice view through the trees. We also found the Alpine Inn pub where we met some rugby players--one of them the Univ of LaCrosse boy's rugby coach, and the other a teacher from Northern Montana. He suggested an interesting route for tomorrow and a better less-traveled route into Yellowstone. Very fortuitous! While at the Alpine, we also sampled one of the beers of largest six-pack fame...LaCrosse...it was not quite as tasty as a Bud, but it had to be experienced!

Now for some down time and sleep. Thanks for checking in!