The Land of Cheese

Earlier this month, I got to spend a couple of days up north, in the land of cheese. The weather was divine; exactly what you imagine in early summer Wisconsin. I met up with my dear friend Gaile in Spring Green outside of Madison.

Last September Gaile and I went to my very first pro-football game in Green Bay (Go Packers!) at the storied Lambeau Field. It was fun to be in such a famous place with all the history of winning and great coaching. Not surprisingly the whole town of Green Bay is oriented to the team and the stadium, there isn't really anywhere there that you can't see the stadium from.

The Thursday night game was terrible. The Packers had only one first down in the entire first half (yawn). They were bludgeoned by the Lions and all the fans in the stands decided they could just drink the pain away. It was quite an adventure, we were glad to have gone once, don't need to go again. I remain a football fan, just from a couch or a barstool instead of live and in person.

This month, when I crossed the Illinois border into Wisconsin my first impression was "I didn't know there were so very many kinds of cheese!" I stopped at one roadside house-o-cheese and they had three separate refrigerator cases for just cheese curds. I asked Gaile about curds and she waxed poetic about the freshness of the curds, the different ways they can be prepared, and how if they are not fresh, they are 'squeaky'. Who knew curds were a thing??

Corn and soy on both sides of the road from horizon to horizon, the green was as vibrant as a spinach smoothie. All the cattle (dairy and beef) knee deep in that resplendent green grass happily wagging their tails as they mowed through the pasture. The soil there looked rich enough that if you planted a bottle cap you could grow a beer tree.

Gaile took me on a tour of glacier valleys and river haunts. We had a ferry ride and stopped to look for eagles in Sauk City (I'll go by and do that again in the fall months). It was really a wonderful couple of days in the land of cheese.

After Baraboo and Devil’s Lake, I pushed north toward Lake Superior, spending two nights at Copper Falls. The water is copper colored because of the tannins picked up in the northern bogs from tamarack and white cedar roots. The stone of the falls contains iron ore - it beautiful and rugged and guarded by mosquitos the size of bald eagles.

From there I headed further north toward Lake Superior, in search of the larger mosquitos.