Block, party of one.

Matthew is completely engrossed in Packers/Vikings MNF. Which made me think of this thing I wrote during preseason a few years back (and thought it might help my current creative bottleneck). Wrote this back in 2004. Matt & I had just moved into a place we bought together. Were 2 months away from our wedding. And Hurricane Charley came through Central Florida while we went on vacation....to Wisconsin.
Entitled, "A Country Girl Turned City Girl's Observations of the Country....in Wisconsin."
A vacation to Wisconsin. Cheese & beer. What else in there in Wisconsin? Beautiful weather and a lake front cottage was what I was told. 2 weeks before leaving I checked the weather.com. Rain and cold was the forecast. Aprehension set in. The whining soon followed. Who vacations in Wisconsin anyway?
30 mins before our plane takes off, we get to the check in counter. On edge, we get our luggage checked and hoof it to the gate. We get in our seats, and in 10 mins the plane starts moving. Without Matt's Reese's Pieces. $5 sammich on really good bread settles his beast within and then we fall asleep for the last 45 mins of the flight. We land in Midway and exit the aircraft through the marked exits located (here, here, and here) at the middle of the aircraft. Waited about 20 mins at the baggage claim. Found our bags and head to the Avis counter to claim our rental car. A round woman named, "Debbie" said she'd be able to help us. She referred us to other rental companies who were completely sold out instead. She will feel the wrath of Karen and Matt, for we are truly the Customer Service Super Heroes (future note: I'll explain later). Justice shall prevail in form of email complaints to Avis HQ. A yellow shirted man asked where we were headed and offered to give us a ride for $38 and talked about guns the whole way to Lincoln Park. We stayed that night with Matt's college buddy, Jay. Beer until 4am. Sleep until 8am. Showering in a bachelor's soap scum. Off to a rental car company who will take our debit card business. Classic in silver. City driving. Onto expressway. Off to a great start. Everything going smooth, then... STOP. Traffic congestion out of Chicago. 1hr to get about 5 miles away. Need breakfast. No stops. We finally get into Wisconsin and stop for snackins. Vacation/road trip junkfood. Little chocolate donuts and a real coke are bliss. Corn. Lotsa corn. Bong Recreational Area was noted. Drive switch. A polka radio station was found and lost. More corn. Green fields and blue skies. Aaaaaaaahmericana. Ripon & Duck Days street fest leads into Green Lake. Pop. 1100. Clean air and yelling at cows turns into following signs to Heidel House and lake air. Reminding me of summers on lake Ontario and road trip to New Hampshire. We catch up to the Parents Stephenson and the MegaMondos. The Mondos not feeling well but sweet and staying around just to have lunch with us. The Marina on Green Lake has a bar made to look like a wooden boat sliced down the middle. Dad would dig a town like this. The weather's cool and sunny. My burger had more blue cheese on it than burger. Iced tea is truly a southern thing. Homemade potato chips aren't as good as you'd think. When women men get separated-women get lost and don't return for about 15-20mins. Ripon Good Cookies are not like Archways. We said our goodbyes to the Mondos and followed the Stephensons out to the lake cottage. 100 yr old house w/one bedroom downstairs and an attic-looking upstairs that had been separated into 4.5 bedrooms. Beautiful wood and antique furniture. And one...single...lonely bathroom. And an outhouse in the front - with 2 seats. For sweethearts who share everything together. The lake is busy with boats and jetskis. Greenish murky water that you can see down about 5ft deep with weeds swaying. Not as many fish as I thought I'd be able to see but they say that the lake is about 270 ft deep so they're probably all down there. Speakin' of fish - The Friday Night Fish Fry is FABULOUS! Met up w/some fabulous people as well. Diane & Larry. Much fun. Lotsa beer. Tarter sauce that doesn't get eaten gets put back in the Tarter Sauce jug. Wisconsin recycles. Matt's dad got tackled by a large bartender. He went for a handshake and received a forceful bearhug. She could've taken him, I think. He started it though. He usually does. "Jeepers, no." oh, Jeepers, YES!! We learned that everyone here in the 70s got it on with everyone else. The Country Kitchen has great scrambled eggs and cheese sauce. Even GREATER waffle strips that taste like donut batter. Mullets run rampant in Wisconsin but I pretty much knew and expected that going in. If I didn't see any, I'd be very disappointed. K-Mart in Ripon has a very limited selection of shorts. I tried on a 6...too small. So I bought an 8. Turned out to fit exactly like the 6. Evidently I should've bought a 22W. No shorts in Wisconsin. A pathway through the woods isn't always a trail. 45degree angles are hard to walk down gracefully and are a great legs/butt workout going back up. At big family parties all the men sit outside and tell dirty jokes while the women sit inside and talk about health problems and dying. Jerry and his wife were very cool people and he was related to everyone along the street. The eggs/cheese/waffle strips at Country Kitchen are still really good when you go back the next day. Fox River Outlet Store has cheap leather, gloves, & hats. Sometimes the windows on the wallets for your ID to slide into don't have openings for your ID to slide into. Great antique shops but no thimbles or old ash trays. Naps on the dock in the sun are the greatest. Wisconsin grass is soft and fuzzy under barefeet. ou can't get cheese curds every where in Wisconsin but someone will offer to find them and sometimes they'll even get them for you. The Fine Art Fiar is really an Arts/Crafts Fair and if you say "jackass" over the loud speaker you'll get flipped off so its good to pick things back up by singing a David Gray song with a Dave Matthews song following. There are lots of flowers in Wisconsin. And CORN. Plants can grow out of roof shingles. If you go down a country road and stop to take pictures of someone's farm, you won't get shot. Pigs get REALLY big and have big pig balls. Horses lips make fun noises when they eat. If you take a picture with a horse, make sure you're standing up straight. Baby pigs are cute. There are lots of great pictures to be taken when adventuring down country roads. Sometimes mullets will follow you and try to scare you by passing infront of you and slowing down. Get ready to take them and then turn down a different road. Deer will stare back at you before running for cover. Take 3 steps and jump - just to show them you're one of them. Cheese burgers for breakfast is good. Leaving at 11am for a 7pm football game on a Monday night makes for a long day of tailgating. Beer. Lotsa beer. Most people will get up and leave when drunken chatter turns into drunken political arguements. Stimulating. The skinniest women in Wisconsin are pregnant and putting together a tailgating cookbook. Lambeau Field is pretty. Making the rain stop is fun. Cute boys sitting 10 rows up like to thave their pictures taken and are fun to play with. The Lambeau Field Pro Shop also has no thimbles. Rednecks are proud and fly their flags high. 9-10 beers will leave a funky taste in your mouth when you wake up at 4am to pee. I can only imagine what Mrs. Trojanowski's mouth must've tasted like after that handful of onions she shoved in, topped with ice cream that she ate before going to bed.
-the end-