Wisconsin

This is the final post of my Toronto, Michigan and Wisconsin trip. If you missed my previous posts and want to read them in order click here.

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Better late than never, here’s what I got up to in Wisconsin!

My flight from Detroit to Madison was due to leave at 8.27am (EDT) and arrive at 8.47am (CDT). The time kept constantly being pushed back and the board got confused… they had us landing before taking off at one point. (WI is only one hour behind MI). I explained to the guy at the gate it must be wrong, he did not care. Anyway it moved and moved again.

Eventually I arrived at just before 1pm and found Marilee, Ivy and Bonny waiting for me. It was very exciting.

Our group was made up of Marilee, Sarah and Alissa (whose blogs I’ve followed for 4 years), Bonny (who I’ve followed for 3 years) plus Jess, Ivy and Kirsten who are all long term friends of Sarah’s who also knit. None of us are from Wisconsin, I was the only Brit, the others live in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Missouri.

We stayed at the GATHER Guest House which was just perfect for us. There were lots of bedrooms and I had one to myself as I had a sore throat still and knew I was snoring a lot with the drying air conditioning.

We knitted together, we went out for lunches, we did some browsing around some boutiques, we watched some movies and we visited a yarn store and the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. We did things as a group of 8 and others we split into smaller groups. It was a fabulous long weekend!

The Guest House is in Waunakee, a village with some independent shops, boutiques and some nice places to eat. I walked to the pharmacy and spotted this mural on a wall.

We had a couple of meals at The Lone Girl Brewery which was almost opposite. I got to try the famous Wisconsin fried cheese curds. They reminded me of deep fried mozzarella sticks.

I’d forgotten about free refills in America of drinks like lemonade. In the UK if you order lemonade you’ll most likely be delivered a Sprite or 7Up and will have to pay for each drink. In America lemonade is not sparkling and is like proper lemonade my mum used to make us when we were kids. Anyway back to my trip.

I bought lots of goodies at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival and these are detailed on my separate crafting blog.

Here’s some photos (that I blatantly stole from some of the others attending who were better at taking photos.)

In the back of Sarah’s car she had this license plate game. I could not have been more obsessed with this game! We would be driving to the supermarket, the festival, a bookstore and I was checking out the license plates on the journey and in the car parks (parking lots). We saw 26 states and 2 Canadian Provinces. (Click on the picture to see up close.)

When not looking at cars the views of Wisconsin were pretty much the same wherever we drove, mile upon mile of corn fields. Not for human consumption but for feeding cattle or for turning into high fructose corn syrup. The festival was a 45 minute drive and almost the whole way as far as the eye could see was corn! Its known as the dairy state so I’d expected it to look more like the UK with many grass fields with grazing cows. Nope…I only got a glimpse of a cow in the shade outside a massive barn…an escapee perhaps, or maybe it was a cow statue. Anyway not the views I’d expected.

We went to the Sow’s Ear yarn store and cafe and then split up. Alissa, Marilee and Sarah went back to the festival and the rest of us went back to Waunakee. We explored the local shops and had lunch out. I found a bargain cashmere kimono at a second hand store. I bought a pair of easy readers that are tiny and fit in my bum bag (I’m not putting in the US term for that as it’s rude in British English 😂).

Kirsten had to leave a day early. Marilee, Alissa and Sarah went to visit the Mustard museum and the rest of us went to a bookstore called A Room Of One’s Own, had lunch in The Great Dane Pub and had an ice cream in The Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream

We then all met back at the guest house and watched Practical Magic and Interview with a Vampire. It was Bonny’s birthday on the Monday we were leaving so we celebrated it on the Sunday evening. Sarah made fish tacos and we had cup cakes and some moose tracks ice cream.

There were two shaded outdoor seating areas and although it was right opposite the station there was only 1 (freight) train I saw/heard.

Behind us was Mill House Quilts with more quilt fabric than I’ve ever seen in one place. It was busy with ladies buying $$$ worth of fabric. They had some beautiful quilts hanging too. The fabric seemed expensive, although the exchange rate wasn’t great when I was there. (Not as bad as it currently is thank goodness.)

It was a fabulous few days and I’m glad I was able to make it. Getting to spend time in smaller groups gave us more time to get to know each other and when all together we posed questions for us each to answer. The weather was perfect and not too hot.

I flew home from Waunakee to Minneapolis/St. Paul to Amsterdam to Inverness! Due to flight schedule changes it took me 23 hours to get home! I managed 3 hours sleep during that time and that was on the smaller planes. I think because my feet can’t lie flat on the transatlantic sized planes it stops me sleeping, I need to find a solution to that next time I fly long distance.

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Where to next? Copenhagen, Denmark in October.