Month: June 2017

America’s Dairyland

America’s Dairyland

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Hey Guys!!

Welcome to Wisconsin! Where even the vending machines have cheese curds!

We spent two very wet weeks in “America’s Dairyland”!

Let’s get the foodie things out of the way. We went to the Carr Valley Factory Store where we learned how Carr Valley makes their cheeses. They actually make the cheese curds first and then they press those curds into the round cheese forms you see above.

We felt like we had to get some cheese curds while we were in Wisconsin. They were the best things we got at any of the restaurants we went to.

OK…so let me say here…we were extremely disappointed with the foodies in the area of Wisconsin we were in. We went to four different places…all of them had amazing reviews…and they ranged from almost inedible to just meh. It would come out looking very promising, but fall short on taste. We don’t usually eat out that much, but we felt like maybe we’d picked the wrong place to eat so we would try a different place…and nope. We were so tired of bland, bleh food we ended up back at a Pizza Ranch. It was a long two weeks. Now, the area we were in was very touristy. So, maybe that’s why? I’m sure there are some excellent foodies somewhere in WI!

The best thing we did while in Wisconsin is go horseback riding! The day we went we had amazing weather. We went to Bighorn Ranch Horseback Riding. Four of us had never been on a horse before so we were total rookies. They gave us all a quick lesson and then took us out on an hour long guided tour. Our tour guides, Katie and her dad, Bob, were great! They took it at a pace that we could easily keep up with and they made sure we all stayed together. All of the horses we saw seemed to be healthy and happy and well taken care of. We had a great experience! I think everyone’s favorite part was when we would splash through some small streams. I will add here that my horse didn’t seem to really want to have me on it’s back…it tried to scrape me off it and onto a big tree. My foot was super bruised! But, I’d still do it again. Ha! Stubborn horse and all! If you’re ever near the Wisconsin Dells, we highly recommend a trail ride with Bighorn Ranch!

 We also found some excellent hiking opportunities at Devil’s Lake State Park. It felt great to get outside in the sunshine and get some miles in! And…the view wasn’t bad either.

We made it to the State Capitol Building in Madison. We’d been looking forward to this one ever since we’d been told that the Wisconsin SCB is considered to be the best SCB in the US. I think we were in Nebraska the first time we heard that. Nebraska was our second SCB.

You’re looking at the biggest dome in the US. It looks very impressive! The inside of the dome was pretty…and big! Very big!

There were definitely some neat things about the Wisconsin SCB that stick out to me. Y’all know I love a good staircase…and I loved the way you could see the staircase through the arch in the pic above.

There was a set of these doors for the House and Senate Chambers. I love the look of the black iron over the glass. Both of the House and Senate Chambers were just ok for us. Don’t get me wrong…they were nice, but we wouldn’t put them near the top of our list. Each of the Chambers had a stained glass dome. Neither one of them was very ornate, but they let in some great natural light.

We were very impressed with the huge mosaics! They were very well done.

The Governor’s Reception Room looked like it belonged in one of the Newport Mansions. Lots of gold paint. Lots of frescoes. Definitely Newport Mansion worthy. Check out the size of that fireplace. Huge!

Wisconsin is the Badger State. They love their badgers! Can you see the badger on the statue that sits atop the Wisconsin SCB dome?

I don’t know, Guys…we talked about it and none of us would put the Wisconsin SCB in our top 15. Maybe we built it up in our minds because we’d heard from so many other people how wonderful it was? Madison is a very neat town. We really enjoyed the square around the SCB. One of the days we went, there was a farmer’s market so they blocked off traffic to the square. We walked around looking at all the fruits, veggies, and artisan foods, but couldn’t buy any because we had plans and an hour drive to get back to the RV.

I did find a couple of pretties!! We spent the last two weeks of April in the Baraboo area of Wisconsin, so Spring was starting to show herself. Most of the pretties were just beginning to wake up.

 “There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright…” I found these street signs in Madison and couldn’t resist snapping a picture of them. I’ve loved the poem by Shel Silverstein ever since Mrs. Havely read it to my fifth grade class. If you’re going to Wisconsin, go find the places “before the street begins”. Those are, in my opinion, the best parts of Wisconsin. And the cheese. The cheese was pretty great too.

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017

Twin Cities Part Two

Twin Cities Part Two

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Hey Guys!! Ready to hear about the rest of our Minnesota adventures?

We spent several hours going through the Science Museum of Minnesota. The day we went I think half the population of Minneapolis was there too. It was pretty crowded. Most of the science museums have the same basic exhibits. The Minnesota Science Museum had a few different ones that the boys loved.

We enjoyed the weather area of the museum. My little nerdlets (all four of them) could easily spend an entire day at a science museum.

I think everyone’s favorite exhibit was the Mythical Creatures Exhibit!

I love this art piece! It’s made with Birch bark, sinew, wood, and cloth. Here’s a closer shot so you can see the amazing detail that went into this piece.

The last few SCBs have been impressive! Minnesota definitely didn’t disappoint us.

So, the dome was just ok for me. It was pretty…but, honestly, we’ve seen some great domes lately and this one didn’t really make our top ten list. Sorry Minnesota.

There were several other aspects about the Minnesota SCB that stood out for us. This stairway is one of my favorite things about this SCB. Here, let me show you some of the details of this stairway. I love the lines, arches, and angles of this stairway!

The ceiling of the House Chamber was inspiring. I didn’t take photos of the rest of the room because they were in session, but the ceiling was the best part of the room. The Senate Chamber wasn’t as ornate, but it was still impressive. You can see the bottom lip of a dome in the picture. I couldn’t get a decent shot of the dome because we weren’t allowed in the room, but you can see the color scheme and simple clean lines of it in the picture above.

Are y’all ready to talk foodies? The Twin Cities is rumored to be the place where the Juicy Lucy was born. What’s a Juicy Lucy? A Juicy Lucy is…well…let me show you. Say hello to my little friend…the Juicy Lucy. What you’re looking at is a cheeseburger with the cheese inside of the burger, forming a molten core of melty cheese! When you bite into it the cheese kind of oozes out. It’s a little bit of heaven right here on earth. According to the interwebs, there are two bars that claim the origins of the Juicy Lucy. We only made it to one of them. The 5-8 Club. We got some fried pickles and some onion rings to go along with our burgers. Everything we had was spot on. We’ll have to hit the other place the next time we’re in the area.

The reason we didn’t make it to the other Juicy Lucy place is because we wanted to go to The Nook. The Nook is another bar/restaurant known for their Juicy Lucys. How cool is it that there’s a bowling alley at a burger/bar place?!? We were going to play a game or two but, when we finished our food…we were all way too stuffed to do anything but sit and digest. We loved the vibe of The Nook! The dollar bills stuck everywhere reminded us of a place we went in Alaska called The Salty Dawg.

Littlest loves a good BLT so when he spotted a BLT burger he had to get it. When we saw it, we didn’t think there was anything special about it until he picked up half of it and we saw that it was triple decker! He couldn’t even get down half of it! It was SO big!!

We thought the Juicy Lucy burgers from The Nook were better than the ones from The 5-8 Club. In fact, everything we got from The Nook was fantastic!

We had a great time exploring The Twin Cities of Minnesota! There’s so much to see and do in the area!!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017

Pizza Roundup Pizza Lucé

Pizza Roundup Pizza Lucé

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To my fellow pizza lovers, our pizza trip has taken us to St. Paul, Minnesota!

Pizza Lucé is a really tasty pizza place with, well, TASTY PIZZA!!

Pizza Lucé has the cheese on their pizza cooked to a nice brown, so tasty. That is my favorite way to have pizza.

 My mom said the pasta was some of the best she’s had!

The bathrooms were clean and the décor was nice. The service was fast and friendly.

 If you go there I suggest getting ranch, with pizza, wings, spaghetti, anything, their ranch is pretty darn tasty. I think it might have been made in house.

And when you are done eating and they bring out the check… THEY HAVE CHOCOLATE MINTS! Yummy yum!

And I couldn’t forget the big pink dinosaur in front! All of that tasty and the dinosaur definitely deserves a 5 star review, don’t you agree?

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

The Twin Cities in Minnesota

The Twin Cities in Minnesota

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Hey Guys!! We spent two weeks in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. I’m breaking our stay up into two posts to keep the size of the posts down. Our stay in Minnesota was mainly cold and rainy, but we got lucky a few days and had some decent weather.

This was our home for two weeks. The only thing bad we can say about this park is that every single night the power would blip and turn off for a few minutes. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but when you’re in the middle of cooking or laundry …it could get tiresome. Minnesota is state number 38 for us and in those 38 states, we’d never seen an RV like the one in the right picture above. Technically, it’s an ice fishing camper. You would pull it right out on the ice and stay in it while you fish! We saw several while we stayed in Minnesota. We met a couple who let us have a peak in their camper. It was gorgeous! Done all in a natural wood with circles in the floor that can be removed to fish from. Very cool!

We visited the Cathedral of Saint Paul while we were out one day. I love the architectural style of it with all of the domes! Y’all know I love the domes.

It was beautiful inside! We loved the inside of dome and the stained glass windows!! Look at those vibrant colors!

The Mall of America is a huge draw to this area. We stopped by it one afternoon to check it out and see what all of the hub-bub is about. The coolest thing about this mall is the indoor amusement park! We also loved the Lego Store where all of the decorations were made from Legos! It’s hard to tell from the bottom right picture above, but all of those statutes are made out of Legos! See the guy walking in the background? That gives you an idea of how big these Lego Statues are. They’re huge!

We kind of geeked out here. Check out this picture. It’s made of tiny single square Legos. In the right picture you can see a close-up section of that same picture. That takes a lot of patience!!

The Minneapolis/Saint Paul area is loaded with foodie spots. The burger above is from a place called The Red Cow. The burgers there were definitely impressive!

One of my favorite things about the Twin Cities area is the Minehaha Falls Park! I wasn’t expecting a waterfall as big as the Minehaha Falls is to be right in the middle of town. The first day we tried to go to this park it was so crowded we couldn’t find a place to park anywhere near it so we left, hoping for another fair weather day to try again. The second time we tried we got lucky. We went during the week before schools were out and the place was almost deserted! We had a great time walking around the falls and the park! It was wonderful to get outside and stretch our legs after so many days of rainy, cold weather.

 There’s so much to see and do in the Minneapolis area! We loved all the different architecture.

Check out this old building. It was built in 1887 at a cost of $300,000. It’s changed hands several times, but the current owners have restored it to it’s original appearance.

Ok Guys, I’m going to pause here with our Minnesota adventures! I’ll pick up here next time!

See y’all down the road!

#minieasternloop2017

Pizza Roundup Pizza Ranch

Pizza Roundup Pizza Ranch

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To my fellow pizza lovers, I bring you a post from yet another Pizza Ranch, this time in Altoona, Iowa!

If you’ve been reading my posts since the beginning then you should know that I have done one of these on Pizza Ranch every single year. This time it was still just as tasty if not better since we were all waiting for it.

Pizza Ranch has a nice southern style décor

and their regular southern food bar,

along with their awesome pizza

and dessert bar!

I got the Chicken bacon ranch pizza (my all time favorite from Pizza Ranch)

and the blueberry, cherry and cactus bread dessert pizzas.

The bathrooms are clean but I’m not sure if they have heaters in the bathroom because it was cold!

Just like last time I give Pizza Ranch a 5 star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

PS: Here are the links to my last two pizza posts on Pizza Ranch, enjoy!  Illinois & Nebraska