Wowwie Wisconsin!

Okay so Wisconsin did not disappoint in the least! The only bad thing about our stay in Milwaukee was that it was totally not long enough at all! I checked in and was asked how many people in the room… then was handed two WARM cookie pouches, I almost hugged the girl. Then we unloaded the car. The thing about an 18 day trip is that when you’re packing it’s so much easier to pack in categories, shower/hair dryer stuff in this bag, clothes in here, chargers for everything in there; this way you know you have everything. This seems like SUCH a great idea until you get to the first hotel and realize the poor concierge has to bring up 2 giant suitcases, and 3 bags… oh and did I mention to make myself feel better I packed some weights as well? Yea he might have hated us just a little… but he didn’t show it! I think he wanted to kick me in the elevator when he asked how long we were here for and I told him “oh just tonight!” =)
We made our way to the room and then put our fate in good old Marcus’ hands. We took a cab down to Rockbottom (it was still raining out) and that’s where the magic began. First of all the place was so nice. They have their own microbrewery so Brian tried their beers but since I don’t like beer I decided to try their Berry Sangria – oh my god… but wait, there’s more. I was still full from Chicago but Brian wanted a burger. They give you a choice of French fries or malt kettle chips- so we asked our waiter about these crazy chips… he explained that they’re warm kettle chips with parmesan and then all I heard was angels singing… wow! Okay moving right along, I thought we should try some appetizers so we got the pretzels (2 giant hot soft pretzels brushed with beer and magically infused with garlic) and cheese curds (I don’t even know how to begin to explain). This is us with all of our fantastic food… I think this is the happiest we’ve ever looked in a photo.

After we stopped gushing over the amazing food and beverages we were just blessed with we headed back to the hotel. We decided to walk since we’re so health conscious and then we stopped at the Miller Time Pub, since you know, I’m a Miller so I had to support the fam. Bri stuck with the special beer theme and I asked for something special for myself. The magic bartender made me some crazy Arnold palmer type thing - green tea vodka with lemonade – why not! Then the fun began! Apparently we weren’t the only celebrities in town! Lady Gaga was also in Milwaukee that night! So this gaga fan stumbled into the bar by himself and apparently had a REALLY awesome time at the concert because he was actually kicked out by the police. He said they were pretty rough with him but I was really impressed with the Milwaukee police because when his friends got there they showed me the text they got from drunk guy, it said “this is the police, come pick up your friend” lol I was pretty impressed! So I promised our new friend that he would be a part of our blog, so here is the picture of us and our Gaga fan friends!

Now that we’ve crossed into the central time zone, we’re totally messed up and can’t keep track of the time but we got back REALLY late – especially for us! So to make sure we ended the night on a good note I decided to try my luck and ask for more cookies… I got em!! Awesome, awesome night!

If you’re impressed by us staying up late, get ready to be super impressed… I woke up by 7:30 and decided to bring couch to 5k training to Milwaukee. Since it cleared up I went to the front desk to make sure it was a good area and when they assured me it was safe, I took off! It was so cool because they have a river walk too so I went all around and decided where we would have to come back later. Milwaukee is like a baby city. It’s not comparable to NYC or Chicago because there’s nowhere near the amount of buildings or anything but it’s still a city and it’s super clean and everyone is so nice! So I got back to the room and woke Brian up so we could do some of the river walk. We did the usual touristy ooohing and ahhing, and taking tons of pictures, like this one which was a sculpture made from bowling balls & pins!! For anyone that doesn’t know, we eased into dating by first becoming bowling partners so this was so fun to see!

Oh and Brian loves the weather because it was sunny but crazy breezy so he even stayed comfortable with our walking around for a few miles (shhhh don’t tell him it was a few miles). Then we went back, packed the car up and headed to the Miller Brewery Tour. The tour was really cool and it was FREE!! AND at the end you even get 3 samples of beer (real glasses not teeny tiny ones) and they have some pretty good lemonade for non beer drinkers! They try to keep the tour together so they just seat you all together. We started talking to a guy at our table from Oklahoma City, who was actually doing a trip on his own. He just came from SD and was going to Chicago which is the opposite of what we’re doing. This is the other fun part of road tripping-you get to meet so many new and interesting people! I know, I know I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers but that’s half the fun- learning about all these different people and all their different backgrounds! So in conclusion Brian & Colleen highly recommend Milwaukee! The food was amazing, people are so nice, and there’s actually a lot to do! We plan to go back and do more brewery tours and cheese tours (since we didn’t have time – booo).

So to get from Milwaukee to Sioux Falls, SD our next stop you have to drive allll through WI and then ALLLLL through Minnesota. You know it’ll be a good ride when your navigation tells you to get on a road and stay on it for 296 miles – that’s Minnesota! So here’s some interesting facts for you about MN:

It is also known as the land of 10,000 lakes… 9,995 of them are nowhere near the south of MN, it’s just fields and some trees and some more fields…
This is where the popular show Bobby’s World (Howie Mandel’s cartoon) took place (doncha know)
Oh and Santa Claus (who lives in Iowa) comes to MN to get his gas… I really hope there's some way you can zoom in on this because it's seriously him... huge white beard, dressed in red, and if you can't see the license plate it says IASANTA...

Yea that’s about all there is to know about Minnesota. But they actually did have a really beautiful sunset which was so nice to watch… and then there was pitch black… for about 2 hours.

So now we’re in our hotel in Sioux Falls. There’s some volleyball tournament in town so everywhere is booked which is fun because we’re stuck in a smoking room that smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in months. We had to hide our luggage in the bathroom because it smells the least in there. I can’t wait to wake up and smell like I was at a Frat party all night. But this all comes with the territory of road tripping! So tomorrow we will wake up and pretend we’re on the Amazing Race, shower and RUN out of this stink hole!! And no cookies! =(

Sweet Dreams! =)