Finally!

Finally on my summer vacation I took a vacation. I went with my friend Wayne to visit long-time friends Clay and Kristi at their farm near Monroe, Wisconsin. It was a relaxing week with beautiful weather.

The farm's vegetable garden supplied us with tasty corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and herbs. It had been quite some time since I've eaten food within hours of it being picked. When we weren't raiding the garden we ate everything else in sight. One thing I particularly liked was farmer's cheese spiked with basil that we bought from Brennan's Market. That was good!

In Monroe we visited the Minhas brewery. The tour took us through the facility to see the large vats where the beer is brewed and also the bottling facility. It was pretty cool to see the line running. I've seen the same thing on TV, but it was nice to see in person. The tastings before and after the tour were the highlight. I enjoyed the Lazy Mutt Ale and the Amber Bock. The brewery also makes sodas and an energy drink. I don't go in much for energy drinks since I gave up Red Bull some years ago, but I really liked the root beer. After the tour we ate at a place called Baumgartner's. The braunschweiger sandwich was quite tasty. I found the signs in the place to be very funny. My favorite was "In case of tornado hide behind the urinal in the men's room, it hasn't been hit in years". Ha!

On the day before the brewery tour I ate fried cheese curds at Suisse House. Never having had cheese curds before I would say it just tasted like fried cheese. Did I miss anything? We also visited a place called Chocolate Temptation. This place featured hand dipped chocolate and I indulged in one piece each of amaretto creme, hazelnut creme, and a chocolate covered cherry. The order was for eating in so I was served my chocolates on a small white plate. It was kind of like eating sushi in a way and was very tasty.

Swiss Colony has an outlet store in Monroe too. I really like Petit Fours but never order any when I see them catalogs because they always seem overpriced. Well, I was right! In the outlet store you can get factory rejects for about $1.50 per pound. So what if they are crooked or missing a layer, they taste fine!

We also made a trip to a nearby town of Galena, Illinois. The main street has a lot of ancient brick buildings that now sell tasty treats and a lot of novelty items. One store sold sauces, salsas, and dips of every kind. I was impressed by the amount of hot sauces they sold, something like three large seven foot tall racks full of every kind of hot sauce imaginable. In a special box they had on display something they tout as the hottest hot sauce there is. I took their word for it. Novelty items like balsa wood gliders and cap guns brought back memories of my childhood.

When we weren't eating or watching Olympic events on TV we did engage in other activities like grass cutting, basketball, and Frisbee. I did try to play with the kitties but they just hissed at me or ran away until the last day anyway when the hissy cat jumped up on me to beg a piece of cheese.