Tri-State Road Trip: Saturday

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Travalon and I took another road trip down to the southwest part of the state, as well as parts of Iowa and Illinois, during the long weekend. I took a ton of pictures, and so I am going to split this post into three parts: one today, one tomorrow, and one Thursday. (Or at least that is the plan.) Today I will blog about our day on Saturday.

Travalon and I headed southwest and had lunch at the Mexican restaurant in Sauk. It was a gorgeous day, so we stopped for a hike by the Wisconsin River in Muscoda, which looks like it should be pronounced muss-COE-dah but is actually pronounced MUSS-cah-day. Nobody seems to know why.

Then we drove to Soldiers Grove, in the driftless area, to go to the Driftless Brewing Company. I know "driftless" may sound like a description of your nephew who dropped out of college and hangs out in his parents' basement, but it actually describes the area not flattened by the glaciers, and this town was so hilly it was almost like being in the mountains.

Back in 2010 I saw a meteor, as recounted on this blog, and it fell somewhere southwest of Madison. After that I kept dreaming about going to find the meteor, and I would stay in a bed and breakfast in each small town. Now not every town has one, but Mineral Point has one that is also a brewery! It's like a dream come true! It feels very Medieval to stay at a tavern that is also an inn, and the walls added to the Medieval feel. It reminded us of the castle we stayed in back in Ireland.

Here is a shot of the tavern, where we ate dinner and drank beer.

We went to evening Mass at St. Mary's in Mineral Point, and the windows were so beautiful that I took pictures of them. You can't see it in these pictures, but the writing on the bottom of the windows was in German. I don't read German, but I'm guessing it said something like, "This window was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt," something like that.

We watched the Bucks game in that wonderful room, and at first the Bucks were so on fire that I half-hoped my tweet to Giannis had encouraged them all. Unfortunately the Raptors woke up and overtook them, so their season is over. Travalon got over his disappointment by enjoying the hot tub in our room. It was kind of small for two of us, so I just stuck my feet in it.

More tomorrow!

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