{"id":7940,"date":"2016-06-01T09:57:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T13:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/?p=7940"},"modified":"2020-07-22T20:17:19","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T00:17:19","slug":"life-on-the-road-the-upper-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/life-on-the-road-the-upper-midwest\/","title":{"rendered":"Life on the Road: The Upper Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third part of\u00a0the Life on the Road series (read Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

Before we left Michigan, we met the grand kook of the trip, a man whom we\u2019ve come to call Steve Willard. It started off casually\u2014just a passive hello to the old man parked next to us, but he soon began to talk, and boy did he talk. From throwing pimps in jail and monitoring police drones to owning a marijuana farm, casinos in New Mexico, and condos on the strip in Vegas\u2014we sure got an earful. Not to mention the hoard of gold he had stored up in the Cayman Islands, everything this guy said was so eccentric it\u2019s amazing he could make it up…<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen ya go up to Montana there, just tell them Willard said\u2026and you\u2019ll be alright. Let me just give my drug dealer, Jimmy, a call and let him know, he runs all the taverns up there. He\u2019ll bring in a whole truckload of dope and you\u2019ll have a real party. And Brenda she\u2019ll be able to tell you where my resort\u2019s at\u2026what\u2019s it called\u2026I paid six million for it ya think I\u2019d remember\u2026Anyways how\u2019s your state doing over there, with that\u2026that animal\u2026ya know, the one that goes underground?\u201d<\/p>\n

We were coming from Pennsylvania so of course he was talking about the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, which then launched into yet another wacko story. Back on the road after we had left good ole Steve Willard, there was complete silence in the car. I don\u2019t think any of us could believe what had just happened. A quick lunch stop had turned into an hour and a half story time by a crazy old man in Michigan. Stunned as we were, we drove on to Wisconsin and found it to be a place of wine and cheese and friendly faces.<\/p>\n

\"Wisconsin
Wisconsin welcome center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walking into the Wisconsin Welcome Center, we knew it was going to be a great day. A man greeted us cheerfully and pulled out a map where little wheels of cheese marked the hot spots of the area. And who doesn\u2019t love cheese? We first stopped at a dive of a place called Joe\u2019s Cheese House where Joe (who was blind), cut us some samples and let us in on a photo op, wearing cheese hats. Then we hit the trail looking for a winery opening that the Visitors Center guy had mentioned and the locals were all too happy to help us find it. Once we did, it was more than a deal\u2014only $4 for a novelty wine glass and a sampling of 7 wine varieties. They even had a spin the wheel promotion where you could win anything from 10% off to a free bottle of wine. Patrick stepped up to the plate bouncing with excitement. He spun the wheel with a big grin and it spun and spun and landed on\u2014nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d he said disappointed, \u201cbut I am from Germany! Can I try again?\u201d The girl said that was fine and when she looked away Patrick dinked the wheel over one notch, right onto the spot that offered \u201cOne Free Bottle of Riesling.\u201d And they gave it to him! If the day couldn\u2019t get any better, a local behind us saw that there were three of us and gave us his own novelty wine glass so that we could have a set of four. Wisconsin was a pretty happy place.<\/p>\n

\"Minneapolis
Minneapolis, by Shane Kiefer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That night we did some roadside camping in the backwoods of some state park I can\u2019t remember the name of. It was probably one of our more rugged nights in the brush, but the next day we would be on to Minneapolis to pick up Patrick\u2019s friend, Helena. And so the next day we drove, found ourselves a hotel, and recouped in the city\u2014brushing up on some laundry and hygiene.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t in Minneapolis for long, but our impression of the Upper Midwest natives did not change. Everyone was friendly, even the bus drivers\u2014one of which looked exactly like Bradley Cooper. We went to the COMA Zoo, which was free except for donation, and it was a blast. But the thing that blew us away most was probably the Mall of America. This place was BIG, the largest mall in America\u2014complete with over 520 stores, 50 restaurants, and an entire indoor amusement park.<\/p>\n

\"Giraffe,
COMA Zoo, by Shane Kiefer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mall
Mall of America, by Shane Kiefer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We decided to kill some time here before picking up Helena. After having lunch at Johnny Rockets, Patrick had fallen in love, \u201cThis is a real American hamburger place!\u201d he explained, \u201cWe must come back and show Helena!\u201d And so we did. After scooping her up from the airport we went back to the mall and gave Helena her first impression of America.<\/p>\n

From the kooky old man in Michigan, to the friendly faces of Wisconsin, and the incredible massiveness of the biggest mall in America, the Upper Midwest was not lacking for excitement. We took our four novelty glasses, free bottle of wine, and new member of the road trip crew on to our next destination\u2014the Great Plains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking into the Wisconsin Welcome Center, we knew it was going to be a great day. A man greeted us cheerfully and pulled out a map where little wheels of cheese marked the hot spots of the area. And who doesn\u2019t love cheese?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":7945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242,75,1226],"tags":[795,452,930,929,718,888,881,928,927],"class_list":["post-7940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-trips","category-travel-stories","category-usa","tag-america","tag-camping","tag-minnasota","tag-minneapolis","tag-restaurant","tag-road-trip","tag-wine","tag-wisconsin","tag-zoo","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 13:53:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7948,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940\/revisions\/7948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}