Cheese, Trees and Square Clouds

Whew!  What a day.

We started early, leaving Oak Forest, Wisconsin behind, and headed north toward Wausau.  Leah commented that it is illegal to be up before the sun is, but grandma set the alarm for 7:45.  <G>  According to Leah we chicago'd-away because Ill-a-noid-us.  (Yes, these are the conversations we are having.  LOL )

Now, what would a trip to Wisconsin be without cheese?  Pointless, right?  Not too far along our path we found the Cheese Castle.  Inside was a wonderland of cheese (and cows)!  We bought a bag of cheese curds and caramel corn on the cob (which Leah promptly devoured).

And, not to forget the Ingalls in this modern world of plenty, I also picked up Venison jerky and Elk summer sausage.  I'll..er...give you a report on those once I have tried them.  I figured tomorrow's visit to Laura Ingalls' birthplace would be the time to do it!

We hadn't gone very far when Leah shouted out that the Kristmas Kringle Shop was coming up, so off road we went to check out Kristmas (with a K) in July.  Oh my....

I'm not sure Pa, Ma and the girls could wrap their heads around this.  Laura and Mary got a little bit of white sugar, mittens, and a tin cup for Christmas and counted themselves blessed.

Next we went to Schofield, WI and drove through the hometown of Chris O'Flyng (YouTuber) and then spent the latter part of the day in Wausau, WI, which I must say is a beautiful town and where Luke Korns is from.  The Wisconsin River runs through it and we found a little park with paths beside it and walked for about a mile.  Along the way we saw a doe and, one of my favorite things, Scottish Thistles.

 
We ended the night with a visit to the Wisconsin Center Mall and then traveled to our hotel in Rothschild where we had the entire pool and sauna to ourselves!  Now there's something Pa Ingalls would have liked to have at the end of a long day.  Tomorrow we head to Lake Pepin and Laura Ingall's birthplace, plus we are going to take a look at the lake.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the square clouds.  From the moment we crossed the state line, all of the clouds (almost all) in Wisconsin have been flat bottomed with shadows and a lot of them are square!

Anyone out there know if something is going on?????