Traveled to the Northwoods of Wisconsin for another family Fourth at the cabin.
Lake Tomahawk, WI
Hot commodities of the Northwoods
The famous Lake Tomahawk Meat Market
This is how Wisco rolls
Mom prepping the Thanksgiving turkey.
Dad in his office just off the capital.
The Orpheum sign on State Street.
I did the unthinkable; I skipped out on the Urban Initiatives Halloween bash this year. Instead Anna and I ventured up north to Marissa and Lep’s Halloween party at their new house in Milwaukee.
Lep and Dustin. Dustin's mom handmade his costume
Lep and Anna with Niles
Pat Glynn wearing his sister's shorts. I told him once his balls drop he won't be able to wear this anymore.
I'm a cowboy, Lep's a 70's baller. Building a fire in Lep's new place.
Dustin took a number of these photos. He's more obnoxious with his camera than I am with mine.
Cowboy and Cowgirl
Anna and Niles the next morning.
Niles strikes a pose
On the road the next day I was feeling a bit banged up from the night before but I was saved by a pit stop at the world famous Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. It was a slice of heaven from the Promised Land.
Outside the Mars Cheese Castle
Oh the glorious cheese.
Oh the sausage.
Anna posing with the life size cow inside the Castle o' Cheese.
The Northwoods of Wisconsin has become the annual Fourth of July destination for the fam, and the biennial destination for the Dowers as well. We spent the Fourth in a common midwest fashion: lousy fireworks, copious amounts of beer, a mini-golf outing (which served only to remind me of how much I dislike the whole idea), tubing (broke a rib), campfires, and heaps of red meat for dinner.
On the pier
Jimmy and Susan
I had to supply a photo that would give Jimmy and Patrick reason to make fun of me (yes – that’s sun tan lotion).
Mom goofing around
Jim, Susan and Patrick
Alexis carrying on a conversation in between tanning sessions
Dan waiting to go back to sleep
Matt on the fourth
Mom on the canoe
Night falls on the fourth of July
Sunset on Two Sisters Lake
One of the more successful fires of the vacation
Daisy-Dog
Headed up to Evanston with Dan, Rusty, Nick and Martin to catch the Badger Basketball team play their final Big Ten regular season game of the year – which they won handily. The crowd at Welsh-Ryan Arena easily might have been about 75% Wisco fans but it’s hard to say for sure. The Badger faithful sure as hell had a lot more to cheer about seeing as the Badgers are now outright Big Ten champs whereas the Wildcats managed to win only one conference match-up all season.
This photo gives you a good idea of how many Badger fans were in attendance.
Headed to the promised land last weekend for the Wisco v. Iowa football game, which the Badgers won in pitiful fashion. I can’t remember the last time I witnessed such a fucking snoozefest. I felt like I was watching a High School game.
Fortunately the game wasn’t the only excitement in Madison that weekend. Mix the usual crowd of college idiots and the Iowa faithful in together and you’re bound to have an exciting scene. We kicked Saturday off by attending Barsche’s deep fry tailgate. His fryer requires 3 gallons (yes – gallons) of oil – or lard depending upon the occasion.
From there we wandered around until kickoff swiping beers where we could and waiting for the big game to begin.
A photo of the game just before Wisco scores their only touchdown of the first half.
From their we headed back to tailgating. Got a chance to catch up with my boy Lep who’s wasting his life away in Madison.
Make fun of the hair all you want – it will gone soon.
My brother was operating the camera at this point and decided to get creative and capture a candid nose hair moment.
And on to the next bar…
Curl-the-Head, H and I went to the Wisconsin/Minnesota basketball game on Saturday where Wisconsin thoroughly pummeled the lowly Gophers 68-45. The game was fairly uneventful minus a few dunks by Tucker and Flowers – but the whole outing was well worth it because we got the opportunity to see this acrobatic Asian woman riding an 8ft unicycle flip 5 ceramic bowls (all at the same time) from her foot onto the top of her head. Haker said it was the most amazing feat he had ever seen in his life… I wasn’t willing to go that far but I will say it was pretty incredible.
I’m growing too old for college sporting events such as Homecoming. Why would I want to start drinking at 10am? Why would I want to subject myself to the overcrowded bars with their god awful music and piss-warm beer? These were the questions that rattled through my head as I stumbled around Madison both before and after the game. I guess if I had to come up with an answer it would be to catch up with good friends and relive the college days, but I can imagine a number of scenarios more enjoyable than Madison on Homecoming weekend. Hell I didn’t even like Homecoming when I was in college.
Oh well, I’m a curmudgeon today (what’s new). The game itself was a great outing (minus the freezing cold weather) and the Badgers thoroughly kicked the shit out of Minnesota. John Stocco had a career day passing for 4 touchdowns and no picks while P.J. Hill ran for 164 yards and 2 TD’s. Minnesota looked awful and I found it astonishing that this was the same team that took Penn State to overtime last week. I think Minnesota should try and get Larry Coker as head coach – god knows he’s gonna be out of a job come Monday.
The highlight of the day had to be the guys with real badgers mounted on their hats (see below). Apparently, they got the OK from the DNR to hunt badgers – did so – and then had their buddy (who happens to be a taxidermist) stuff and mount them on to their caps. One great quote from these guys was something to the effect of, “in what other state can you place a dead animal on top of your head and have chicks come up to you all day long – and even get them to dance for you.” I’m not sure if that’s an enviable compliment for the great state of Wisconsin but at least it’s amusing.
I guess I did get to see a bunch of the old crew including Speed, Dark Helmet, Little Larry, H, T-Goz, Wilson, Marty-Mar and even Jillian (man – that girl talks more than anyone I have ever met). I wish I had some photos, unfortunately I left the camera at the homestead during the midday pit stop. Another couple memorable quotes from the weekend were when Curl-the-Head walked up to Madison’s and saw the line he went right to front and told the bouncer that he was “an owner” and they believed him. The other was Little Larry referring to his girlfriend that he has been with for years and owns a house with as “just a roommate”.
