Today's Journey: Wisconsin to South Dakota

In hopes of making up for a bit of lost time, we sped across Minnesota today, right on 90 West the entire way. We were originally going to loop down through Des Moines for a music festival and meander back up through Omaha, but since we're about 4 days late for that, we just wanted to get to the stop: Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Quick backtrack: our quick jaunt through Wisconsin was great. We started at Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. Which, turns out, has a great beer selection. We got a six from New Glarus Brewing Company. Haven't tried 'em yet, but we have the cooler ready.

Other than the good beer selection, they have lots of touristy stuff. Including cheese shaped like beer mugs.

We had to stop to take this very Wisconsin-ish picture here.

Then it was onto Milwaukee. We took a quick walk through the Third Ward, which is the nice part of town with shops and restaurants with patios and things.

 I got this great hummus sandwich from the Hudson Business Lounge. 

Then it was off to Madison. We had a great night at Ale Asylum, we loved all of their beers. I think they're a new favorite brewery of mine. The Bedlam! IPA was one of the best. We had a great pizza too, and a side salad with bits of cheese curd, cause cheese curd is big in Wisconsin. But the best part was the bartender! Nate must have done about 10 magic tricks just for us. He had us laughing all night. If you're ever in the Madison area, I can't recommend this place enough.

This morning we barely dipped our toes in Madison proper for a breakfast to-go at The Old Fashioned. Here's a pic of the (I'm guessing?) Capitol building in the square, which reminded me of Rittenhaus Square in Philly, only that little circle was most of the center of Madison. We looped around a full time and had a tough time getting right. When I saw this building again I couldn't help myself: "Big Ben. Parliament." I'm a great travel companion.

Then we hit the road. But we had to stop for cheesy photo opps like this.

And then again in Blue Earth, Minnesota for the World's Largest Statue of the Jolly Green Giant. I mean... why WOULDN'T we stop for that.

Leave it to Calywags to be willing to ham it up with us.

And now here we are in Sioux Falls, South Dakota! We got there in time for a sunset walk around Falls Park. Then some dinner and a few interesting brews at Monks House of Ale Repute. This is turning out to be an American beer tour of sorts and it's pretty awesome. Food is good at breweries and it seems cheaper and faster when we're sitting at the bar. There's no more Brooklyn Brewery or Six Point on tap this far West (or really, past Cleveland) but it's interesting to see how far certain special local beers stretch. We're still seeing lots of Chicago's Goose Island. And Great Lakes is pretty popular around the center of America. NYC was missing out on more than I had expected!

Tomorrow, we head to the Badlands for more camping.

Let's hope it doesn't rain.