Generally rest stops off the highway are great for getting a good night's sleep (they're fairly quiet, there are restrooms, a park, dog walk area and sometimes include a visitor center). The only thing that can be hit or miss is when truck drivers decide to leave, as they'll usually need to depart fairly early. We had one truck next to us who started up their vehicle very early in the morning, probably around 5am or so when we were half awake, and the engine was running loudly for a LONG time, with the occasional loud "hiss" sound as it continued to chug on.
Besides that, this particular rest stop was clean and well maintained. Lisette chatted with a friend living in the UK, Kerstin, in the morning for an hour before we headed out, and there was already someone mowing the lawn to keep it tidy.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens
The Olbrich Botanical Gardens is a 16-acre outdoor botanical garden and 930 square meter (10,000 square feet) conservatory, named after its founder, Michael Olbrich. It's free to explore the outdoor gardens, which is so nice, because we saw people seated in some parts, chatting or just spending time reading. How lovely if you lived in Madison to have this beautiful space to pass the time?
There are so many different types of flowers and plants from all over the world, and lots of bees pollinating the flowers or hanging around their beehives that are onsite. There's a map to explore the different gardens, and for us one of the highlights was the Royal Thai Pavilion, which was a gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the Thai Government and the Thai Chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association. UW-Madison has one of the largest Thai student populations of any U.S. college or university, and this pavilion is also special because it's one of only four located outside of Thailand (the others are in Hawaii, Germany, and Norway). The pavilion is covered in gold leaf and sparkles in front of a pool filled with water lilies and lotus flowers, and there's also another pool filled with stones next to it, giving a sense of tranquility to this area.
Downtown Madison
In downtown Madison, one of the first things we visited was the set of street signs called "Roads Diverge." Unlike regular street signs, these aren't pointing to a specific direction or place, but are a play on familiar words or phrases. So there's rock, paper and scissors atop each other, form above the word function (get it? Form over function), and duck, duck, goose. It's quirky and funny, and an easy and accessible stop.
Not far from here is the State Capitol building (since Madison is the capital of Wisconsin). There are free tours of the Wisconsin State Capitol and it's in the usual neo-classical design of so many other state capitol buildings around the country. By this time we've seen so many across states from Colorado to Illinois to Iowa, so at this point the only one we could potentially spend time to go in and visit is the one in Washington DC, given its significance as the capital of the U.S.
Since we were in Wisconsin though, we couldn't miss visiting Fromagination, a small artisan cheese shop downtown. Lisette was excited to look inside the shop and sample a few different Wisconsin cheeses, and see what else they had to offer (lots of cheese-adjacent items like cured meats and jams to go on charcuterie boards, chocolates and other gourmet food items).
Despite it being a small store, Lisette felt overwhelmed by the amount of cheese on display--which to sample? We like cheese, but aren't conoissieurs. Fortunately, the people that work there are more than happy to help, and we got to try 3 different cheeses. Michael was waiting outside with Sheila, and we even got to take the cheese board over to him so that he could try them too!
We ended up getting 2 different cheeses: a Marieke Reserve gouda (a sharp-tasting cheese that was Michael's favorite), and a Pleasant Ridge Reserve that's the most awarded cheese in American history, and tastes somewhat similar to a Spanish manchego, with a nutty flavor. Artisan cheese is of course more expensive than the standard cheddar blocks at grocery stores, so it was a bit of a splurge that we figured we'd do in America's Dairyland!
National Mustard Museum
Continuing on the food trend, not far from Madison in the self-proclaimed "good neighbor" town of Middleton is the National Mustard Museum, which is free admission and has the largest collection of mustard in the world! Downstairs, there's a museum about the history of mustard, from its origins to displays of brands of mustard from every state in the U.S. (yes, all 50 produce mustard!), as well as countries all over the world. We found several Masterfoods bottles from Australia too! There's also a documentary playing in a little room that looks like it was from the 1970s, about using mustard in French cuisine.
On the main floor, visitors can sample different mustards. We tried one that tasted exactly like a ginger curry (in fact one of the employees said he uses this instead of curry paste), a Japanese wasabi blend, a champagne garlic honey one (apparently really good marinated on chicken wings), and a hot English mustard! There are so many different flavors that they sell--it all depends on whether you like hot and spicy, mild, sweet, or something very exotic. We bought the best seller, the Slimm & Nunne Sweet & Nicely Hot Mustard, which we both agreed was a wonderful blend of sweet and spicy, with different fruit concentrates in the ingredients. It also crystallizes, so we got this fun texture when we tried it. We still have our standard honey dijon mustard from the grocery store in the fridge that Michael has been putting on his sandwiches each day, so we'll have to finish this off first before we dig into our newest mustard purchase!
Epic HQ is Very Epic!
About 11 miles southwest of Madison, in the rolling green fields of the town of Verona, is the headquarters of Epic. Now, we wouldn't go to a corporate headquarters if there wasn't anything different about it--and it was whackier than any other corporate office we'd seen! It sits on a sprawling campus that requires people to drive from one building to another. There's a castle, a huge red barn, a bright green Wizard of Oz-inspired building, and many other buildings inspired by fantasy films and other visions of mythical whimsy.
We thought that from looking at the just a snapshot of the 28 distinctly themed buildings, Epic was a gaming company, but it's a healthcare software company that is used to store the medical records of hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. It's one of the country's biggest private tech companies, and while most people will think about companies like Google, Apple or Amazon when it comes to interesting campuses, we're sure many people won't think of Epic in the same vein, or even be familiar with what they do. There are tours available of the campus, but unfortunately we couldn't park in the visitor area as there was a 9 foot height limit (and we are about 11 and a half feet tall). We did the best we could to drive around the sprawling campus, in awe of the offices (if you're interested, here's a video that shows the campus).
The Troll Capital of the World
For more fantasy-themed places, our next stop was Mount Horeb, a town in Wisconsin that calls itself the "Troll Capital of the World." We'd visited another U.S. town, Poulsbo, in Washington state a couple of months ago that also celebrates its Norwegian heritage, which it did so with lots of Viking statues, murals, and imagery. In Mount Horeb, however, they focus on trolls, and there are 40 trolls all around town, so there's a map that the visitor center provides so people can walk around and try to find them all. We didn't do the scavenger hunt to track them all down, but we did see several!
Our First Culver's Experience
At the beginning of this trip we'd talked about going to a few fast food restaurants that we'd never been to, to see what the fuss is about. Lisette read that the highest-rated vegetarian fast food burger is at Culver's, a chain founded in Wisconsin with most restaurants in the Midwest.
We had a long drive ahead of us as we planned to arrive in Iowa this evening, so when Lisette asked Michael what he wanted for dinner and he mentioned Culver's could be good to try, we ended up finding one a mere 2 miles away, in the town of Platteville!
As soon as we walked in and looked at the menu, we were absolutely overwhelmed. It is a BIG menu, and while we both knew what burgers we wanted, there were a ton of sides, shakes, frozen custards (which they are also known for), and drinks on the board. And then we had to figure out if we wanted a value meal, or should we just add a couple of sides to our burger order?
Fortunately it wasn't busy when we were there, and the lady behind the counter was more than accommodating (if not very amused) and gave us a lot of suggestions. Lisette ordered her Harvest Veggie Burger (order it well done so it's extra crispy), Michael got his burger, we got a side of chili cheddar fries and coleslaw, a shake and a lemon ice drink with strawberry and mango mixed in.
Culver's feels more like a proper restaurant than a fast food chain! After we got our order, we were given a number as we decided to eat outside. But it doesn't matter whether you order from your car or at the counter: all orders are personally delivered by a staff member, who will walk over to give you your food. There's no window to pull up to where your meal is handed to you--a person actually comes out to your car!
When the employee gave Michael our order while he was sitting outside, it's probably the most polite exchange we've had, with the employee telling Michael that he had "taken the liberty to also get your some napkins." We couldn't help but laugh at how nice this customer experience was.
So now to the food: burgers are delicious, and Lisette's veggie burger was way better than all the others she's tried (the patty has fire-roasted chickpeas, peppers, corn, and Wisconsin cheese, rather than fake meat or the usual black bean or mushroom burger). Definitely get it well-done. The chili cheddar fries are fries with a medium-spicy chili con carne--also yummy. The shake was also great, so next time we'll have to try the frozen custard that they're also known for. But, but, but--the lemon ice drink? It's flavored lemonade meant to be Italian-inspired. Ew, not again. Sickly sweet from the strawberry and mango add-ons, but also a weird tart from the lemon flavor. Poor Michael had to finish it for Lisette. "What were you thinking when you ordered this?" Michael exclaimed, as he grimaced through sips of the lemon ice. "Not that!" Lisette responded!
Rural Wisconsin and the Dickeyville Grotto
We were back on the road, passing through rural Wisconsin. Who knew that it'd just be endless corn and soy fields here? Besides the fields, we'd see big red barns, and round-domed silos. The corn is now taller than both of us and will be ready for harvest in a couple of months or so, and now we can see the ears of corn sprouting. Since we were driving as the sun was setting, it made for a beautiful rural scene: the sun's last rays bouncing off the tops of the golden ears of corn, and the sun an incredible red color as it started its descent, with the barns also blazing red at dusk.
Our last stop in Wisconsin today was the Dickeyville Grotto & Shrines, a last-minute stop. The grotto was created by Father Matthias Wernerus, a German-American priest who served the parish from 1918 until his death in 1931. He created this from stone, mortar, shells, and other vibrant-colored materials he collected from all over the world. It reminded us of our visit to the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa, but on a much smaller scale. Both are very impressive, and it's wonderful that anyone can visit these intricate buildings to marvel at their construction, and that they're withstanding the elements being out in the open.
As we were wandering around the Grotto, we noticed that in a field not far from us, there were people playing horseshoes! It's a game we know about, but have never really seen in person, with people throwing horseshoes at a small stake in the ground, aiming to land the horseshoe on it. Of course, they were throwing real horseshoes! We really feel like we're seeing so many facets of the U.S., and in this case, small town America.
Arriving in Dubuque, Iowa
We were in Iowa a month ago and weren't anticipating we'd be back, but here we are again, after a small adjustment to our itinerary after the Field of Dreams movie (yes, we'll be going here). We crossed the Mississippi River that divided Wisconsin and Iowa, arriving in the city of Dubuque on the other side.
There are a lot of cool murals here, and our last stop (no pun intended) is the Fenelon Place Elevator, the shortest and steepest railroad in the world! We walked to the base of the railroad and could see straight up the track to get to the top. It costs $2 for one way, and $4 for a round trip (cash only). The railroad car is tiny, and can only fit about 7-8 people. We got on at the bottom with 5 other folks, and we rang the bell on the car to start our steep ascent (remember to close the doors behind you!). There's a corresponding car descending at the same time we went up.
Once we got to the top, there was a person waiting at the booth, waiting to collect our fare before letting us through the turnstiles. It's a novel and fun ride, and we chose to just do a one-way trip, walking down the stairs to the side to get back to street level.
That evening, we found a parking lot near the Diamond Jo Casino, by the marina and riverwalk. It would have been a very quiet and peaceful stop, except there were some loud trains honking through the night. It seems that we're never really far from trains anywhere on this road trip!
Route Map
[…] shells, and other materials, including the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa, to the Dickeyville Grotto & Shrines in Wisconsin. The Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, Alabama, is similar in that there are constructions made from […]