Heather had packed plenty of refreshments for all. We joked that she was the "Stewardess" because of all the back and forth food and drink service that she provided en route. I'd highly recommend her for all your RV Stewardessing needs!
Our first adventure was at the Leinenkugel's beer tour place in Chippewa Falls. This is the working brewery where they give tours and then beer samples. Beer=barf, but the atmosphere and tour were fun. We had the world record holder for fastest talker as our tour guide. Seriously, we could only make out about every third word. He did have some visual aids to help, including pictures of the current CEO. Melissa has developed a little crush on said CEO...how adorable.
At the end of the tour, there was a 2 question quiz with some serious prizes. None of us remembered the name of the original Leinekugel's wife (although Missy and I would have won if there was a prize for the most guesses. We were the only ones shouting out names. Apparently Melissa and Heather could think of no female names...) Guess who won the second prize! Me! A non-beer drinker! The question, I think, was to name the largest craftsman brewery in the US. Apparently a brewery can slap the label of "craftsman" on it's beer as long as someone adds an ingredient by hand at some point during the factory process. Leinie's is the 3rd or 4th largest craftsman brewery. To answer the question, I just tried to think of a non-mainstream beer and said Samuel Adams. Winner! I got a coveted beer bottle opener, which I promptly donated to Melissa for the Free Ryde. So if you're ever invited into the FR and need to open a beer bottle, you should be all set.
After the tour, it was back to the main building for beer samples. Melissa and Heather made the most of their coupons and Missy's coupons. I, sadly, missed the point that I should have taken coupons (even though I hate beer) for the benefit of the group at large. Sorry guys! All I can say about the beer tasting part is: Coriander and Oranges.
We left Chippewa Falls and headed to Wausau. We were planning on meeting Amy (Vickers) for dinner in Wausau. Poor Amy was unable to join us at the start of our trip because she was drafted into brush clearing on the Wausau course. I'm sure she had just as much fun doing that as if she had been with us. We got to the campground and helped Missy and Heather pitch their tents and then headed off to the Red Eye. It's a pub that Melissa vetted, and I must say that the food was as delicious as promised. [Ack!Melissa, I left a slice of pizza in your fridge. Sorry about that--Missy]
After dinner, Amy was keyed up and wanted to go dancing. We drove out to a Martini place that Missy found on google, but it was closed. So, too, was the one dance place in town. We went back to the campground and tried to scrounge up our own music. No one had an appropriate plug for the ipod, so we were stuck listening to Amy's Michael Jackson cassette tape. I think we only made it through a couple of tracks before shutting it off in favor of the local radio stations. On a side note: when was the last time you had to actually fast forward through a song? It's so dark ages! We turned in kinda early (by Wausau standards). Paddling tomorrow!
Sunday morning dawned, and Melissa made us a delicious pancake breakfast. Gourmet, even, with TWO kinds of pancakes. Thanks Melissa! After packing up, we drove over to the course. It was a gorgeous sunny morning. We all ran the course together, and then played at the bottom hole for a bit. After that, we kinda split up and did our own thing (running the course and/or playing). There was a special event announced: the Hometown Throwdown. A freestyle competition, with prize drawings for all entrants. I encouraged Melissa to enter, but she didn't sign up until arriving at the rodeo hole. I advised Melissa that if she won anything, it was going to be for the whole group. While we waited for Melissa's turn, we helped Seth beautify his helmet to score coveted style points. Doesn't he look nice? After the competition, we had another couple of hours left until the water was turned off. Another good, fun time at Wausau! It's certainly getting more popular. There were 150 boaters there, and that's for a 1-day release!
I feel like this post is taking forever to type...and I fear that it might be boring for the reader. So, I'll wrap this up bullet point style:
-Melissa won a new helmet the the drawing, because that's her MO. Of course, it's for the whole group to share!
-We left Wausau after waiting FOREVER and a day for Heather to finish volunteering (counting T-shirts with Amy).
-We stopped at the Thorepedo restaurant in Thorpe for dinner
-Melissa suffered some ill-effects from her dinner, and had to lie down, so Missy took over driving duties.
-Got back home around 9? The dogs were SOOOOOO excited to see us. (We had left them alone for the single overnighter). From the tone of the greeting, I would guess that they had convinced themselves that we had died and they'd never see us again. There's nothing like the greeting of enthusiastic dogs!
