Cheese Please

Wisconsin. Home of cheese and as we would soon find out, home of beer drinking. Before any cheese intake would begin, we traveled our way to some RV Park in the lower half of Wisconsin that touted river tubing. Never having done this before, but thoroughly enjoying river rafting, it seemed like a good idea. Cheap tubes, pretty river...how could you go wrong? But let's just say river rafting and river tubing are two different animals. The real problem with tubing is that the river doesn't really seem like it's moving. One mile takes about five hours. And we didn't really figure this out until hour three. So it seemed a tad bit....seemed a tad bit boring. Even for a tanning loving person like Britni. But to our surprise the river was busy. Tubing was the thing to do in Wisconsin. And then it all made sense as we saw tubes with no people and just coolers full of beer. And as we paddled down river trying to cut our five hour/one mile long trip to a somewhat shorter adventure these Winsconsiners would tell us that this is what they do. They drink beer and they tube. Of course one of them added that he did go to work that day, but was quick to follow that as soon as he got off he grabbed his tube, his 18 pack of Keystone Light, and hit the river. And I thought it was all about cheese in Wisconsin!

Next day we did make it about the cheese. We hit up Decatur Diaries, a cute little cheese factory with award winning cheese (it was actually world championship cheese as they had one the recent global competition for their Muenster). Never thought I really liked Muenster all that much, but let me tell you, it's delicious. Anyway, nice thing about these small little cheese factories is they are not busy and they are willing to take you on a tour....a personal tour at that. Brit and I were escorted around the whole facility (inside and out) by a fine older cheese maker who was a very jolly fellow. I guess that's what a lot of cheese eating does to a person....just look at Brit! But the tour was great. Got up close and personal to the big vats, the salt container where the cheese solidifies, the packaging area, and the back room where 100,000 lbs. of cheese sits and waits distribution. Very cool. Definitely exceeded our expectations for the tour and I definitely gained me some points. :)   (if you want to taste the cheese we are talking about, it's Boar's Head: Muenster. Available at most high-end supermarkets....delicious).