Well, if things weren’t childish enough

We took the turn back East yesterday and had a full on day of seeing odd crap.
And some genuine tourist sites,

Our first stop of the day was the Museum at the Indianapolis 500 track. It is such a superb location. The track hosts 300,000 plus for just eight events annually.

Kevin and myself can barely drive and know nothing about car racing. But we loved this venue. The remodeled space just reopened in April after eighteen months of renovation.

The day got less impressive from there on.

We stopped somewhere along the road for coffee and pulled pork and saw a giant candle. We were in a lot of “I” States yesterday and I got very confused.

As we continued along a badly congested highway we saw the sign for Uranus Fudge Factory. So of course we turned off.

Uranus is a gigantic ice cream, fudge and souvenir store centered around many variations of Uranus jokes. Definitely designed to play on simpleton tourists. We got a couple of ice creams, a pound of fudge, a key chain and stuck our heads out of animal’s arseholes.

Onwards to Springfield, Ohio and a genuine work of love. The Hartman Rock Garden is a folk art environment created by Harry “Ben” Hartman in the 1930s and maintained voluntarily since. This gem of a find is located in a suburban back garden. The intricate detail is stunning.

Lots of shitty driving back through shitty Ohio in shitty rain followed. Determined not to sleep in that shitty state again we drove on to Wheeling, West Virginia. Possibly a pretty town but we arrived too late and left too early to know.

We finished our trip today with a visit to Gettysburg. We both learned a lot.

We are both very happy and feeling quite accomplished for our big adventure. Kevin got to visit 15 States on this journey – that’s 30% of the Country. I’m now left with just Texas to drive, having checked off Nebraska and North Dakota.

Looking forward to more Happy Trails across this great country soon. Once again the world I saw out there was warm, welcoming and helpful. Peace Out!

It is Beautiful

We had a long old day of driving, it mostly poured. Kev’s Dad Len may have loved “New York in the Rain” but “Minnesota in the Rain” would even have worn on his endless optimism. Long. Flat. Wet.

We did stop in a couple of one horse towns along the way, where the horse would appear to have died. Firehouse Coffee did have excellent apple cinnamon scones. But the combination of barber shop, Friday morning gaming room for the elderly, Amish arm wrestling, syrup purveyor and coffee shop was a little too Lynchian for us. And it did not have damn fine coffee.

Kevin found a big fucking Viking and I got wet.

But OMG OMG OMG………OMG

All those thousands of miles, New York to North Dakota, Austin to Fargo through a Monsoon, led us to a decades long dream fulfilled. Here was Carl’s Bloody Foot!

“This was worth the flight from London,” Kevin blubbered through tears of joy and gratitude.

Let me just make a small point at this juncture. I know I constantly complain about bad Irish accents in movies. But the people from Fargo do sound like the people from Fargo. Suck it up Fargo.

Marge, the very helpful service provider at the visitor center, told us you can still find small Carl Showalter bone fragments embedded in the Chipper if you look carefully.

Straying from the Woodchipper for a Moment, we were drawn to our hotel by its down home “C’mon Inn” name. “C’mon Inn Through the Weird Fake Bushes in the Lobby” was taken. But maybe not everyone should shortcut from the pool to their rooms. Nice ass crack Hank.

We do feel a little taken in by the Coens. Fargo does not have the hometown feel we would have expected. It’s quite the metropolis. We dined tonight on traditional ND Korean BBQ.

Anyway, back to the chipper.

The Visitor Center also featured the Stunt Woodchipper who took on some of the movies more dangerous action. You may recognize it from smaller roles in Twin Peaks.

Next Stop – South Dakota.

They may want to fix the lights on that Fargo sign. Some communities are bound to get offended.

Walkies in Milwaukee

We have had a ridiculously active couple of days here in Wisconsin with unbeatable additional notches on the eclectic museum list. Theres a lot to see in Milwaukee.

After a couple of excellent drinks at Discourse Coffee it was on to my favorite venue to date, The Bobblehead Hall of Fame.

This magnificent collection holds over 10,000 bobblers with more being contributed each day.

And Kevin found Waldo and won a priceless sticker he can put on his laptop.

Confession – I bought a lot of shit at the Bobblehead store.

Dizzy from watching all that wobbly action, we staggered across the River to the Harley-Davidson Museum.

My father bought himself a Honda 50 back in the late sixties, crashed it the first day he owned it, sold it the next. Motor bikes not a great history in my clan. Kevin however is a motorcycle owner and enthusiast.

This is a beautifully curated Museum.

As we traveled along the River bank, to locate Fonzie, we somehow lost the river.

We did however locate Milwaukee’s Public Market – voted best in the country 2024 & 2025. Great Smoothie me (because I’m so healthy). Kev had an excellent Shrimp Po-Boy.

We finally found the river again. There is a wonderful walkway along one bank through much of the city. And we found The Fonz. Shorter than I expected. Fonzie is a childhood hero of Kevin’s. Because I grew up in a country with only one TV channel I never saw Happy Days as a child. But ask me about Wanderly Wagon and Forty Coats.

So today we took to the road and made our way towards Madison.

First stop.

Insert joke here about spicing up our trip. Our first visit of the day was the Mustard Museum in Middleton. It is definitely the finest mustard museum I’ve been in.

Confession – I bought a lot of shit at the mustard store.

Ok – WTF?

We went to the House on the Rock this afternoon and spent a couple of hours wandering through. It is truly the strangest place I’ve ever been to. It will likely haunt my dreams in some form for life. Impossible to describe or capture in photos. We could not possibly find anything else this strange this trip. Visit it!