Physical State of Matt #33: WISCONSIN
- 50statesofmatt
- 48 minutes ago
- 16 min read
Since I’d mixed up the nights of my booking, I had to drive all evening from Minnesota. It was nearly midnight by the time I pulled into my Airbnb in Viroqua, Wisconsin - the one with the stripper pole in the living room.
VIROQUA
I had some difficulty finding it because the front of the house was completely obscured by the landscaping. Most Airbnbs are income properties for people or companies. They usually have generic Hobby Lobby decor with no character at all. But it was clear that people lived in this space. The three people who lived there probably take a chunk of time off in the summer and rent it out to help cover their costs.
It was like crashing at a friend’s house while they were out of town, but you’ve never actually this friend. Their art and pictures were on the walls, their books and movies were on the shelves, their pantry was full of spices and dried goods. It felt lived in - in a good way.
It may sound strange, but I spent quite a while looking around the house imagining who they were and what their relationship was. Were they roommates, college friends, business partners, or perhaps a throuple? I was intrigued and felt like an modern day archaeologist of sorts. To be clear, I didn’t rifle through their stuff, simply tried to draw conclusions from what they'd left out.
The rental was more expensive than other options in the area, and it was clear they'd put a lot of love into the house, but I had selected it primarily for two features that stood out. The first feature was the stunning kitchen bar, made from a massive slab of veneered wood.
The second was that the living room had been set up as a makeshift yoga studio with a pole right in the middle of it “for those who practice alternative movement”. I definitely tried it out, and I have got to say, it’s way harder than it looks. Respect.
Viroqua had been recommended by my friends, Matt & Anders (more on them later). It’s a tiny town in Southwestern Wisconsin between the Mississippi and Kickapoo Rivers.
The ten year old in me giggles whenever I hear “Kickapoo” but the word comes from the Algonquin word “Kiwegapaw” which means “one who moves about”, highlighting the nomadic nature of the tribe. Rather than a rural town in farmland, Viroqua was surrounded by woods and gave me kind of a hippie vibe. It felt to me like what Ithaca might be like without the lake and universities.
Its quaint main street hosts shops and several delicious restaurants. Of particular note was the Driftless Cafe. In the dining roof they had trees that looked as if they were growing right through the ceiling. It was a very cool aesthetic and quite convincing.
The term Driftless comes from the area's geological history. During the Ice Age, when glaciers advanced across the region, flattening out the landscape and leaving fertile glacial silt and soil behind, they missed this area. That makes the area topographically diverse and rugged - an anomaly in the Midwest
One night, while walking back from the Tangled Hickory Wine Bar, a bank of thick clouds emerged a few miles in the distance. I was treated a dazzling show of fireflies and a summer electrical storm without any rain.
A short walk from Main Street, near the train tracks, lies the Viroqua Historical District. Several well-preserved buildings stand testament to the town’s agricultural history. The warehouse that housed the Northern Wisconsin Co-op Tobacco Pool still stands today.
Tobacco was an important crop in the area and prices in the early 1900s were dropping. In 1921 Martin Bekkedalh, the largest tobacco wholesaler in the region, helped form the nation’s first tobacco marketing collective which pooled the resources and power of the region’s farmers and stabilized prices, protecting their revenue.
A couple of blocks over another former tobacco warehouse, the Forgotten Works Warehouse, houses one of the coolest bookstores I have ever been to - Driftless Books & Music. The collection of used books and music stretched forever, through several rooms. Ten-foot tall sliding doors were flung open, letting in the warm summer breeze. The welcoming smell of sun-dried wood and old paper permeated the cavernous space.
They claim to have over half a million books, making them one of the largest bookstores in the whole Midwest. I spent a couple hours there, but could have easily spent the whole day.
After a couple of nights in Viroqua, I left on the 4th of July. The plan was to do some hiking in the Kickapoo State Recreation Area, then retrace my steps a little to catch the fireworks in La Crosse.
I loaded my car and pulled away from the Airbnb. Right away I heard that gut-sinking fwup-fwup-fwup coming from my back tire. I’d had great luck with my car so far considering how many miles I’d put on stalwart Pierogi, so I wasn’t fussed in the least. I emptied out the back, putting all of my stuff on the curb and dug around for the donut.
I found the bag with the jack, but somewhere along the line I must have misplaced the tire iron. No sweat, I had brought a tool set with me just in case. I patted myself on the back for my foresight as I pulled out the socket wrench and found the socket that fit the lug nuts. The wrench couldn't quite reach the nuts by itself, so I connected the extender and attacked the tire.
The lug nuts didn’t budge. I hadn’t brought any WD-40, but I figured good ol’ brute force would do the trick. I secured the wrench and gave it a solid stomp. Rather than turning the nut, the wrench extender sheared off. Brand new, never been used, and now busted. I guess they just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Now I was properly stuck.
I called AAA, once again pleased that I had planned for all contingencies. But it was July 4th, and hardly anyone was working. A dispatch was made, but the wait time was ambiguous. Am half hour passed with no word from a tow truck. Then Ronald rode by on his bike.
Ronald was a local school teacher and became my savior. He generously rode back to his house for a can of WD-40 and a cross wrench. With the right tools, I made short work of the job. Thank you Ronald!!
Given how the day had been going so far, I didn’t want to push my luck by driving to the recreation area on my donut, so I found a tire place in La Crosse and went straight there. I finally heard from a tow truck and told them not to bother.
Lacrosse the game originated with Native Americans, and was played by many tribes including the Algonquins of the region. The term was coined by French Jesuit missionary Jean de Brebeuf. La crosse means “the stick”. La Crosse, Wisconsin, is a college town on the Mississippi River which separates Wisconsin from Minnesota.
At dusk, I walked downtown from my hotel, passing by The World’s Largest Six Pack. Built in 1969 by the G. Heileman Brewing Co, they are six 688,200 gallon beer tanks that were painted to resemble giant cans of Old Style beer. The brewery closed and was reopened in 2003 by the City Brewing Co and the tanks were rebranded with La Crosse Lager cans.
Wisconsinites are very proud of their beer consumption. I was told by more than one Wisconsinite that they drink more beer than any other state. The truth however, is that they rank fifth per capita, after New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The top selling beer in the state, Spotted Cow, can only be purchased in Wisconsin. New Glarus Brewing, who makes Spotted Cow, say they made the decision to keep it within the state to keep the operation relatively small, and therefore manage quality better. They also get to avoid managing the complexities of interstate alcohol exporting. In effect though, it was a genius marketing ploy, giving Spotted Cow a vaguely mythological reputation that the beer itself (in this guy’s opinion), doesn’t really deserve.
Once it was fully dark, I was treated to a wonderful fireworks display over the Mississippi River. The river had grown significantly in the 600 miles since its modest beginnings at Lake Itacsa, MINNESOTA. Lake Onalaska, which grows out from the river just north of La Crosse, is four miles wide.
MADISON
I meet a lot of people doing sales. Most of my sales cycles last anywhere from 3 to 12 months. Although each situation is different, I usually get to know the people I work with pretty well in this amount of time. As a “hunter” it’s my job to close deals and then hand them over to a team that manages the relationship (“farmers”). I build relationships over the course of many months, and then once the deal closes I have very little interaction with the people I got to know.
Every once in a while though, you really click with someone and those relationships stick. Matt and Anders are those exceptions. With them I felt comfortable to be my full geeky self. To stay within tight corporate gifting limits, I got creative with my thank you gift for them. I painted a sci-fi soldier miniature for each of them since Matt had said several times that he had “gone to war” for me and our solution. Despite the fact that Anders was in a new role, Matt was at a new company, and I was no longer working, we stayed in touch.
I’d been to Madison once before to visit Matt & Anders, a couple of months after the deal closed on a sunny autumn day. I started my rental car at the airport and the radio came on. The DJ said that it was 75 degrees, dropping to 19 overnight. That was my first impression of Wisconsin. Matt and Anders were impeccable hosts then, and I was looking forward to seeing them again.
Matt’s partner Caitlin was in the process of moving in with Matt, so her apartment was mostly unused. She graciously let me stay there. They got me settled in, and we made plans to meet up the following day. I explored on my own that night and ended up down the street at Players Sport Bar & Grill for dinner. Players is the perfect dive bar & grill. Cash only, no-nonsense bartenders, great burger, and girly beer posters circa early 90’s in the men's room.
Matt and Anders are big-time cyclists - they do significant long distance rides. They loaned me a bike and we set out the next day for a two-wheel Sunday tour of Madison. First stop was Working Draft Beer Company’s “pool party”, which must have been promoted tongue-in-cheek because it was just a kiddie pool in the parking lot.
Matt, Anders, Caitlin, and were having a couple of beers and Bavarian pretzels when a guy stepped up to start - the meat raffle! For those who haven’t read my IOWA post, meat raffles are exactly what they sound like, and I’d enjoyed one before. Unlike last time however, luck was on my side.
Each round had 3 prizes out of 50 tickets (numbers Sharpied onto wooden paint stirrers). We won something in 6 out of 8 rounds. Around round 5, we could tell the others in the room were getting a little cranky our success, but we persisted. At the end our haul totaled one pork loin, one beef roast, some other cut of beef I don’t even remember, and three four-packs of the brewery’s Above Ground Pool Lager (appropriate for the event).
Anders volunteered to bike home with our loot and meet up with us after. Loading up his bike with 10 pounds of meat and 12 tall-boys was comical, but somehow he managed to get it all back safely.
Matt, Caitlin and I set out for the capital building downtown. Our mission: to find the perfect fried cheese curd. The dairy industry is at the core of Wisconsin's history, culture, and economy.
Wisconsin is the largest cheese producer in the US, and the second largest dairy producer after California. California only surpassed it in 1993. Per year, Wisconsin produces 32.6 billion (that’s with a B) pounds of milk. Idaho, number 3, is a mile behind them at 18.3 billion pounds. Diary production is just barely the second largest industry in the state, contributing $52.8 billion to the state’s economy.
There is a booming diary tourism industry in Wisconsin, and the slogan “America’s Dairyland” appears on their license plates. Die-hard fans of the Green Bay Packers wear foam wedges of cheese on their heads and are known - as Cheeseheads.
Fried cheese curds are a quintessential Wisconsin food. Canadians put cheese curds and gravy on their french fries and call it poutine. Wisconsinites bread the curds, fry them, and serve them with ranch dressing for dipping. Delicious? Yes! Low-cal? Not in the least. Cheese curds are also known as “squeaky cheese” because of the sound they make when you bite into a fresh one. The squeakier the curd is, the fresher it is.
Downtown Madison sits on an isthmus, a narrow strip of land between two bodies of water - in Madison’s case, Lake Monona and Lake Mendota. Isthmus is one of the most fun and difficult to say words in the English language. I dare you to say it five times fast without sounding like you’re having a stroke.
The Wisconsin Capital Building is in the middle of the isthmus on the top of a gently sloping hill. It’s surrounded by a square plaza with eight streets running straight away from each corner and side of the square - very geometric. The capital is also the tallest building in Madison. The effect is that you can see it from just about anywhere in downtown.
We biked around the plaza. The streets were pretty deserted midday on a summer Sunday. School at the University of Wisconsin was out of session. Unfortunately we also found each of the places with the best cheese curds closed.
We stopped at the terrace of the nearby Monona Community and Convention Center, which overlooks Lake Monona. The intermittent sun sparkled off the calm waters, and a group of people got waterskiing lessons to our left.
This plaza and building, I was informed, were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright along with many other buildings in town. Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin but lived in Madison from ages 11 - 20 and considered it his hometown. Taliesin, his 800-acre estate and primary residence, is located just 37 miles west of Madison. It is now a preserve that hosts 30,000 visitors per year.
Another fun fact, Matt told me, is that Chris Farley, the late actor and comedian whose movie “Tommy Boy” took me to Sandusky, OHIO, was also from Madison.
From there we rode a short distance to the other side of the isthmus for beers on the University of Wisconsin's Memorial Union Terrace, along the shore of Lake Mendota. Caitlin works for a local beer distributor, so she had the hookup. It was a gorgeous summer day: mostly sunny, warm but not too warm. Madison really is a beautiful and welcoming city - in the summer. The winters are reportedly pretty unforgiving and cold enough to freeze both lakes over.
Union Terrace is best known for its colorful and iconic “Sunburst Design” chairs. First introduced to the terrace in 1933, these chairs have become the sole design in use. The University of Wisconsin patented the design in 1988 for their use only. The only way to get one is through the U of W store, and only in red & white (the school’s colors). On the terrace they have an extra large sunburst chair that big people like me can sit in and feel small.
Each April volunteers line up around the block to help carry the chairs out of storage and place them on the terrace. Terrace Day marks the beginning of the warm season. The Badger Band plays and Bucky Budger makes an appearance. They serve the volunteers free ice cream after.
Anders’ partner Katherine finished up a “low key” 50-mile bike ride and joined us on the terrace for a bit then went home to change while we finished our tour. We rode through the university campus and stopped at Bascom Hall, which sits atop of a picturesque grassy hill overlooking downtown.
A statue of Abraham Lincoln sits in front of the building, an acknowledgement of the role he played in the university's development by passing legislation which funded its growth.
Later, we rode past the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, a 1,200 acre green area with a popular bike path. Overall, Madison is a very bike-friendly city. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I was getting a little tired out near the end of the ride while for them the casual ride was barely a warmup. In my defense, I was in Costa Rica for long stretches during the winter and took my bike off the car before the drive to Alaska - because why needlessly cover it with road salt? I hadn’t been on a bicycle in many months.
We finally pulled into the Tip Top Tavern for an early dinner, where Katherine met up with us again. I ordered their “Cavatappi Hidden in the Mist” special, the most Midwest of meals I have ever had. Besides, the “yo.” in the description on the chalkboard won me over. And we finally got our cheese curds, though I was assured they were merely decent, and not the best.
SUPPER CLUBS AND OLD FASHIONEDS
The following evening, I went on a sidequest to Ishnala Supper Club. When asking about uniquely Wisconsin experiences, several people had suggested I eat at a supper club.
So what is a supper club and how does it differ from a restaurant? I had no idea and no one was able to give me a good answer. The first supper club was opened around the turn of the century in, of all places, Beverly Hills, CA by Wisconsin native Lawrence Frank. They became widely popular in the 1930s and 40s. They were originally places where people could come to get high-end comfort food at a decent price and spend the whole evening socializing and enjoying music or other entertainment. They were a destination and a gathering place.
The term “supper club” has persisted, though they are no longer the all-night destinations they once were. As best as I could tell, the term now refers to a certain type of restaurant with a menu that includes classics like prime rib, fried chicken, shrimp cocktail, and a Friday night fish fry. Often, as was the case at Ishnala, a plate of assorted pickles are served before the meal with the bread.
The term has apparently been expanded in recent years to also refer to underground restaurants - pop-ups in private homes or secret locations that are promoted through word of mouth and avoid pesky little things like permits and health codes.
Ishnala was in Lake Denton, about an hour away. It was a Monday evening, so I didn’t bother with a reservation. When I pulled into the parking lot to find a team of people directing traffic and stacking cars in areas that weren’t actual parking spots, I realized I might have made a mistake.
The hostess gave me good news and bad news. The good news was that they don’t take reservations, so no amount of planning would have helped. The bad news was that the wait was roughly two hours.
I am not the world’s most patient guy, but I’d driven an hour and was committed at that point. This kind of wait must be a common occurrence because I was given a buzzy pager thingy and directed to one of their three outdoor bars where they were playing live music and serving old fashioneds. If you will forgive me a sidequest within a sidequest, the topic of Wisconsin old fashioneds deserves a visit.
Old fashioneds are one of my go-to cocktails. What most of the country calls an old fashioned is bourbon or rye, sugar, possibly muddled orange and cherry, bitters and ice - preferably one large cube so the cocktail stays cold without getting watered down. It’s pretty universal.
Wisconsin old fashioneds are a completely different animal. The orange, cherry (almost always maraschinos there), bitters and ice are the same, however they use brandy rather than whiskey and finish the drink off “sweet” with Sprite, “sour” with Squirt or other grapefruit soda, or “press” with soda water. On my first trip to Madison, Matt & Anders took me to a bar that had brandy old fashioneds on tap, something that both intrigued and offended me.
So how does that happen? Common lore traces Wisconsinites’ love of brandy back to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago of 1893, where Korbel brandy was unveiled to the Midwest. However, in recent years, author Jeanette Hurt did a deep dive into the history for her book “Wisconsin Cocktails” and found otherwise.
What she found is that until the 1940s old fashioneds were the same in Wisconsin as the rest of the country. In the 40s grain rationing was implemented when most of it was shipped out to support the war effort. Whiskey production in the US dried up for several years. While the rest of the country muddled through (no pun intended), Wisconsin liquor distributors discovered a cache of 30,000 cases of Christian Brothers brandy and bought it all.
While the rest of the country drank cheap vodka, rum, or gin, Wisconsinites drank brandy old fashioneds. This unique cocktail is now a point of pride in Wisconsin and they consume more than half of the Korbel "California Champagne" produced each year. Okay, side quest complete, Old Fashioned Achievement unlocked.
I finally got my table around dusk. The last light of the day filtered through trees on the far side of Mirror Lake just outside the dining room windows. I got prime rib, baked potato, and caesar salad - as classic as it gets.
The food was good, not great. The service was good, not great. The price was what you’d expect for those dishes, not great. Overall, it was a fine but unremarkable experience. Nothing I could see really differentiated Ishnala as a supper club rather than a restaurant.
Back in Madison, I extended my stay by a couple of days to get some writing done and take advantage of all the meat we had won. I had dinner at Matt’s house twice.
The first time Matt roasted the pork loin with mashed potatoes and green beans. Turns out he’s a hell of a cook.
I got the chance to meet his kids, Hazel and Neal, his dog and two ginormous Maine Coon cats. My former partner and I had a cat who was half Maine Coon, and it was one of the things Matt & I had bonded over.
When Neal and Hazel heard about my trip they skipped in laps around the house and through the kitchen, singing “Fifty Nifty United States”, which musically lists all the states in alphabetical order.
Apparently the song has been around for longer than I have, but I somehow missed it growing up. I only knew about it because I made an Instagram reel with it then added it to my 50 states playlist. Beware, it's an ear worm.
After dinner we went out to Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream for dessert. They have a distinctly Wisconsin approach to marketing.
I ate my scoop of mango tajin ice cream while Hazel caught fireflies. On my way back to Caitlin’s place I caught the last glow of sunset over one of the lakes. The capital building was lit up like a beacon across the water. Stunning.
Next dinner, it was just the adults. We had shredded beef tacos and I chipped in by making Matt's recipe of cilantro-based chimichurri. Mmmmmm.
I had an wonderful time in Wisconsin. Matt and Anders were, as before, amazing hosts. It was great to see Katherine, and Caitlin was incredibly generous to let me use her place (thank you!!). Madison is a great city. Less than 300,000 people, nature, water, a big university. I haven’t seen it in the winter, but the city is a winner when it’s warm.
You never know where you’re going to make friends, and I’m glad our work brought us together. It had been really nice to get to see them and I had plans to see more friends in my next state - Illinois.
Yes, and...
Matt