Chicago Trip/Wisconsin: Day 5 - On the way to Mount Horeb

Finally! We're busting out of this joint!!!! Good riddance to the infernally boring and tacky Wildnerness Resort! Before leaving, we got gas, which was next to the Ponderosa Steakhouse (site of our dinner Friday night)...Gas is cheap here - $2.50'ish.
I'm lucky to have a few readers/blog friends who made suggestions for our trip. Captain Jack, Joelen, and Wandering Chopsticks. WC went to grad school in the Chicago area so she was familiar with many places. She was the one who suggested visiting nearby Mt. Horeb, home of the Mustard Museum! These were some of the sights we saw on our way there...the Ho-Chunk Casino. The Ho-Chunk Tribe is native to the Wisconsin and Illionois area and is also known as "Winnebago".
We saw quite a few of these in Chicago and also in Wisconsin...Menard's is a chain of home improvement stores in the Midwest. Kind of like a Lowe's I guess.
Here's another one of those water towers...
There were lots and lots of farms with huge silos...Everything is so spread out here. Your nearest neighbor could be miles away.
Bert actually turned the car around so we could check out this sign. It was a historical marker marking the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers Circus. This is in the town of Baraboo in Sauk City. Baraboo is also is known for their Baraboo Candy Factory - Home of the Cow Pie!
Woo Hoo! Baraboo!
Here's a store we don't have in California - Piggly Wiggly, a supermarket chain found in the Midwest and South.
WC also recommended having some fried cheese curds at Culver's...This is like a Denny's kind of place. They are known for their "Butterburgers" (just hamburgers with loads of butter slathered on the buns) and "Fried Cheese Curds". Check out their menu here.
Driving through Sauk City. Like Wisconsin Dells, their population hovers at around 3,000. In comparison, the high school I work at has about 2300 students.
Approaching Black Earth (population 1,320) and Mount Horeb (population 5,860), our next destination. After checking the Wikipedia entry on Mt. Horeb, I found out that it is the name of the mountain that Moses supposedly held up the Ten Commandments. Or as Mel Brooks did in his classic film, "History of the World Part 1"...Let us watch:
That's got to be one of the funniest scenes in the movie! I also liked the "Inquisition" scene!
Here is The Shoebox, one of the largest shoe stores in the Midwest. I wonder if they have Manolos or Jimmy Choos there? I doubt it.
The cemetery in Mt. Horeb runs through the middle of one of the main streets leading into town...
Sign at the edge of the cemetery...
What luck! It was the same day as the Mt. Horeb Fall Festival! We parked on a side street next to their Christmas Store.
It was around 11 o'clock when we arrived at the Mount Horeb, the Troll capital of the world (more on their Troll history here
here)! Main Street is also known as the "Trollway". Vendors were already set up on Main Street. It totally had that "small town" vibe. There were booths selling food (brats, snacks, and hot chocolate), jewelry, etc. It was kind of cold and overcast and it wasn't crowded yet...After chatting with a jewelry vendor, we headed down the Trollway to get to the Mustard Museum.