Chicago Trip/Wisconsin: Day 5 - The Mustard Museum and the Mount Horeb Fall Festival

[Update 10/16 - Another marathon post! Scroll down for the newest 5 posts]

Yay! We came on a good weekend! It happened to be the Mount Horeb's Fall Festival which also celebrated their largely Norweigian heritage.
Main Street (or the "Trollway" as townspeople call it) is only a few blocks long.
After walking past the red truck, there was a row of antique tractors. Check out the name of this thing...
Sounds painful!
Well, here it is folks. The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. I'm so glad we went here because this is exactly the shit I live for! Thanks again for the tip Wandering Chopsticks!
See their official site http://www.mustardmuseum.com/. Below is the entrance to the store. To your left is the actual musuem, which is FREE! Another plus in my book!
Ketchup is not appreciated here.
I'm so juvenile - I was making the mustard effigy grab it's own mustard crotch.
Antique mustard tins (when mustard used to be sold in powdered form):
More mustard tins:
Mustard used to be a main condiment - here are some antique mustard containers which also included salt and pepper shakers. Look at the pig one!
Antique mustard jars:
Mustard, mustard everywhere!

Some more antique mustard tins:
aaaaaand....more jarred mustard! These were foreign mustards I believe.
Check out this huuuuge wall of mustard jars. They are arranged alphabetically by state. Wisconsin mustards have their own separate display and are not included on this wall.
A few of the varieties on that wall...

Warning!
The mustard squeeze bottle held liquid soap:
More mustards from foreign countries:
Here are some t-shirt designs:

Mustards that you can sample...Actually you can sample any jar in the store.
Mustard references in literature:
They are dead serious about mustard here!
Russian mustard:
You can kind of see it, but all along the tops of each wall were more jars of mustard. The selection was quite vast and to be frank, mind boggling. I don't even like mustard, but will tolerate it once in a while as long as the flavor is sweet and hidden in the food and not a prominent flavor.
A mustard vending machine. Yes, it's real and it works.
The mustard sampling area in the back. Hot Doug's also has the Lichenstein'ish poster at their restaurant.
All right! Candy from the Baraboo Candy Company! They are famour for their Cow Pie! I ended up getting all three varieties of their candy.
I thought this shirt was amusing...
I have to say, that was such a cool museum! I loved it! I'm so glad we went here and on a festival day too!
Here I am on Main Street. We were going to have a little snack before heading out to Madison. Plus, I was going back to the jewelry vendor I met earlier. She was making a bracelet for me that matched these earrings with beautiful lampworked glass beads.
Bert on Main Street. You can see a funnel cakes vendor in the background.
Bert bought a brat from the Mt. Horeb Boy Scout booth.
TC got a hot chocolate from the booth next to the Boy Scouts.
Here's that brat with mustard, onions and sauerkraut. The hot chocolate was perfect for this coldass day.
Cross section of the brat:
There were horse drawn carriage rides...llamas rides and local business people hawking their wares and services. TC was especially enamored of the horses but felt kind of sad when she saw the horses' split hooves.
OMG - A Viking Ship float!!! I wish it had the very hotAlexander Skarsgard on it!
Imagine a hot Viking like this (Alex Skarsgard in full on Viking gear for a flashback episode in True Blood Season 2, Episode 5). Technically, Skarsgard is not Norweigian; he's Swedish. But WTF, he's Scandinavian and they were Vikings too!
Here's the Viking flashback scene here...(starts at 0:26)
Okay, he doesn't look so good all bloody but damn! Fur, leather and armor!

I love these water towers!
TC bought a trio of mini pumpkins for $1.00.
The gentleman at the booth was so kind and even gave her an extra mini yellowish green gourd, which was all bumpy and warty looking. Kind of like a squash with a raging case of venereal disease. Same colors too.
Velkommen! ("Welcome" in Norweigian)
Festival Poster in their visitor's center:
They are really into trolls here.
The people here were so very nice and friendly. When they saw me taking a photo of TC and Bert, one lady offered to take photos of all three of us in front of their Chamber of Commerce and the town sign. She also gave us a few recommendations for our drive to Madison.
Here's some candy I bought at the store - note: they are from the Baraboo Candy Company. The "Badger" is the mascot of the University of Wisconsin; his name is Bucky! Go Badgers!
A pair of mustard jars (plastic, thank goodness, not glass) we bought as edible souvenirs.
We had such a fun time here. I wished we could have stayed longer but we had to take off for lunch in Madison, which was 45 minutes away! Onwards the state capitol!

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.

Chicago Trip/Wisconsin: Day 4 - Our Cabin and the Wal-Mart

Our wi-fi lacking cabin was on the far outskirts of the resort...We were by the golf course and forest in the boonies...
My cousin and his wife actually brought a bunch of food over to cook and barbecue. They brought two huge plastic containers. One with spices, utensils, kitchen stuff and the other with food like marinated meats. They also brought some frozen items such as this, the Rellenong Bangus (stuffed Milkfish).
At first I thought we were going to have separate hotel rooms. Instead, it was a big cabin with four bedrooms. Besides us and my cousin, his wife and son (a junior in high school), there was another family of three. My cousin's wife's neice came along with her two children who were close in age to TC, so that was kind of nice that there were kids for her to hang out with. My anti-social nature had to take a backseat to this living arrangement. After everyone claimed their bedrooms, we relaxed for a tiny bit inside while the kids played catch outside (our trusty mini football again). Here is the shared living room area flatscreen, fireplace and balcony complete with barbecue grill (and non functional lighter)
There were four rooms - one master with a bath, one with two bunkbeds, one loft upstairs and another one downstairs with a queen (that was ours). We had to share the bathrooms, which I wasn't really thrilled about.
View from armchair sofa in living room - the kitchen. To the right (not pictured) is the master bedroom and a stairway leading up to the loft bedroom, we didn't want that because it didn't have a door.
The balcony:
The living room again - the fireplace had fake logs and a gas fire...
That's not really our exact cabin (that was up the hill) but it looks just like that! There were some bigger cabins that could hold 20+ people. They had huge balconies and were two story.
So Bert and I decided to go to the local Wal-Mart to get a few things (plastic wrap, mascara, long sweats to sleep in for me, since I only brought shorts, duh) as well as snacks and beer.
This brand is from Minneapolis... Old Dutch, specifically from Minnesota.
Indiana Popcorn
More Old Dutch snacks...
Beers galore - these were Leinenkugel Beers, from Wisconsin. I liked their colorful packaging! Even though Wal-Mart is a huge chain, I do like the fact that most Wal-Mart's offer a good selection of local products of that region.
More of those here...
and more o' that here...
and of course, more "interesting" flavors of Old Dutch...(Dutch Oven, heh heh)
Here is Bert sauntering out with our purchases during the cold gray Wisconsin day...
I think he ended up with a slight case of food poisoning from my cousin's crappy grilling skills. He ended up over cooking the pork chops and undercooking the chicken. Yeah, more meat.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the whole morning, I stayed in the cabin washing our clothes (cool - it came with a washer and dryer). I wasn't too keen on "exploring" the resort. Plus, the indoor water park areas are heated to 80+ degrees. It's fine if you're just wearing a bathing suit, but I was wearing three layers of clothes - tank top/shirt/jacket, so fk that. Plus it reeked of chlorine! After lunch, the kids and other adults went swimming again at a few of the onsite attractions while I blogged my Day 1 Chicago posts in the lobby.

Unfortunately Bert felt dizzy and sick...probably from my cousin's food so he crashed out in the cabin after the swim session.

I'm really glad that TC enjoyed her time here. She loves the water and she also liked having a few kids (a 7 year old girl and her 9 year old brother) to hang out with. As long as she was happy, I was happy. I figured, we're going to be leaving the next day and we're going to make the most of our time here in good ole Wisconsin...

Tomorrow,we will GTFO!