Real Wisconsin

This past weekend, I was invited to go "up north" with my coworker, Alysa. She and her husband, Jon, were going to their hometown because his family was having a sledding party and bonfire at his parents' home. They also invited another coworker, Mike, and their three Godchildren, John, Sunshine, and Jessie. (Sunshine's name isn't really "sunshine;" it's "Heavenly Sunshine." The poor kid.) I was expecting "up north" to take about 3 hours after work on Friday, but the trip was more like 6-7 hours. We took two cars. I rode with Jon in his Toyota - just shy of 250,000 miles. In our backseat was "little John" who slept most of the way. However, at one point he woke up to tell us about what he's learning in school these days. He's become a little confused in his history class and told us all about "the African-American indians" and how they bought an island for some seashells. Jon was good to talk to. He's travelled a good deal and has tried quite a few jobs. Currently he's a pilot at a small, local airport. As we drove farther north, we saw a higher flannel to resident ratio at the truck stops and the smell of dairy cows grew.

We rolled into Grantsburg a little after midnight. Plenty of air mattresses and sleeping on the floor reminded me of camping with the scouts when I was a kid.

I woke up the next morning to the smell of breakfast cooking. Alysa's parents kept us well-fed. The three actuaries spent the morning studying while John and the kids went to prepare for the party at his parents'. Alysa's parents spent their morning shopping for refridgerators. I know this isn't interesting but it dominated so much of our conversations this weekend I have to mention it.

Alysa, Mike, and I arrived at the party early enough to help set up. The house is a log cabin in the middle of the woods at the end of a mile-long driveway. A number of dogs greet every car that pulls up. Despite the rustic look of the cabin, it's very modern and homey. John took Mike and me to the sledding hill via his snowmobile. He hooked up a sled behind it and we took turns pretending we were leading a dog team on the Iditarod. Jon showed us the garage with the boat and the plane that he and his dad have been working on for years and then we got to work, setting up lanterns along the sledding hill, so that we'd be able to sled well into the night.

Jon's family started arriving about 3 o'clock. A ton of little kids, some neighbors, and some distant relatives made it a little easier to be inconspicuous. The big kids let the smaller ones have their fun earlier in the day. We let them pack down the path on the hill and get it pretty icy. I wish we could have clocked how fast some people went down the hill. I really can't believe that no one got hurt in the course of the day. We were sledding for about six hours. During the afternoon we cooked hot dogs over the fire and ate homemade cookies. All of the fruit and vegetables ended up being frozen, but I wonder if anyone really wanted to eat them anyway. The comaraderie of John's family reminded me of mine, however, at some point in the evening I realized that there wasn't any alcohol involved. And now that I think about it, there was very little cheese served this weekend. Perhaps this wasn't the epitome of a Wisconsin-style weekend. The party ended at about 9:00; we were pretty tired.

The rest of the evening involved cards at Alysa's parents' house. Her dad taught Mike and me how to play Scum with the kids. He started by explaining that every round there's a President and a Scum. We both smiled and told him that we already knew the game. A couple rounds of Scum was all we could handle; I see why it has evolved into a drinking game.

We then played Apples to Apples, which I usually abhor because I play it with my younger cousins who don't know what half the words mean. But playing with adults is sort of fun. You end up spending most of your time trying to guess what the picker is thinking and it becomes a very psychological game. Given that I was staying with some conservative Christians, I had to be somewhat careful about when I played my "George W. Bush" card. I remained strong through swift, extreme, and rich and waited for cuddly. I won the point on cuddly.

The next morning was breakfast at the cabin and then we got on the road. Some snow/ice/rain slowed the trip down, but riding with the Johns remained pleasant. We dropped the kids off in Madison and made it back to Milwaukee by 7 o'clock.

I suppose this wasn't the quintessencial Wisconsin experience but it was a lot of fun. It was also very spontaneous of me because I found out about it on Friday afternoon and was packed, ready to go at 5:30. I'm glad I hadn't known about how long the trip was because I would probably have turned it down - but I'm sure glad I didn't.