Four States and Lots of Cheese

Road Trip Day 2: Cincinnati - Eau Claire

As I sit in our hotel room this morning, reflecting on our drive yesterday, it’s hard to put it all on paper. There are some days we live that can be summarized in one sentence. Something like, “we woke up, worked, ate food, and went to bed”. Yesterday was not one of those days.

Day 2 of the road trip has begun!

Yesterday our journey took us from the wonderful city of Cincinnati to the backwoods town of Eau Claire. Our trip involved a lot more cheese than one might expect on a given day.

The drive was different than the first day. We didn’t drive through numerous landscapes, but we did drive through many states. We drove from Ohio, all the way through Indiana, through Illinois, and ended our night in the middle of Wisconsin! The landscape along the way was more or less the same beautiful countryside. There were occasional differences; some parts were flatter than others, some had random rock formations that stuck up high into the sky begging to be climbed, but all in all, they were the same. There were scattered trees, flat farms, and luscious greenery all around. Some really big windmills too!

Our first stop after Cincinnati was Chicago. Now, this was the exception to the above rule. Chicago was unique and different when compared to the other parts of our drive.

Driving in Chicago, though? Not. Fun.

I don’t know why there were so many people there (population of 2.7 million), but there was so much traffic it was ridiculous! It reminded me of when I’d have to weave around city traffic to get around Atlanta. Except much worse.

It took us quite a while to find it (which gave us more opportunity to drive through the gorgeous city) but eventually, we found one of Lou Malnati’s pizza places and got some genuine Chicago deep dish pizza!

We found some $12 parking (so dumb) and walked to that park with the big bean thing to eat. I believe it’s called Cloud Gate in Millennium park technically, but we all know it’s just the weird Chicago bean thing.

Chicago is filled with some gorgeous architecture which is interesting, being founded in 1833. I don’t know much about architecture history, but I always assumed Atlanta’s architecture was not super unique or historic looking because it was burned down around 1864. But perhaps I was looking in the wrong places and never appreciated Atlanta fully.

Either way, Chicago was super cool and we would like to return for a longer stay one day.

Alas, our journey continued out of the city and we were excited to return to emptier roads.

We trucked along through the vast openness of the midwest all the way through Illinois and into Wisconsin. We landed in Eau Claire (pronounced “Oh Claire” apparently) where we were desperate to find some of this famous Wisconsin cheese!

We found a little burger shack called Milwaukee Burger Company and ate dinner there. The burgers and wings were great, but the pride and joy we fell in love with was this appetizer called “cheese curds”. Just think of giant chunks of cheese deep fried in an epic batter. We got an assortment of fried cheeses from pepper jack, mozzarella, and of course pride of Wisconsin, cheddar. 

I have always found cheddar to be a little bit boring as cheeses go, but the cheddar curd was my favorite for sure! Pepper jack was a close second. But wow! I figured cheese was just cheese, but this Wisconsin cheddar is different! Well done Wisconsin.

We ended our night with a creamy milkshake and headed to our hotel to sleep.

Day 2 done! Still not super sore, we’ll see if that changes as the days go on haha!