WI Dells with Amanda (October 14-16)

Friday

I worked a half day, had lunch with Mark, then hit the road around 12:30pm en-route to the Wisconsin Dells to spend the weekend with my friend, Amanda.

After a few short stops for gas, and a return at Old Navy in Onalaska, I finally arrived in the Dells around 6pm, just in time to meet up with Amanda for dinner. We decided to eat at Damon's for dinner, and lucked out as it was half-price apps and taps!

We split two apps: the sampler and the spinach artichoke dip, and were way too full to finish either one of them.

After dinner, we checked into our hotel for the night, got situated, chatted a bit, then headed to bed kinda early, with a long travel day behind us, but a busy day ahead.

Saturday

Saturday morning we slept in a bit before getting ready for our day. We found breakfast at Starbucks before heading on our way to Burr Oak Winery.

Burr Oak Winery

Amanda found this winery, which is about 30 miles west of the Dells in New Lisbon, WI online, and we decided to check it out. It wasn't overly easy to find when using GPS, because it's not labeled properly on the GPS, but we found it after turning around on the same road about 5 times.

These awesome pics look like Sr. pics, don't you think? But the main point is that Amanda is too stinkin cute lol

Even with all the vines dying off for the season, it was a beautiful fall day, and a beautiful view!

Surprisingly, the winery is actually pretty new construction, and was designed to look this way. We were surprised to hear that! The stained-glass windows were reconstituted from a Methodist church in town that was re-built a few years back.


The inside of the winery was quaint, and filled with all sorts of cute merchandise.


We tried a few small samples and decided on a couple bottles to take home for some unspecified date at least 3 or 4 months from now after Baby Johnson arrives.

After the winery, we made our way to the Carr Cheese Factory in Mauston to find some delicious cheese, but came across this cute farmers' market along the way and decided to stop and take a look.

I found this enormous pumpkin and wheeled and dealed the guy down to $3 for it, and also picked up a 5lb bag of apples for only $3! The pumpkin was even bigger than my belly, which cracked me up.

Carr Cheese Factory

We stopped into the store and picked up a couple different kinds of cheese, then headed on back to the Dells to do a little outlet shopping.

Tanger Outlet Mall

We shopped for an hour or two, although we didn't find too much there excepting for a few cute things I came across at Carter's for Baby Johnson and a top from Maurice's. We then stopped at another cheese place before heading back to rest at our hotel for a bit.

Dinner at River Walk Pub

We were initially planning on going to Ravine's for dinner, but couldn't find it for the life of us, and after wandering around town for a bit, we happened across River Walk Pub and were so hungry we decided to go here instead.

There was a bit of a wait to get a table, so we wandered around outside for a bit and took in the beautiful view!





If it weren't so chilly outside, we would have utilized the outside dining, as the view from the upper deck was beautiful!


The ambiance inside the pub was so great, and the food was pretty good for pub food.

After we finally were seated, we decided to split some cheese curds and then ordered our food.

Amanda ordered the Elk burger with fries and I had the Cuban with coleslaw; both were good! I also started off my meal with a delicious bowl of Wisconsin Beer Cheese Soup.

Scary Secret

After dinner, we decided to check out this really unique-looking haunted house we had seen on our way downtown for dinner.

The story behind the design of the house is that aliens were moving the White House and accidentally dropped it from their space ship, and it happened to land just so. Apparently some local architects came up with the unique idea.

The haunted house part of it was not nearly as scary as I remembered haunted houses being back in the day, but it was interesting to say the least.


In spite of our super scared faces, the haunted house was less than scary, but I can see how any kids under 10 might have nightmares for a week.

After we got back to our hotel room, we decided to go check out the water park attached and lounged around in the lazy river and wave pool for an hour or so before heading back up to our room for the night.

Sunday

We woke up and got our things ready to go by 9:30am, then decided to head to Mr. Pancake for breakfast. I guess the place is a WI Dells landmark that you just HAVE to eat at.

I had their delicious cherry blintzes and Amanda had a veggie omelette with pancakes.

After breakfast, we said our goodbyes, and I started home. For some reason it seemed like a REALLY long drive, so I made quite a few stops, both scenic stops around the LaCrosse area and for shopping in both Onalaska and Fairmont.







I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to be driving home, and had such a blast catching up with Amanda :)

I made it home finally around 6pm to find my dear, sweet husband had been working hard most of the weekend on our garage project, and it is looking GREAT! Of course, the garage is now a mess and we can't park in it until the ceiling is finished, but it's still fairly early in the fall. THANKS, BABE! :)