My Family in West Bend, Wisconsin

"The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

July 7: Drove from Munising, Michigan to West Bend, Wisconsin. Jon drove and I worked on charting the next few weeks/months of my trip. I am using Rand McNally TripMaker Deluxe 1999. Great software, but it runs a little quirky on Windows XP operating system. I would have bought a new version, but they don't make this software anymore.

My parents cooked up one of my favorite dinners - roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, photo at right.

July 8: Drove Jon to the Milwaukee airport first thing in the morning, and he flew back to Eugene. (Our little joke is, "Somebody's got to work to pay my gasoline expenses.") It was tough to say good-bye, but nice to know that I will see him again in less than one month. XOXOX honey!

My cousins and their mom were all visiting West Bend this weekend, so they dropped over at my parent's house in the afternoon. Photo above, Top row, L to R: Mike, Kevin, Pop, Beth, Mom, Pat and Tim. Bottom row, L to R: Diane, Teri, Pam, Maggie and Tommy.

They sampled some of the unique beers I've been collecting, and cousin Pat showed off his new Harley Davidson road cruiser (photo below). Get a helmet, Cuz!

Later my brother and his family dropped in for dinner. He and his wife have three girls. The girls and Oma (grandmother in German) and I played a few rounds of Blink and Set (photo below). Amanda and I played Cathedral (photo below left).

June 9 & 10: I am methodically going through my emails one by one. Yup, I am writing all the contact info (or lack of it) that kind-hearted brewers and others have emailed me when inviting me to their neck of the woods.

Then I try to flesh out the sketchy information via http://www.beermapping.com/, http://www.pubquest.com/, or by googling the brewery name, filling out my 3 x 5 cards, each with the State name at the top of the card. Then I try to connect the dots. My goal is to at least try to visit everyone who has invited me, which often means I look at where they are on the map, measure that against my flights to the MBAA Hop Symposium and the class I am teaching at the American Brewers Guild on August 16, and if the brewery is too far off the route, I put the 3 x 5 card in the "Breweries Skipped" pile. I tried!

Luckily, I am fitting lots of folks in. I have such sketchy Internet connections and time, that this is the first day I've really been able to 3 x 5 card the contacts that emailed me after April. My Itinerary is under constant revision for the next week, but after that I hope to have most of July and August figured out.
July 10 & 11: Visited my brother's family in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The girls and I made pancakes for breakfast (photo on left, L to R: Teri, Amanda, Sarah and Kelly).

In the afternoon we painted Aunt Teri's art project: friendship bracelets (photo below: L to R: Amanda, Kelly, Teri and Sarah).