Destination: Madison, WI (2 hours, 110 miles)
We woke up at the resort and headed out to breakfast at Perkins. We somehow got a booth where Beckett could see the construction work outside and all the tractor trailers stuck in traffic, again, he loved it. Brooke got some special rainbow pancakes with sprinkles and so the kids were in a good mood.
We went back to the resort and checked out but went to the water parks. We tried the outdoor one for about the last hour and finally convinced Brooke to go down one of the big water slides, which she then did like 5 more times. Brooke was really enjoying jumping into the pool and having me pull her up and Beckett was feeling jealous so he tried to do the same. He had a blast being dipped in and out of the water. We also discovered that if he gets his neck wet he giggles like crazy.
Our drive for the day was pretty short as we could go to Madison or Milwaukee in order to catch the Lake Michigan ferry the next day. We ultimately chose Madison because it seemed more kid friendly. We ended up at the hotel right around 4pm and got settled into the room.
I went to book the ferry tickets for the next day but quickly found that they were sold out for the 12:30 crossing (uh-oh!). Jaclyn and I started discussing if we could do the 1.5 drive to Milwaukee and somehow make the 6am ferry. As we were planning it out she said, well how much is it anyways? And it turns out I had never actually looked. We found out that it was going to be $400-$500 for us to go on a 1.5 hour ferry so that made our decision a lot easier!
After canceling the ferry plans we set our sights on cheese. We went to a highly rated cheese shop nearby only to find that it was closed for Juneteenth. So we googled another and as we walked inside we realized it was a manufacturing plant and not a retail store. So, we asked them if they had a retail and they gave us the address (which we then realized was the cheese shop that was closed for Juneteenth). So, we googled yet another store. Thank god Wisconsin is like 80% cheese. We finally ended up at Mouse House Cheese Haus (which we had ironically seen from the Highway like 3 hours prior).
We walked around the store for a bit a settled on some cheese curds, chocolate cheese, a couple habanero cheeses and then some extra sharp cheddar cheese.
As we headed back to the hotel we DoorDashed some Chipotle to the hotel and had dinner and got the kids ready for bed. After they fell asleep Jaclyn and I snuck out to the patio and enjoyed a nice sunset and perfect weather.
-Jay