Finishing up in Wisconsin...

Up early this morning, as I have been all week I came down and mooches around the busy breakfast room reading my book while waiting for the others to come down; Saturday is obviously the AmericInn's busy day!

Under G's guidance I made myself a waffle using the hotel iron - I wasn't going to leave the country without trying at least one, especially given the chance to use quite such an impressively dangerous-looking piece of equipment - and it wasn't at all bad. It certainly set me up for a day of travel and patchy and uncertain eating.

Once we were all checked out we went on over to the Leinenkugel brewery where we took the tour and mooched around in the shop.


The Leinenkugel Brewery from the car park of the Leinie Lodging looking across Duncan Creek.


The much-loved Impala in front of the Leinie Lodge. We weren't quite the first visitors, but it was a close run thing.

Crossing the bridge on the way back from the tour, I managed to drop my camera lens cap into the snow underneath. Fortunately PS reached it coming down for one side while I trekked around from the other. But, having done this sort of thing before, I'm starting to wonder whether I shouldn't travel with a spare cap in my bag!


Was this photo worth almost sacrificing my lens cover for? I'm not so sure...

Safely back on track, we pottered around in the Leinie Lodge for a while until we were defrosted, had our photos taken looking through the beer pumps, and managed to avoid buying any cheese curds.



Once warm enough to head over Eau Claire, we took the 124 out of town, filled the Impala with gas, and followed the 53 to sample the delights of Oakwood Mall. After boggling at the weapons section of Scheels and checking out the clothing - which made me wish my bag wasn't full to bursting with stuff already - we stopped for dodgy mall food before heading to the airport to checkin for our flight to Chicago. There was a slightly dodgy moment when we found the Hertz rental office completely unmanned but this was quickly resolved - we discovered the clerk outside moving the cars around.

So that's the news to date: I'm currently sat in a very quite lounge in Eau Claire Regional Airport passing the time until we board our flight...

Transiting through O'Hare

Our flight to Chicago only had seven passengers - plus an off-duty pilot - so we were able to take off just as soon as everyone was on board, putting at O'Hare well ahead of our scheduled departure for London. Unimpressed with our mall lunches, we squeezed in an extra meal at the airport just in case the airline meal turned out to be appalling and headed to the departure gate. Our flight appears to be absolutely full — a lot of people seem to be transiting to other European destinations at Heathrow — but I'm sat at the back with a window seat, so I hope to be able to sleep most of the way back to London...