-----The weekend meant that the Beloit Snappers were closed, which eliminated our first stop of the day before we even got up. In the course of our drive, Illinois soon gave way to Wisconsin, where the drivers were an extra helping of nuts.

-----It wasn't just that the drivers drove with impunity towards life and property, but the real surprise was in that there were simply so many of them. There is nothing of note for long stretches; not even occasional small towns with highway-side gas stations were present to break the monotony.

-----After the border town of Beloit and its near-suburb of Janesville, there was nothing but farmland until Wisconsin Dells, which prides itself on being the water-slide capital of the world. We did not stop, but we could see enough from the highway to know that they're not kidding. It has all the makings of a town that wants to position itself as some kind of family-friendly Las Vegas of the upper Midwest. It's a testament to the monotony that even the locals throng to tourist traps.

-----We had gotten several pieces of literature from the Wisconsin welcome center, not the least of which was an illustrated map showing where all the local cheese factories were. Not wanting to miss out on some local dairy goodness, we stopped in at a storefront for the Carr Valley Cheese Company in Mauston. The shop was small, but packed to nearly bursting with most any cheese you'd care to name, along with such dubious delicacies as pickled garlic. The samples we had were incredible as well, and we did purchase a few sample packages of 2-year-old cheddar and a white goat cheese called Marisa, but we would have bought more had we packed any sort of industrial-strength cooler.

-----Because Mauston is a very small town, we decided to eat at the local Culver's after getting gas. In an attempt to create new and heretofore unrecorded flavors in the annals of human gastronomy, my dad smuggled our cheese samples in and ate them with our meal.

-----The drive from Mauston to the border increased in traffic, but it was overall a much calmer drive than our morning experience. We skirted Eau Claire and then took the beltway around the Twin Cities before heading due northwest once again on a road whose right lane was far bumpier than it needed to be.

-----Tomorrow: Minot, North Dakota.