Chippewa Falls - Day 2

Sunny. It's always sunny at Glenloch.... oh... oh, my god. Okay... Kay, I uh, ow! Banged the kneecaps again. Whew...
Oh, thank God for the gallon of water we'd stashed in the fridge. I took a long pull before coughing... Eh, yeah. That landed in a large, cold thud at the bottom of my stomach. Oh, that can't be good. I probably would have been content to spend the entire morning on the bed, watching weird cable (yeah, we have cable at home, but this was different cable-- all the channels are in weird order and there's HBO! FREE!) But, laying on the bed was not unlike curling up on an inviting slab of concrete. The left half of my body had gone numb in the night. I woke Matt up by playing Cujo (new, not 70's version. The is one mean fucking St. Bernard, jesus!) at top volume. It worked.
We decided to take off in search of more parts unknown - Eau Claire. If the Indy rag was to be believed we would find all things cool in Eau Claire. Plus, my sister has this friend Mackenzie, yes that's her real name, that lives there. Kenz is one bad-ass chick, so it's gotta be cool, right? Wrong. Eau Claire sucks the big one. Seriously! You call this a college town?! I don't think so. I never been to such a lame college town.
We ended up have breakfast at Country Kitchen, which does have its time and place, but really wasn't what I was thinking. I got a potato soup with bacon and cheese on it. It really wasn't very good. Matt got the chicken fried steak, because he knows what's up. Oh, man was that thing good. Fried crisp and doused with artery-thickening gravy. It was divine.
We drove around a bit more cursing the town. It was hard to believe that it could actually be so lame. But it was.
After rolling back into picturesque downtown Chippewa Falls we decided it was time to hit the brewery tour. It had been overcast and rainy up until we pulled in to the parking lot and the sky opened up. Sun spilled down onto the glistening brook and stately main lodge.
We went inside and I was instantly impressed with the Duldely Dooright sense of the place. Uniforms, and the whole lodge was meant to look like a log cabin. You know, if your cabin was full of t-shirts, polar fleece and pint glasses for sale. There was a huge canoe suspedned above the sales floor. We were told to browse for a bit before our tour would commence. What a lot of expensive crap.
Our tour guide seemed like a nice enough girl. I'll bet she could pound a few back.
5 minutes later I'm hating life and even more, hating this big, nasty, dude that keeps ended up in front of me. He's got a Pabst shirt on that says, "Will have sex for food." Gross. He looks like he hasn't showered in ages, his feet are falling off those tattered Birkenstocks and I'm not even going to mention the toenail length. How does he keep standing in front of me?! The only interesting part of the tour was the we got to watch the Honeyweiss being bottled. I started humming the Laverne and Shirley theme song. I wanted to put a glove on top of one the bottle and wave at it.
We had our free samples, but were disappointed to learn that the only two flavors we like were discontinued. The Northwoods Lager tastes like liquefied, half burned campfire wood and the Stout was like burned, foamed coffee. But it was FREE! So, I drank it like a good girl.
Okay, enough of this crap, let's get back to the bars. We decided to go to Sweeny's. We'd seen the name in our handy-dandy tourist brochure and they boasted something like 26 different varieties of hamburgers. It took us FOREVER to find the place, but eventually we did. It had an odd set up. Like they'd purchased one of those large, prefab garages for snowmobiles and then attached it to a foundation. There was a large horseshoe shaped bar when you first walk in, but further back in the room was a set up for darts and video games. It had a familiar atmosphere, people were there with their kids. It was more family-style country restaurant than bar. Well, until Matt played "Why don't we get drunk (and screw)" on the jukebox. I'm sitting right across from a 13 year old. How awkward is that?
I didn't get a burgers, because they sounded disgusting. Besides, nothing could beat the one I'd had the night before. I got the chicken fingers, regressing. Matt ordered a burger and regretted it. It was dry, unseasoned and overdone. The homemade chips, on the other hand, were fan-freaking-tastic. Just thin slices of fried potato. They were the perfect crisp to chewy ratio.
But this was a pansy ass bar, and so far, it'd been a pretty pansy ass day. Time for some serious drinking. Time for the Tomahawk. We'd seen the sign, as they were right on the main drag and decided to go in. We squinted after coming in from the bright light to the dim bar. Blue smoke tendrils wafted over tables and aged Christmas decorations. I turned to Matt, "First ones here!" What was going on here? This is Wisconsin! Where's all the people? Matt gently pointed out it was only 7:30. Hell with that! That is WAY past happy hour in my opinion. The bartender put down her can of Mountain Dew and greeted us as we bellied up. She could only be a sneeze away from 17. What is the deal with the young, chick bartenders around here? I went straight to rum, with a splash of coke. I had two, both equally pale and served with a broken straw.
Finally, more people began to arrive. Oddly enough, Bizarro us that we'd spotted at Sweeny's pulled in. They were similar in build and attitude. It was freaking me out. When Matt commented on them, it was time to go. They were just way freaking me out. She was saying snide humorous things to him! .... that's my thing. Creepy.
We drove aimlessly down side streets around the center of town until we found the Village Tavern. I was reticent to leave the top down because we were parked in front of the joint next door -- LeRoy's, except the "e" had been covered by duct tape. L'roy's? There was a fat, creepy cat in the window. Was that tape over its eye? But the Village Tavern, which looked on the outside to be your average run of the mill type joint was actually really nice inside. It must have been newly remodeled. All the wood was blonde and new. Unlike the bartender. Finally! We'd broken the string of child-girls serving us drinks. The dark-haired dude looked to be about our age and was really friendly. We chatted him up while sipping drinks and listening to the jukebox proclaim, "I love this bar."
We left when I realized that I was drunker than one should be, this early into Day 2 of a bender.
The place across the street from L'Roys was a coffee house. Was it me, or was the slightly mongoloid (noididnotjustsaythat) standing outside wearing a silver, tinfoil helmet? He waved at us.
Yeah... Time to go!
We went back to home base: Glen Loch bar. If nothing else, we were stumbling distance from our cemented resting place, that sarcophagus of a bed. At this point, it was like a bunch of old friends. We'd already waved at the group of locals hanging out front of our motel everytime we drove by. This time we found a few of 'em inside and bellied up to the bar. We had a couple of drinks ourselves before movin' over to the bar to talk to a few of our new friends. We found out that the people we've been appreciatin' these last couplea days r actually not the owners. No. The owners's some guy that lives in a suburb of the cities. Why would anyone do that? Apparently, he's a real " cocksucker"-- hey, is' okay, I didn't say it! Yeah, but they aren't putting up with his bullshit any more. Some of the kind folks from the Glen are quittin'. The bar's up for sale. Goddamn. How come I nver liked country music before? This place is awesome! WOO HOO! Even the Bachelor and Bachelorette parties, they ain't so bad. That's one goddamn stupid lookin' veil 'tho. Jeez.
As a big ol' tour bus full of partyers arrived, we left. Feel asleep to Batman Begins. God, HBO is cool.