La Crosse - Madison, WI - Chicago

10 6 09 Tuesday

The next morning in La Crosse it rained fiercely. We had planned to go to Bishop Hill, Illinois, an important place for the Swedes as Eric Jansson settled there. He was a religious fanatic who the church/government tried to suppress. He sailed from Sweden in 1846 with 1,200 followers. They arrived in Chicago and walked 160 miles west to what they named Biskopskulla (Bishop Hill). They arrived in the fall and built dugouts and 96 of them died that winter from inadequate food and shelter. Later 70 of them died from cholera. During the 15 years Bishop Hill existed as a Jansonist communal colony, 20 large buildings and 15,000 acres of land were farmed. Jansson was murdered in 1850 by a disenchanted colony member. They continued their activities and became a commercial center between Rock Island and Peoria but the colony dissolved in the 1860's. Well, I decided to call to see if they were open at this time and they were closed so we headed for Chicago instead.

We drove through this big rain storm and did not stop until we reached Madison, WI. The state capitol was our goal. It was beautiful even in the rain. All the streets started there and fanned out so that the first building was triangular. We had lunch at the Old Fashioned right across from the capitol and it was delicious - best of all loose earl grey tea in a real teapot! I had to commend them for that as it is so unusual. We asked where we could buy Wisconsin cheese and were told that on the other side of the capitol was a cheese store called Fromagination. It now had stopped raining and we walked around the block and found the store. They were very accommodating and let us taste anything we wanted. When I discovered that the cheese I liked - an emmenthaler type - cost $19 a lb I stopped tasting. They then told me that they had tiny pieces wrapped for sale, which they called orphans. I bought a few of those - some of them were $38/lb! They were very delicious and you only needed a sliver at a time. While I was involved with all the cheeses, Jalil disappeared and came back excited with a pint of frozen custard with pecans. They gave us two spoons and we ate the whole thing while driving towards Chicago, where Jalil had made reservations at Super8 in Morton Grove, supposedly 8 miles northwest of Chicago. It seemed much farther away to me.