Wisconsin – Beer, Cheese, and Women

Photo: Cedar Lake, Wisconsin - the next stop on my Midwestern Family Tour

I have traveled to yet another middle America state. I’m currently in Wisconsin surrounded by beer, cheese and women. This sounds like a dream location if I was a guy…but I digress. On my summer Midwestern Family Tour (not to be confused with the Magical Mystery Tour - far from it!) I left South Dakota last week to go to Duluth Minnesota along Lake Superior. Duluth is kind of like stepping into Pittsburg but everyone has a weird Minnesota accent. Kind of a strange vortex of north meets east. I was in Duluth for one main reason…to see friends and family run in the Duluth Marathon. However, not only does Duluth put on a fabulous marathon, but a little known fact about Duluth is that it holds a special place in my heart since it is where I came up with my (former) cat’s name, Palucci. I will skip the details of that…but you can tuck that little piece of trivia away for use one day when I’m famous…ha.

Photo: Some of my family and friends in Duluth celebrating after the marathon - click to enlarge
The race was great – at least for the spectators. It was a bit warm for the runners. I even jumped in and carried my out-of-shape body along for 4 miles with a friend cheering him on between trying to get air to my lungs; hopefully distracting him from the 26.2 miles of pain that he was going through! My sister and brother-in-law also ran in the race, so it was quite the family affair. All survived and didn’t even lose a toe nail; a bonus when running marathons.

This was also the site of my ‘big switch’; the switch from my small town South Dakota life with my parents to my small town Wisconsin life with my sister. My sister and her family live in Singapore, but in the summer they come back to the US to stock up on western items, see family, be disgusted by large American-sized food portions, and enjoy summer vacation. They have a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin so it seemed like a great place to spend a few weeks helping my sister out with busing the kids around to various activities, doing laundry, and generally helping her keep sane while living with 3 girls on her own.

Once again, I found myself in a weird transition – from bustling New York, to slow and quiet South Dakota, to loud chaotic kids. Kids are like aliens to me, I’m around them so little that when I do get exposed to them it’s always a shock to my system. It takes me a few days to get back in my ’kid’ mode. I am now officially up to date on who the teen idols are, who Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus is (I was always confused about this double identity thing), I’m up to date on my Seventeen Magazine reading, and I have become reacquainted with the word “dude”. I think I’m about up to date on being a cool Aunt again.

Photo: Lake Cabin - my new home for a few weeks
Currently the cabin is full of 6 women (my sister, 3 nieces, a family friend, and myself). Add to that the 2 other young girls having a sleep over – and we are up to our eyeballs in estrogen (and there is one bathroom). This is quite an adjustment from my ‘normal’ NYC life of hanging out with gay men…then again…maybe not. This new kid/female lifestyle I have wandered into isn’t super travel centered, but it does provide me some great time with family before I head off to Vietnam. So I will soak up every moment I can and wash it down with a few Wisconsin beers and cheese curds in order to make it through the chaotic day!

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