A blog about Wisconsin
We entered the tiny bar, it smelled like whiskey and was dimly lit.
At the other end of the bar sat a blue haired lady and a tall bearded man, the blue haired lady was wielding a vodka/water while the tall bearded man cradled a beer and possibly a Jameson.
Paul Blann and Dawn Miceli greeted us, and we chatted for a little while before Drew showed up. Rin ordered up some shots and after a few shots I moved onto beer.
We said our goodbyes to Rin and Vealchart, and jumped in the car with Drew to head to the local watering hole, Jugs Hitching Post.
Many more beers were consumed, Dawn & I faced off in darts, a game which I won by the tiniest of margins and Drew and Paul got themselves involved in some arm wrestling, which I stayed out of because my tiny arms would have snapped under the pressure.
The next morning we met Dawn’s pet squirrel ‘Pauly Jr’, and contrary to the name, it’s a female. She ran all over us, on the couch, ate candy, pooped on the table, posed for photos, tried to drink Megans coke. Then finally decided she was tired and wanted to go and have a little nap.
We were given the task of painting the beer pong table, so we got dressed up in ridiculous painting gear and headed to the barn, armed to the teeth with paintbrushes, tins of paint and artistic talent.
The initial white coat had been painted on and it began to rain, so the project moved inside the barn. I began to draw a donkey, Megan was drawing a duck on her end of the table, what started as a donkey quickly changed to be a loaf of bread, which finally turned into a cheeseburger.
This would create the team names for the beer pong games that were to follow in the coming weekend.
As the table began to dry, Drew entered the barn with a full size electronic dart-board.
Now when we were first told that they were being given one for the party, we thought it would be a little round dart board that automatically added up the score.
That however, is not what was wheeled in. What was wheeled in looked like a standup arcade machine from the seventies, but in place of the screen there was a dartboard. Eight different game options were available to play and a little TV screen kept score and everything lit up.
That evening we were treated to Faux-giving, which is just like normal Thanksgiving just not held on the correct date….WHAT!? EATING A TURKEY ON A DATE OTHER THAN THANKSGIVING….THATS JUST ABSURD…..not absurd….delicious.
The five of us ate and ate and ate, feeling full of turkey and all the trimmings, Drew, Paul & I headed out to the barn to test out the new dartboard.
The rules were basic, every time anyone hit a bullseye, the other two players had to have a shot of whiskey. We thought these were excellent rules, until about ten minutes into the game, we had taken about ten shots of whiskey each.
Not to mention, I have never had whiskey or rum before this day, and I was of course, chasing my shots of whiskey with a strong rum and Coke.
The rules were slightly changed, but after a fairly short amount of time, we had taken down about 15 shots each. The three of us made our way back to the house, Drew and I stumbling and slurring our words, Paul following us still with drink in hand.
There isn’t very much I remember of this evening, but awaking the next morning feeling pretty seedy all day until Domkus made some mean scrambled eggs that fixed me.
As we were finishing setting up, as the first partygoers were arriving that evening, for a weekend of birthday celebrations, we plugged the dartboard back in, to find that something inside it had blown the evening before and even with fuses replaced, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Soon everyone started to arrive, internet friends from all over the country exchanged hugs and stories with us.
Dan, Jenna, Yvonne, Kammy, Manda, The Wang, Ellen, Rin, Vealchart, Rob, Dax, Spracky, Amy & Jeff “The Midget” had come to party, and that’s exactly what happened, drinks were flowing, Dawn kept pouring me shots of tequila than I kept downing, chasing with a Spotted Cow or Blue Moon.
We made our way up a ladder onto the loft of the barn about 10 minutes before midnight ticked over and Megans birthday began.
Dawn and Yvonne began wrestling and slamming each other into the ground as the minutes counted down.
Dust started to be become unsettled and floated around the air, falling like grey snow over everything.
11:59:59 – Megans birthday had begun, she was hugged, kissed, jumped on, high-fived and wished happy birthdays from everyone.
The night started to wind up at around 4am, I gave Megan her birthday present which she was completely surprised by and fell asleep, alcohol flowing through me.
The next morning we had awoken gone down to say good morning to everyone, Megan broke out her unbelievably strong margarita bucket, which started off her day and outside we went to bathe in the morning sunlight. We sat around an unlit campfire, everyone enjoying each others company, then down the driveway came a huge trailer it pulled up next to us, and out the back a miniature horse made his way out. Now this wasn’t a pony, it was actually a miniature horse, he was about knee-height and his name was Dash.
After trying to talk Manda into either jerking the horse off, or at least touching its wiener for minimal amounts of money, which she did infact refuse, I cracked open my first beer of the day and headed for the beer pong table.
First up to face the unbeatable team of myself and The Wang were Manda and Kammy.
We decided for a short break and took it inside to get dressed in our costumes for the evening.
Once we had emerged, Megan and I were filthy 80s rockers, Manda was ButterflyBlue, The Wang had transformed into Granny and Dax and Spracky had become ravers.
Out we went back into the barn, Krissy and Joe were dressed as PurpleFrogTerp and Toyotaboy, Steve-o was wearing lederhosen, Mikal dressed as the best looking Robin Hood I have ever seen and Oblivion was in hunting gear.
The drinks started really flowing as Dawn carried around a jug of tequila, demanding that whoever was close to her at the time must have a shot with her, otherwise her feelings would be hurt.
A few more beer pong games had completed when it was time for the entertainment.
Jeff ‘The Midget’ was first to hit the stage, he played three songs, finishing up with ‘Down Under’ by Men At Work, as a tribute to Megan and I, which we were touched by immensely.
Then came Smitten Bayou, Dawn and Paul took the stage, Paul dressed in a squirrel costume wearing a Dawn & Drew Show tshirt.
Dawn was wearing her brand new handmade tutu, stripy underwear clearly visable.
They started into their set, which had everyone dancing and singing along if they knew the words.
Dawn got Megan up on stage in the middle of the set to play washboard, Megan, wearing Oblivions hat, sat on the stool on the stage playing the washboard and after she had been wished a happy birthday, she picked up the jug of tequila and started drinking out of it before jumping off the stage.
The Smitten Bayou set had finished up and the most amazing cake I have ever seen was literally wheeled out of the house by Drew.
We had to wait until midnight to cut the cake as Megan had to pass the birthday baton onto Paul, as he was itching to celebrate his birthday and put some drinks away.
We drank through all hours of the morning, Granny had stolen a cap gun and was shooting people in the gut when they were least expecting it.
Granny and I lost our first beer pong games at the hands of Domkus & Jenna, a team which deservedly kicked the living crap out of us.
I stole Mikals hat and wore it for the rest of the night.
Paul got out the guitar and played many songs for all of us and I somehow found my way back to bed.
The next morning most people had left early, there were a group of us left to head down to Jugs Hitching Post for a feast.
Dax, Spracky, Manda, The Wang, Jeff, Amy, Megan, Drew and I all piled into Drews VW Bus and drove down the road eat, whilst Yvonne and Jenna followed in a car behind us.
Paul was already at the bar, enjoying a Bloody Mary and putting away a steak.
We ate cheese curds all tried to recover from the brutal evening of drinking the night before.
We were sad to say our goodbyes to all our new friends but knowing we will see them again was nice to know.
Jeff and Amy stayed another night and we piled on the couches and watched a movie before we headed to bed.
The next night Paul was playing at Games, a local bar in West Bend. So the four of us went to see him play.
When we entered the door we were greeted by an annoying douchebag who tried to do his ‘Australian’ impression for us. Needless to say, we were not very amused with him.
We ordered up a few drinks and watched Paul play his set.
As we were playing shuffleboard, Drew and I started to realize that both Megan and Dawn seemed to be much drunker than we were, it seemed as though they were having a secret drinking competition against each other.
We carried both of them out of the bar and poured them into the car, which got about three quarters of the way back to the farm before Dawn had to get Drew to pull over so she could have her vomit out of the door. This had me in hysterics, I could not stop laughing, which in course was making Dawn laugh as well and made Megan feel as if she needed to vomit.
I put Megan into bed and went downstairs to get her a bucket for the evening, as I entered the kitchen, Drew was doing the same thing for Dawn.
At first Megan refused the bucket and pushed it off the bed twice before I convinced her that she might need it during the night. She agreed and was asleep within seconds.
Drew and I drank a few Red Stripes before heading to bed roughly around 6am.
Our last day in the U.S.A, Dawn, Drew took us to Sabor, a Brazillian BBQ.
Paul was with us to attend the worlds greatest meat-fest.
You have a cardboard circle by your plate and one side is red, the other green, when the circle is on the red side, it means ‘please bring no more meat’, if on green ‘BRING IT ON!’. The variety of meat, being bought around on swords and carved onto your place with other swords was amazing.
We were sad to leave Dawn, Drew and Paul. They dropped us at the bus station and we caught the bus to Chicago airport to fly to Switzerland…….
Without Dawn and Drew this trip wouldn’t have been half the trip it has been. Through them we have met so many amazing friends.
They were such kind generous hosts and I cannot thank them enough or show them enough gratitude for what they have done for us over the last five months.
Please check in and support them at:
and make sure you check out Paul at:
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
BJ
