The House of Goodwill goes to Wisconsin

I feel bad that it's been such a long time since my last post, but since the last one, I've packed from a summer in New York and traveled fifteen hours back to Tennessee, unpacked, then repacked once more for an eleven hour trip to Wisconsin. With some work-for-pay inbetween.

I've been a little busy.

Why Wisconsin?  Well, my husband works for a company headquartered there, and when he told me he had to fly there for a two day work summit in September, he offered to drive instead if I would like to come along and share his paid-for hotel room.  Would I?

Of course!

I had never been to Wisconsin, and on the life bucket list of fifty states to visit, I wasn't sure when I'd make it there, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity.  And since my husband's work commitments ended Friday night, he asked if I'd like to pick a city we'd never been to on the route home, so we could stop and spend part of the weekend there.  

So it was going to be Milwaukee, St. Louis or Chicago, and how could I NOT want to stop in Chicago?  Although I'd gone to college three hours away, I had never been there.  What a perfect opportunity!

Oh Wisconsin, you were lovely!  The countryside reminded me a lot of my part of upstate New York: miles of verdant cornfields, beautiful old farm houses and lakes.  An underrated state, for sure.

I had two days to entertain myself in Appleton, a kind-of, sort-of suburb of Green Bay.  So where did I go?

On the way to a city park in the historic part of town, I passed this thrift store and couldn't resist.

For a girl who's used to Goodwill, this place was amazing: all the stuff for sale was cleaned, folded or dusted before being put out on the shelves.  Wow!

I found some things for The House of Goodwill; I'm trying to keep a stash of some commonly used things in the garage to have as replacement items for when something breaks or wears out.

I toured this Queen Anne mansion, "Hearthstone," on the Fox River, which was "the first place in the world to be electrified by hydroelectric power from a central Edison system."  According to the docent, one summer evening in 1882,  three-hundred people were standing across the street at dusk, just waiting and watching for the power to be flipped on for the first time.

So interesting!

The owner of Hearthstone owned multiple paper mills, as well as the first hydroelectric company in Wisconsin.

I always take a lot of photos on home tours.  I would love one day to be able to restore a Victorian home, and I get a lot of great ideas.

The original Edison light switches looked like this.

Hearthstone's moniker came from it's seven custom carved and tiled fireplaces.

Each fireplace had it's own set of custom tiles imported from Europe.

The tiles on this bedroom fireplace had a Charles Dickens theme.

This tile is an illustration from "The Pickwick Papers."

My next stop:

I really love visiting garden centers in different geographic areas; now I try to locate one if I'm in a new place and have opportunity.  There are often some unique plants I haven't found at home.

A few of my favorites in my Tennessee yard I bought in New York.

Anyway, here is the place I found in Appleton: "The Plant Place."

It was huge (and everything was 30% off).

I hoped to find a Wisconsin souvenir in the form of a cool plant, and here's what I got:

I just loved this planter!  And the echeveria plant I put in has the most beautiful salmon-pink flowers.

Both the plant and "pot" came from the store.

You may be shocked, but I *had* to visit this Goodwill.

(Which, incidentally, was extremely large and nice.  It was the first Goodwill I've ever been in that had a large section of brand new items...not that that's what I ever look for...)

Anyway, the day before I left for Wisconsin, I just happened to meet a girl from Wisconsin at work.

"You have to buy some cheese," she told me.  "You'll find the freshest cheese there."

Well, that sounded like a solid plan.

But once the husband and I arrived in Wisconsin, we realized we didn't think to bring a cooler (also handy for leftover vacation restaurant dinners).

So you see, I HAD to go to Goodwill...

And look what I found for $2.99?  We fit LOTS of cheese, plus a couple of restaurant take out containers in there.

And finally, here is the cheese specialty dairy store we drove to out in the middle of the country.

For a place that was seemingly in nowhere, it sure was packed with people.

I went one last place: a huge antique mall that was so big I went two days in a row.  But in the interest of keeping this not too long, I'll report on that tomorrow.

Now on to lunch; I've got some creamed spinach and truffled macaroni and cheese in the fridge from a steakhouse in Chicago to finish.

Good thing I found the $2.99 cooler!