“How was your weekend?”

When people ask, “how was your weekend?” and all you can do is giggle… you know you’ve had a good weekend.

The weekend started with the premise that Laura Ann (photographer), Caity B (photographer), Elly (model) and myself would head to the Chicago ‘Burbs M&G for about 30 minutes, and would then head up to the first ever Milwaukee M&G.  We booked a hotel room, had everything planned out, well in advance, and headed on our way.  We were a little behind schedule, but I had really good directions, and everything was going fine.

Until we exited the highway, heading west.  That was our first mistake.  Our second mistake was our faith in the Wisconsin road system.  Apparently they don’t believe in street signs west of the highway out there in WI.  We passed street after street that just wasn’t marked!  Guh.  No doubt, the Cheeseheads on the road were wondering what the hell the car-full of FIPs was doing.

Anyway, 45 minutes of extremely funny U-turns later, and we found our hotel.  Turns out, we’d headed the wrong direction after exiting the highway, and our hotel was less than 2 blocks from the exit.  D’oh! Oh well, we found the hotel, so we were good.  In giggling fits, but good.

Our next challenge? Parking, oddly enough.  The parking lot at the hotel was packed!  So we circled.  And circled.  And ah-ha!  A spot opening up!  So I went to pull in… and it just wasn’t going to happen.  Seriously, the spot was more like 1/4 spot.  After much giggling and wondering how the car that had just exited the spot got in (let alone how the driver got in the car in the first place), we found a spot at the back of the lot, and proceeded to make our way to the front desk to check in.

Turns out, despite my reservation being for 4 adults, they put us in a room with a single king bed.  As you can imagine, more giggling ensued, even by the woman at the counter.  We asked to be put in a room with 2 queens, and were moved (after more giggling).

And then, our first tear-inducing episode of laughter.

The woman at the front desk informed us of how to get to our room, which was in building one (I have no idea what building we were actually in at that point).  She started with the directions: down the long hallway, to the left at the first intersection, down another hallway, a right at another intersection, down another hallway, and then we’d be the third hallway on the left.  That in itself was rather funny (more giggling).  But then the front desk clerk says, “and if you get lost along the way, there are courtesy phones along the way”.  We were all holding it together…

And then Caity snorted!

We barely made “thank you” out, between the belly laughs and the tears streaming from our eyes, and headed on our way.  By the time we got to our room, we had tears streaming down our faces and our sides hurt.  We did come across the courtesy phones along the way, which made us laugh even harder, but we didn’t get lost.

Our room was awesome.  The bathroom was pink!  But it was time to go to the M&G.

We got back to the car and Elly picked up the directions.  And burst into laughter.  The first direction?  “Make a right out of the parking lot, and make a U-turn…”.  Yea.  It was quite funny.  Especially since we didn’t have to even make a U-turn!

And then of course, we got lost again. Somehow, we managed to get lost.  No idea how.  And just as I was about to make, yet another, U-turn Laura informs us that we’re at the street we need to be on.  Normally, this wouldn’t be all that funny.  But Laura has a stutter.  Yet somehow, she was able to perfectly pronounce “Kinnickinnic”.  My graceful self asked her how in the world she could prounouce that, yet she can’t say her own name.  Luckily, Laura’s good-natured, and found my ribbing just as funny as the rest of us, because we were all laughing pretty damn hard.  I’m pretty sure she’s the only one who can still pronounce the f-in’ street name.

We made it to the M&G.  I believe we were 2 hours past it’s technical end time of 9P.  But we made it.  Luckily people were still there, or I’d be posting a cell phone picture of 3 of us standing in front of the place.  Most of the folks left were people I already knew (and a few Chicagoans), but it was good to see them 🙂  We shut the place down, and then headed back to the hotel.  Where we went to sleep right away, because we were stupidly tired.

Actually, no.  We were stupidly tired, but we decided instead to get food.  And instead of venturing somewhere else and getting lost, again, we opted to eat at Denny’s, which was right next to the hotel.  Somehow the 4 of us managed to order 4 variations of 2 dishes (which we found very silly), and giggled our way through food, and made it back to the hotel in one piece (and no U-turns).

We had planned to shoot a bit at the hotel, but frankly, we were just too tired.  So, after working out the sleeping arrangements, Elly made her bed on the floor (she wanted to, honest!), Caity got in her bed, and Laura and I snuggled in together.  Ok, we didn’t snuggle.  But we got in bed.  Lights went out, and we were on our way to peaceful dreams.

Until I insisted that I heard beeping. I still swear I did.  It was like someone in another room was wearing an old Timex watch, and the alarm was going off.  But I heard beeping.  No one else heard it though, but my insistence got everyone listening really hard.

And then… BEEP BEEP! Laura got a text.  Loud as can be!  We just about died.  It was hilarious.  I’m laughing about it right now.  The timing was just impeccable. And once we quieted down, I insisted that I still heard the beeping (because, dammit, I did).  Laura got a second text, resulting in more loud beeps, and more hysterical laughter from all 4 of us.

I’m sure our neighbors were real pleased with us, haha.

We fell asleep giggling, but there was no more beeping.

In the morning, we headed out without incident. We didn’t get lost (it was way easier to find our way around in daytime anyway), and the way home was something I was fairly familiar with, so we were good.  We stopped at A&W for, uh, breakfast (which was more like lunch by the time we ate).  There was giggling, and just fun, despite us still being pretty tired.

The night before, we’d decided to stop at the Mars Cheese Castle on the way home.  And, as luck would have it, it was super easy to get to, and open! So we went.  There was giggling, because we were all excited for the Cheese Castle (I mean, come on, how can you not be excited for a place called the Cheese Castle?!).

But then, I found this:

(Photo credit: Caity B x2 😉 )

In case you can’t tell, that’s a salami.  Shaped like a beer bottle. Labeled like a beer bottle!  MGD, to be exact, but there were other options.

For real.  That’s a whole lotta awesome.

The Mars Cheese Castle?  Yea, it’s my new favorite place 😀

We made it out of the Cheese Castle in one piece, after more giggles (cow-shaped cheese was also present), and trying some fun things (salmon-cheese, anyone?), and buying some stuff.  And, um, I stole a sticker 🙂

The drive home was pretty uneventful after that.  There was more laughing (though I honestly can’t remember what about… likely beeping and beer-sausage).  I dropped Caity off at the train station, Elly off at home, and Laura and I headed back to my place so she could pick up her car.  Once we got into IL we were on my turf, so there was no more U-turning (oh, no, leaving the train station I had to drive in a circle, and got lauged at by some random guy).

So that was our weekend.  One night in Milwaukee, filled with hilarity, and an endless supply of silly inside jokes.  Good times.  For sure!