City of Trolls -- Mount Horeb Wisconsin

                                                        

When people ask me where some of my favorite travel destinations have been, Mount Horeb is near the top of the list.  A town in Wisconsin with under 10,000 people, yet I have so many memories and photos of there. 

In 2017, my husband and I went to the Church of the Nazarene General Assembly in Indianapolis, as it was a closer way to get to a college reunion for me than going to Tennessee.  Afterwards, my husband and I decided to travel through the midwest a bit, going out to Antique Archeology in Iowa and then heading back.  It's a bucket list item for me to travel to all 50 states, so we did what, as a child I used to call "the longcut" and went through southern Wisconsin so we could travel through another state.

I was getting restless, and wanted to stop and do something, so I started checking my apps.  Apps I generally check when I'm getting restless on a road trip are for thrift stores, Roadside America (I have the upgraded version for the entire USA, and it's been well worth it to me, especially since my state and the next state from me are in different regions), and geocaching. I saw on Roadside America that we were close to Mount Horeb, and it said it was filled with trolls.  Needless to say, this intrigued me and I found a geocache in that town that had good reviews, told my husband to put it in the GPS and we were off.

Also, the geocache I put into the GPS?  It was located at a local business -- outside so it could be accessed anytime.  It's commonplace for "swag" to be exchanged in geocaches, and this geocache was filled with great swag from the insurance company.  So, we have a pizza cutter advertising an insurance agency in Mount Horeb that we used regularly!  When having a fun meal, it's a great way to remember a welcoming town that we would have missed if it hadn't been for the trolls.

Amazingly, this town has almost two dozen trolls.  They are expertly carved, and we went from troll to troll taking photos.  According to the Mount Horeb Chamber of Commerce in the 1970s a store put a troll in their lawn to attract business and truckers started talking about it.  When a bypass was built, the town decided to put up trolls to attract visitors.  I have to say, it worked.  We stopped at a town we otherwise would have missed to visit all the trolls.  We had fun, went to a local bar and ordered Wisconsin cheese curds.  The waitress reminded me of my grandmother, and that was a lot of fun.  She was thrilled to serve a couple their very first cheese curds.  She was quite interested in the fact we were from West Virginia and just decided to stop in. 

Another fun memory is while we were taking photos of the trolls, we found a couple painted rocks.  This was when the trend was just starting and it was the first painted rock I had ever found.  It just seemed to round out the enjoyment of our detour off the Interstate into a friendly town in the midwest before continuing on our journey.

When Getting There is ALL of the Fun - Cadillac Ranch

I can't remember a time I wasn't in love with the thought of travel.  I was a preschooler when I watched my aunt board a tiny plane in Morgantown, West Virginia.  I wouldn't see her again for years.  I remember crying and asking why I was crying and why it made me sad.  The innocence of a child.  My aunt was making her way to Alaska to start a new life there.

Alaska became the far away place I originally found most interesting.  After all, I knew someone in that cold part of the world.

When I was seven, I was so excited because in my school in second grade we got pen-pals.  I can remember thinking Tulsa seemed so exotic from my small town in West Virginia where we had homemade lunches by a school cook in her 80s, no stoplight in town, and our Dairy Queen closed every winter because there wasn't enough demand for ice cream during snow storms.

Pizza Hut Rewards & Travel Hack for App Ordering

I received no compensation for this post.  I just wanted to make everyone aware of the points program and the app!

Did you know about the new Pizza Hut "Hut Rewards" program?  Since I love to earn points on all kinds of things, I signed up when I heard about it.  Unfortunately, you can't earn rewards unless you order on the app or online.  (So there goes points for my occasional lunch buffet purchase.) But it's super easy to sign up.  The rewards seem reasonable, too.  I hate "rewards" programs where you have to earn for years to earn anything.  It only takes 200 points to get a free medium pizza, and last night, our $10 order yielded us 36 points.  (Too bad this didn't exist a few months ago when we ordered 4 pizzas to take a a work crew of teenagers who were volunteering time to help repair homes in our area for people who couldn't afford to hire it done, but next year, when I order online, I'll be happy to know our order counts for points!)

How to Protect Your Phone from Water and Summer Heat

FTC disclosure:  This is a sponsored post.  All opinions are my own.  This post may contain affiliate links.

What if I told you the best way to protect your iPhone 7 from heat and water is to stay indoors all summer?  Well, that would likely do the trick unless you dropped your phone in the toilet, but it wouldn't be very much fun, would it?  Well, here's a few ideas on how you can have fun and protect your phone.

With many manufactures recommend keeping a phone between 32 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit ( zero through thirty-five Centigrade) summer is a time you need to make sure your phone doesn't exceed the maximum recommended temperature.  If a phone overheats, the insides may become damaged, causing different problems from data loss to the battery could leak, or even explode and ruin the device completely.  I don't know about you, but I want my vacation photos of us visiting a town in Wisconsin that had a ton of trolls.  When you get my husband and me near a statue, we love taking goofy photos, and our photos of our trip through the midwest is something I want to keep forever.

5 Tips for Using Your Phone at Music Festival or Hobby Convention

FTC disclaimer:  This is a sponsored post.  All opinions are my own.

Growing up, I loved summer camp.  In fact, last year I took my husband to "family camp", and we had a blast.  I thought my summer camp days were over when I graduated high school but I learned there is so much more out there that I go to and experience -- and much of it is special interest related. This summer I am hoping to go to a church's general assembly so I can attend the alumni banquet for one of my colleges.  Next summer I hope to go to the national sweepstakes convention.

One thing I never leave behind, though, is my iPhone 7 plus from U.S. Cellular.  Because U.S. Cellular has nationwide coverage, I've had service from Maine to California and points in between.  (Yes, I know this for a fact -- I have traveled to both coasts and still have been able to keep in touch with friends.)  I'm not alone in using my phone to assist in planning my trips.  Nearly four out of five people do the same.

Budapest Hungary Cat Cafe

Last month, my husband and I visited Budapest Hungary.  I'm not much of a cat person, but he is, so when I saw the card at our hotel for 10% off if you took in the card, I decided going to the cat cafe could be interesting.

I'd never heard of such a thing, but I don't have TV, so it's not unusual for me to miss news of unique things like this.  From my understanding, there are a number of these in the world.

The food was good, and everything cat cat themed.  There were rules for visiting, such as the cats had the reign of the cafe, no flash photography, etc.

To keep things sanitary, the food was prepared in an area closed off by glass so the cats couldn't get in the food prep area.  The cats' litter box was downstairs.

Budapest Hungary 3-D Art Gallery

Last month, my husband and I returned from a trip to Budapest, Hungary.  This is a first in a series of posts relating some of the things we did while we were there.  I received no compensation for this post, it was a fun experience, and wanted to share this neat idea.

Many places in Budapest close at 6 pm.  Because of jet lag, we were still fully awake of an evening and not really into the nightclub scene so we look at the lobby cards to see if we could find anything open a little later.  There was a 10% off coupon for the 3D Art Gallery.  Those of you who are regulars to this blog know I'm a coupon fan, and to be using a coupon overseas just made me laugh.