The Wine, Cheese, Beer Tour for 2014 on September 20 & 21 re-visited some favorite sites in our neighbor to the north as we returned to the rollicking roads of Kettle Moraine country.

There were 23 registered cars attending and three additional last minute additions and over 40 attendees. Nine of the thirteen couples who attended the first WCB in 2005 were represented again at the tenth running of this event.

The weekend kicked off on Friday night with a dinner gathering at JMK Nippon in Rockford. The formal kickoff was Saturday morning in the lobby of the Quality Suite as organizers John and Ann Schroeder welcomed the participants and the route directions were passed out. The weather forecast of rain seemed to be backed up by large green bands closing in on us on the radar as we set out on a full morning of driving. We didn’t get too far and the skies cleared and the day turned pretty decent. We did pass over some recently wetted farm roads and a good deal of mud was kicked up by the tires and all over the cars (at least I hope that was mud — we were in cow country) which lead to some interesting looking cars by the first group rest stop (I can’t remember ever seeing mud caked on the sills like this on any of these cars. And Bill and Deb Mennell’s MGB had an impressive collection of mud spatters on the bonnet – apparently from following Drake Van Beek’s non-MG very closely).

Lunch was in Slinger, WI at Jim’s Place deep in the heart of Kettle Moraine country. We got a great taste of the twisty back roads of varying elevations that attracted sports car fans in the post-war period from all over the Midwest to compete first on road courses set up on these twisting roads and later to set up the renowned Road America track. Missed road signs and perhaps enjoying the scenery to much lead to a variety of improvised variations on the intended route, but everyone made it to Elkhart Lake where we lined Lake Street with MGs and headed to the famous racing bar — Siebken’s. To our surprise (especially John’s!) Siebken’s was not open for business. Steve LaFond salvaged the situation by locating an alternate drinking establishment in the form of the Tiki Bar at Victorian Village, right on the shore of Elkhart Lake.

From there it was a short drive south to Port Washington and our abode for the night on the waterfront by Lake Michigan. Dinner was a short walk down the street to Tello’s Grille & Cafe where John and Ann were presented with gift certificates in appreciation of starting and growing this event over the 10 years that they have put it on. They were also treated to being the subjects of an original Ralph Arata poem.

(Continued on page 13)