Must all good things come to an end?
Valley Fish and Cheese, my favorite Wisconsin Roadside shop is closed. :(
Does anyone know where I can get a can of snapping turtle dicks? I had one in the tank bag of my 1976 BMW R90 motorcycle for several years until desperate times called for desperate measures. The purpose of a tank bag snack is to provide sustenance when all other options are exhausted. When such a scenario presents itself, a can of turtle dicks is quite the welcome treat. This “in case of emergency break glass” snack was provided by my friends Rich and Tina McCullough on our very first motorcycle trip to Wisconsin. We purchased it along with several paper-wrapped pounds of smoked carp, catfish, sheep head and a few other various bottom feeder varieties of fish from the Valley Fish and Cheese shop in Prairie Du Chien, WI.
For those of you who are easily shocked or offended and may have summarily unsubscribed from my ill-illustrious substack column because of its mention of turtle dicks, you should know I believe that they are actually just (SPOILER ALERT) repackaged Vienna Sausages.
I stopped there last week on my way from Decorah, IA (where I had played a solo show the night before) to Chicago, IL for the Fretboard Summit representing my guitar case brand Guitar Satchel. Driving through the Driftless Region is one of my favorite routes in the country. I love the winding, rolling hills and the bucolic scenery. I also love the roadside attractions and creative mom and pop restaurants and shops. Can you say House on the Rock? A topic for another time. After that first stop at Valley Fish and Cheese I ALWAYS made a point of choosing a route that would allow a stop either to or fro any destination through the four corners of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Sometimes I went out of my way as much as 100 miles to stop there.
Back to the first time…Rich and Tina McCullough were regulars. We were chasing them on their motorcycles. They knew the way. We had dawdled around Wisconsin all day and we were burning as much daylight as we were burning oil in my 49 year old air-cooled boxer engined German motorcycle. We had about 45 minutes to cover about 60 minutes worth of twisty Wisconsin backroads if we wanted to get there before they flipped the sign on the door. Rich and Tina were each on their own bike but Emma and I were riding two up and we were weighed down by luggage and camping supplies.
Needless to say we made it…barely, but with enough time to stock up on the nights provisions. We bought several pounds of smoked fish the likes of which would normally make you scoff. I don’t know whether it was the day spent huffing fumes off the horizontally opposed cylinders of the “Airhead Beemer” or the tingling in my fingers and toes from the daylong vibration from the grooves in the asphalt but something made that smoked carp mighty palatable. We had camped the night before so on this night we sprung for the luxurious accommodations of the 150 year old boarding house style Alexander Hotel in MgGregor, IA which is on the other side of the river from Prairie Du Chien. We sat on the veranda of that hotel shrugging off the chill of the evening in our riding leathers while stuffing our faces with greasy handfuls of fish. I had never eaten anything so tasty.
Last Friday, I went out of my way a little and opted out of a hike at Effigy Mounds state park and a visit with Ranger Brian Gibbs (
wrote about Brian back in March) just so I could make a stop only to find out that after 40 years of serving up smoked fish, turtle and frog legs that they were no longer in business.My heart sank. My stomach growled. If only I had driven a little faster, if only I had visited more often, if only I had told more friends. If only dollar general hadn’t opened up around the corner…OF EVERY TOWN! I don’t know why they closed. I don’t know if I could have made a difference. All I know is it a loss that we won’t replace any time soon. I already miss it.
A few more pictures just for old times sake….
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A few that I have been enjoying lately that I would encourage you to read include:
Wini Moranville: Wini’s Food Stories
Christie Vilsack: Common Ground
Douglas Burns: The Iowa Mercury
Phoebe Wall Howard: Shifting Gears, Detroit, MI
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P.S. - I have gotten to know many of the people mentioned in this post at the Okoboji Writers Retreat. If you haven’t signed up yet, I highly recommend attending. It is inspirational, motivational and memorable. It is also life changing…able. For more info visit the Okoboji Writers Retreat website.
Wonderful writing! I could taste the smoked fish and felt the wind in my whiskers as I rode along beside you. It also made me rethink the notion of "nostalgia." Should we make a distinction between remembering what was recently lost vs. what was lost long ago? Are thoughts of what was recently lost more painful, whereas perhaps we have come to terms with what was lost long ago? Do we romanticize both the same way? It seems not...
Fun story! Love your vintage bikes.