Double Brats - Summer in Sheboygan

If you snort in blanched humor when you hear that we live in Sheboygan, join the club. After all, it's just funny to say Sheboygan, isn't it?

Outside Wisconsin, Sheboygan would be synonymous with podunk. Teensy. But in reality, Sheboygan is closer to a resort town.
It's really nice to live here thanks to Elkhart Lake, The American Club, and a couple of other really big resorts. Sheboygan is actually considered a "getaway" for people from Chicago that think driving two hours north of them is considered "Up North". (They obviously haven't seen where my parents live...now that's Up North!)

Anyway, one of the things that Sheboygan is famous for is bratwurst. If you've never had a bratwurst or worse yet, don't know what one is, shame on you. Wisconsin is all about bratwurst. Sheboygan is home to Johnsonville Brats, Old Wisconsin, and a few other brat stops, including Miesfeld's Meat Market, which is actually included in the Sheboygan Chamber of Commerce Tourism Guide. To Miesfeld's credit, they do have an impressive selection of more than 30 kinds of bratwurst. Any town that features a meat market in their tourism guide must really love their bratwurst.

Sheboygan was actually featured on ESPN last year for the giant Johnsonville Brat-Eating Contest that takes place the first weekend in August. (Associated with an entire weekend festival called Brat Days.) These people are serious about their brats.

So it should come as no surprise that today's pictures feature our family enjoying what else? Brats. Double-brats, in fact. (Which are two bratwurst on a single Sheboygan Hard Roll.) And beans. And potato salad. We like to celebrate summer with bratwurst. The first grilled brats of the year are always a symbol - we're done with winter and onto warmer weather, shorts, and flip-flops.

Jim is having a pretty good week. He's getting infra-red light therapy for his neuropathy. He's excited about that because he'd love to get the sensation back in his feet, but also because it means that he gets to hang out with his friend Ken. He's not nauseated. He is tired, but he's not bone tired. And the pain in his stomach...that's still going on. But they've given him permission to take painkillers and that seems to help.

We celebrated the end of Jim's chemo week with brats, beans and potato salad from the Kohler Firemen's Brat Fry. Dinner is always better when you don't have to cook it.