Targeted exile: It was the best Harvest Homecoming ever, both here and in Wisconsin.

Last Thursday morning we drove to Madison, Wisconsin, arriving back home earlier this afternoon.

This journey comes down to two fundamental facts.

1. We both richly enjoy Madison, Wisconsin.

2. We both have little use for Harvest Homecoming.

As for the former, in the coming days I'll backdate photos and commentary in an effort to partially explain the attraction.

With regard to the latter, I'm no longer involved with a downtown business (or as in 2015, seeking elected office). Beyond reforming the Harvest Homecoming behemoth, my personal interest in the festival wasn't ever great.

To me, it's an 800-lb gorilla, and likely to remain one for the foreseeable future.

So be it.

I'll continue to do my little bit to support year-round local businesses. Beyond that, the swill-laden road is long, the windmills are mighty big, and tilting at them makes the arms grow tired.

In all seriousness, when it comes to such celebrations, New Albany should have exactly what it wants, good and hard. Concurrently, a nice autumn weekend out of town seems an elegant and fair solution for the Confidentials.

If you can't beat them and have no intention of joining them, then bolting Nawbany for a road trip is the next best thing.

Cheers -- and why aren't the streets running two ways?

Did Irv self-immolate in the punkin patch during our absence?

All the Northern Road Trip posting links collected in one place.

Because it's easier that way. We left town on Friday, July 25, and returned on August 4. The final tally was just shy of 2,000 miles and a weight gain (for me alone) of only 5 pounds.

Northern Road Trip, Day 1: Back to glorious Madison, Wisconsin.

Northern Road Trip, Day 2: Quality time near Madison's two lakes.

Northern Road Trip, Day 3: Twin Cities, Twins game, twin transit.

Northern Road Trip, Day 4: St. Paul and some really Great Waters.

Northern Road Trip, Day 5.1: Hmong House ... food and culture in North St. Paul.

Northern Road Trip, Day 5.2: Sculpture Garden and the Stone Arch Bridge.

Northern Road Trip, Day 6: Introduction to Duluth.

Northern Road Trip, Day 7: Duluth lakeshore walking ... and walking ... and walking.

Northern Road Trip, Day 8: A Thirsty Pagan in Superior, Wisconsin.

Northern Road Trip, Day 9: Down to Dubuque for the weekend.

Northern Road Trip, Day 10: My birthday in Galena with Ulysses S. Grant.

Northern Road Trip, Day 11: A couple thousand miles later, back where we started.

Northern Road Trip, Day 11: A couple thousand miles later, back where we started.

Dubuque was in the rear view mirror by 5:45 a.m., followed by several hundred miles of your favorite Great American Midwestern Interstate. Seven hours later, we were home, finishing about 60 miles shy of 2,000 for the journey.

No, I'm not customarily a road trip kind of guy. Cars are not my thing. I'd rather take trains ... if we had them.

Still, it was fun. Not as fun as Europe ... but you know how it is with beggars like me.

Northern Road Trip, Day 9: Down to Dubuque for the weekend.

The Iowa city of Dubuque may strike you as a curious place to choose when it comes to plotting a 54th birthday celebration. It helps to know that Duluth is a 13-hour drive from Louisville, and Dubuque's tourist support apparatus is adept at squeezing the most out of the least.

Thus, Dubuque. It's a Mississippi River port still recovering, with a casino installed to single-handedly reverse fortunes (it never works that way, does it?) and a huge stock of historic architecture downtown, much of which is in need of immediate TLC.

In short, a sense of familiarity.

When consulting Open Table to book seats at the L. May Eatery, I saw ten listings for Dubuque. Eight of them actually are situated in Galena, 20 miles away across the Illinois border. This is to say that if you ever find yourself in Dubuque, just visit the L. May Eatery, as we did on Saturday and Sunday; we highly recommend it.

We walked and explored, then dined. There were adult beverages, and a cigar later in the evening. After all, it was my designated birthday soiree.

After dinner, just down the street from the faded elegance of the Redstone, following another round at Monk's Kaffee Pub (the best beer list in town) ...

 ... we boarded the most interesting form of transportation in Dubuque: The Fenelon Place Elevator.

Here is how it looks sober.

Following are two Dubuque parting views from Sunday night, after an excursion to Galena, and in route to our second meal of the weekend at L. May.

Northern Road Trip, Day 8: A Thirsty Pagan in Superior, Wisconsin.

Duluth is in Minnesota, and Superior in Wisconsin. The two cities are considered as one in terms of the metropolitan area, and they comprise one big and important port. We spent much of the day in Superior on Friday, August 1, and it seemed to us that Superior is to Duluth as Oakland is to San Francisco; it's an admittedly shallow observation, but one seemingly borne out here: Duluth vs. Superior

Yes, Superior has an ample supply of payday loan storefronts and empty lots… but you can buy booze on Sundays and have fires on the beach. Advantage Wisconsin.

That said, we had much fun in Superior, which to me is pleasantly summarized by this photo.

More specifically, there was a drive to nearby Wisconsin Point, where the lighthouse at the Lake Superior entry can be accessed via ankle busting boulders. We duly clambered over them.

Lunch was at the Thirsty Pagan Brewing Company. Upon being seated, the first thing I noticed when the server passed through the swinging kitchen door was a familiar growler, situated second from the right atop the walk-in cooler.

It was a very good omen. The beer and pizza were superlative, and the vibe somewhat "Rich O's" in overall feel.

The Thirsty Pagan brewer is Allyson Rolph, who gave us a brief tour. Her house beer lineup, brewed on two small systems, was nicely balanced -- something I'm coming more and more to appreciate. Thirsty Pagan's ABVs generally are on a milder end of the spectrum, but there was plenty of interest, including a dark spruce-spiced ale and a brown ale with rhubarb.

I didn't have a bad beer in Duluth, and in fact, they all were quite good. Consequently, I'll probably catch a measure of flak for saying it, but seriously, and in my brief experience in the area, the best beer in Duluth is found across the state line, in Superior, at Thirsty Pagan.

It's just my opinion, and with purely intentional analogies to the metro Louisville area, of course.

Returning to Duluth later in the afternoon, we parked across from Leif Erickson Park and caught the pedway downtown, emerging at Tycoons Alehouse & Eatery, located in the restored former city hall in the epicenter of downtown. Tycoons, which is a nod to Duluth's gilded age glory, serves Fitger's beer and offers a local smoked fish appetizer plate.

A better way to say goodbye to Duluth? I can't think of one.

Northern Road Trip, Day 6: Introduction to Duluth.

The first time I can recall seeing a timber wolf, it wasn't Kevin Love cleaning the boards. Rather, it was a real wolf, bounding across a highway that looked like this ...

 ... and missing the car by a few feet. It was that close, and shocked me so badly that later, I was compelled to drink beer at Fitger's.

At any rate, we made the two-hour drive from Minneapolis to Duluth on Wednesday morning, July 30, having elected to navigate the back roads rather than the interstate. It was uneventful apart from the close encounter with a timber wolf. For those interested in Northwoods history, outdoor recreation, honest food and great beer, Duluth and adjoining Superior, Wisconsin have much to offer.

Around the year 1900, Duluth had more millionaires per capita than any other American city. The reason was shipping. There was iron ore and timber to be sent across Lake Superior to fuel the Gilded Age, and the middlemen and ship owners made considerable bank. Their homes and commercial buildings remain largely intact. Today Duluth is more than a lake port; it's a bona fide seaport, because ocean-going vessels can reach it via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Appropriately, we boarded the Vista Star for an afternoon tour of the harbor, and learned that last winter's harshness as yet is causing delays to Great Lakes shipping schedules, as the catch-up game continues into August.

Our airbnb hosts noted that while 30-below days always are to be expected in Duluth, the past winter featured day after day of bitter cold, making the city's 3.5 miles of climate-controlled skywalks even more essential. Our hosts were young and delightful, and a Bengal cat named Leo to die for.

Like other ports from Vladivostok to San Francisco, Duluth clings to a ridge facing the water. It is a long and narrow city. on the north side of downtown, easily walked from Canal Park via the lakeside pedway, is the old Fitger's brewery building. Think of it as the Falls City of Duluth, and like Louisville's Falls City, there also is a newer, exemplary Fitger's brewing company. It operates on multiple levels of the 19th-century premises, which also contains shops and a hotel. Of the following images, the lakefront panorama of the Fitger's building and the label are borrowed images.

That's right: Buy a pre-filled growler of Fitger's beer, but first, you must decide whether you'd like glass, plastic or aluminum. We returned to Fitger's later, and my salad of greens, Minnesota wild rice and smoked local trout was superb.

On Thursday, we planned to leave the car at our residence and go walking. It turned out to be quite a lot of steps.

Northern Road Trip, Day 4: St. Paul and some really Great Waters.

The Bobbin House Studio, our airbnb base in Minneapolis, lies astride the Green Line light rail at a point roughly between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Conceding that the population of the Twin Cities metropolitan area is 2.5 times larger than Louisville's, it's almost as though we had not one but two cities the size of The Ville to choose from, depending on whether the Green Line took us east or west.

On Monday morning, our second day without needing the car, we opted for "east" and exited the Green Line at the state capital complex above St. Paul. A short walk away is St. Paul (duh), a St. Peters-lookalike cathedral perched seemingly on the highest point in the city. Acknowledging the museums and state apparatchik offices on both sides of the grand boulevard linking the two, the scene conjured old memories of various former Eastern Europe principalities.

Trust me: When the church is on a hill higher than the royal palace's, it's time to begin worrying about the veracity if secular governance.

Just past the cathedral is Summit Avenue (simple two-way street grid with bike lanes pictured above, sans multi-million dollar medians), a mind-blowing collection of historic monied architecture extending as far as the eye can see, or aching feet can carry you. Cupola fatigue claimed us after a few blocks, and we began searching for a place to rest. We'd been told that nearby Grand Avenue was the place to go for indie ambience, but we found far too many chains (why do so many places take this gift-card-mall approach?), and so reversed field and walked all the way downtown, where the Great Waters Brewing Company welcomed us for lunch.

The server was a polite, bearded music school student who had not been on the job for long but did a good job with the beer program. He shared with us that his hometown of Le Roy, down by the Iowa border, was largely without opportunity, and that farming wasn't easy with most agricultural careers in the hands of multinational agribusiness.

We rested, rehydrated and grazed on appetizers, Rasta Wings and a tuna wrap. The brewery's cask-conditioned, session-strength ales were excellent ... and I even bought the t-shirt. The Green Line's St. Paul terminus is close by the brewpub, and we boarded there for a return trip past our residence to Minneapolis, and a stroll to the Mississippi's downtown passage.

Oddly, this scene in St. Paul will stay with me.

It's a skywalk, temporarily disconnected pending the construction of a new building. Some sweet day, there'll be (re)closure.

Another memory of St. Paul is a reminder of swill daze past.

Northern Road Trip, Day 3: Twin Cities, Twins game, twin transit.

The last time I witnessed a Minnesota Twins home game, Reggie Jackson was playing for the visiting Baltimore Orioles.

For students of baseball, this carbon-dates me; specifically, back to the age of almost 16 in 1976, when the Twins played at Metropolitan Stadium. Now, after more than two decades trapped in the mercifully demolished Metrodome (currently the spot where the new Vikings football stadium is being constructed), the team has a gleaming new park called Target Field, located in downtown Minneapolis.

It is open-air and quite nice, combining the expected retro touches with space age technology, like stations where you can fill your own overpriced mass-market beer. Fortunately, craft beer is freely available, if not free, and there are numerous contemporary food options. For adventurous sorts, there also are actual games, and ours resulted in a Twins win over the White Sox.

However, the best thing about a game at Target Field is that with adept advance planning, one needn't drive a car to reach it.

In fact, a light rail station is attached to Target Field. We drove into Minneapolis from Madison on Sunday morning, a few minutes after 11:00 a.m. and checked in with our airbnb hosts at the Bobbin House Studio. A Green Line light rail station is located three walking minutes away on University Avenue. Twenty minutes later, for a couple bucks each in round-trip tickets, we were at Target Field, prepared to forage in advance of the 1:10 p.m. game time.

After the game was over, we decided to walk to Black Sheep, a delicious coal-fired pizzeria situated in the revitalizing warehouse district just west of downtown. The walk took us past Fulton Brewery, which functions now as I belatedly wish Bank Street Brewhouse would have all along.

Back at the Bobbin House via the Green Line, a brief respite yielded to a walk through the tidy left-leaning neighborhood, which in turn led to the left bank of the Mississippi River.

And there sat the car, in the driveway throughout.

Northern Road Trip, Day 2: Quality time near Madison's two lakes.

(backdated according to my usual unique custom)

I've already taken (yet another) look at the impossibly huge Saturday morning farmers market in Madison, Wisconsin. Somehow it thrives based entirely on its own merits, sans "improvements" that serve mostly as window dressing for the organizers. Read about it here:

Multitudinous farmers market. Zero permanent infrastructure.

There's a noticeable festive ripple effect from the market, filling nearby parking garages (people in New Albany just don't like them -- it an aesthetic suburbanite anti-thing), and spilling merrily down State Street, which angles from the capital square toward the University of Wisconsin campus and offers shops and cafes aplenty ... and street corner yoga.

After a couple hours and the ghastly sum of maybe $3 to park in one of those horrible garages, we drove through campus to Picnic Point at Lake Mendota, the larger of two bodies of water on each side of the capital isthmus.

Yes, we actually picnicked there.

Then it was often to what has become my favorite of Madison's breweries, Vintage Brewing Company, for a couple of rounds while Diana shopped nearby.

Sated, it was time for a short drive through the center and a stroll through the Olbrich Park Botanical Gardens, facing Lake Monona.

It's a Thai shrine at the Botanical Garden, sans pad thai.

Botanically exhausted, we set up camp by the shore of Lake Monona and enjoyed the day's second picnic. It may have included two discretely dispensed gin and tonics, and was so relaxing that I promptly fell asleep.

Relaxation.

Some times one must depart from Truck Through City to find some.

Northern Road Trip, Day 1: Back to glorious Madison, Wisconsin.

(backdated, according to my quaint custom)

It's all quite simple, really.

The missus had an unexpected opportunity to change jobs, and grabbed it, leaving us with the chance to load up the car and embark on a Great American Road Trip.

First stop was an old favorite: Madison, capital of Wisconsin. Lunch was at the amazing Ha Long Bay, a Williamson Street staple with Vietnamese, Thai and Laotian specialties. Afterward we strolled for almost two hours in the vicinity, taking advantage of walker- and cyclist-friendly streets.

Late afternoon beers were enjoyed amid competitive Scrabble at a picnic table inside the Capital Brewing beer garden, Middleton. The evening ended on the terrace of the Great Dane Brewing branch in Fitchburg, with the air so cool we had to wear sweaters.