So, Is The Beer Lube Done Being Made?

Or, St Paul to Champaign via Pleasoning

If you ask Drew what his Saturday morning was like he would say, "A bunch of Alexis's friends started bouncing around the house at 7am getting ready to leave for their pilgramage in a rented mini-van."

Once everyone had arrived at my house we headed out for the airport to pick up our awesome RENTED mini-van. We took Drew's car out there and about half mile from my house my phone rang. "Ummm, are you bringing my car back?" "No Drew, we all left our stuff in the front lawn and are taking your Jeep on our road trip. Didn't we tell you?"

We think we made the rental man quite nervous. There was a series of questions about who was actually driving the car and when we said, "All five of us" it only made it worse. However when I decided to asked if the outside of the car had to be clean if say, we drove through a mud storm or wrote on the car with pink paint I think that we almost gave him a heart attack. The final straw was when he asked where we were going and Lisa responded, "You know, just driving. Driving around."

We finally got the car back, we loaded it up and decorated it up.



We hit the road and stopped for lunch at the Norske Nook near Osseo, WI.


At this restaurant we discovered another Wisconsin original "invention" Pleasoning. Pleasoning is a special blend of garlic salt, grains and MSG. Wisconsin is great. Not only is it home to the Beer Lube, but it is also home to Pleasoning.

We drove for a bit, but pulled over when we saw this:


We traveled on down the road, to The Home of The Beer Lube in Deforest, WI.



We first encountered this mecca of awesomeness back in October of last year on the way home from Chicago. We were too tired then to realize what a treasure was on the other side of the parking lot. We were fully able to explore The Home Of The Beer Lube on our way home from Milwaukee on the Megabus. At that time, The Beer Lube was still being manufactured. It was developed in those big yellow trailers.

Well, guess what? THEY PERFECTED THE BEER LUBE!!!! And I can only say that it was worth the wait. Now, you don't have to choose between having a beer and doing it (TM)!

We met Roger "Story" Beer, Esq. III who was super nice to us. Not only do we have a lifetime discount on The Beer Lube, but he was nice enough to give us each a Beer Lube T-Shirt.


Holla at Rog! We are hoping for a Beer Lube endorsement deal. We will pimp The Beer Lube ALL OVER TOWN if it gets us another show...or five.

After a few more hours, we finally arrived in Champaign, IL. The iHotel was wonderful. The rooms were a bit small but they were beautiful and the service was amazing. After a quick dinner at the attached Houlihans we headed to bed. We had work to do in the morning and needed our beauty rest.

In typical Project NKOTB fashion, we were awake by 6:30 AM. We are physically incapable of sleeping in. It's really freaking annoying. We decided to make the most of the day and do some bus stalking. Five women were awake, showered, dressed, made up, and ready to leave the room by 9:00 AM. Sick, wrong, and yet totally expected.

Also in typical Project NKOTB fashion, it was cold and rainy. All of our cute Face Time gear that we made was covered in many layers of jackets. We were very grateful for our Face Time camp chairs.


The entire day of bus stalking was fruitless, aside from a Twitter from Jon about the crazy bus stalkers standing in the rain, and Chris Coleman (not our mayor) coming out to say hi. He was thrilled to have his photo taken with the Project NKOTB action figures. He made sure that his new friend got in on the action.


Even the promise of cookies couldn't lure them out...
Betcha didn't know that you could safety pin things to trees...

After several hours in the cold rain and snow, we decided to pack it in. We heart the New Kids, but we're not willing to risk hypothermia. We freshened up and headed to Houlihan's an hour early for our pre-party.

Holla if you see yourself!


















Holla at our road trip sisters!






Holla at Ben S., our insanely patient waiter, who tried to work it so we could have New Kids tunes playing (unfortunately, Houlihan's is contractually obligated to play the Houlihan's Muzak Channel 24/7)




The Jabbawockeez were more entertaining than we'd expected. Neither of us watched that show that they were on (even though Alexis hearts JC Chasez in a sick kind of way) so we really didn't know what to expect.

Our seats were at the back of the arena for this show, in the first section of risers. It wasn't so bad, since the floor only seemed to have about 20 rows of seats. Our view of the B stage was beyond amazing. When it was elevated, we were at eye level with them. It was almost surreal...

The new opening:

We both agree that we like Single better as an opener. We could write a whole post about this, but we'll leave it for another day.

A few photos. The rest are here

We both hate this one (we look bad), but check out the cute shirts we made :)




Check our view of the B Stage:




Seriously - check this view.


O Hai Jordan










We stood outside for about five minutes after the show, but it was FREEZING. And we were TIRED. Tiff was a trooper and stayed until after midnight, but she finally gave up and came back to the hotel after a security guy said they'd be bringing Donnie out on a cart because he'd hurt his back. She figured it wasn't worth bothering an ailing man at that point... She reported to us that there were at least 30 cars idling nearby, waiting to follow the bus when it left.

Stay tuned for the Champaign > Des Moines adventure... coming soon!

XOXO, Holla, Aloha, Shakalaka boom,
Kim & Alexis