Season 4 starts January 23rd, 2025

Winona, MN, is a city of 26,000 very lucky people, built on a Mississippi River sandbar.
At Willet Hauser, artists make stained glass. Watkins Co. employees make tons of vanilla, and the crew at Wenonah Canoe make – guess. Sugar Loaf Bluff is paradise for climbers, Yarnology is home for knitters and NOSH is heaven for John, because he’s an eater!

On the corner of Myrtle and Main Streets in Stillwater, Minnesota began.
So why here? Well… when Wisconsin became a state in 1848, that left people west of the St. Croix river “high and dry” with no government.

So, the people of Stillwater held a territorial convention right here and voted to send a delegate to Washington D.C. to organize a new territory called “Minnesota” which became a territory in 1849, and a state in 1858.

Formed more than 10-thousand years ago by glaciers, the area was first home the Miami and Potawatomi tribes. The area quickly thrived thanks to its location to not just Lake Michigan, but also rivers –helping the fur trade and eventually steel production, flourish. But water wasn’t the only mode of transpiration that brought in commerce. Railroads brought in goods and people.

Today, the Indiana Dunes are a hot spot for visitors in the Midwest and beyond.

Rochester is located in Southeastern Minnesota. It’s about an hour and a half drive south west of the Twin Cities and about 50 miles due east of Winona on the Mississippi River. Today, Rochester has residents and visitors from all around the world. The population of the city is about 120,000 and the Mayo Clinic employs over 40,000 of them.

Red Wing, Minnesota, isn’t named after the famous shoe company. It’s the other way around. See the world’s largest boot and do some shoe shopping, but also be sure to walk down to the Mississippi to watch the boats, spend time in charming downtown, climb Barn Bluff, and celebrate the return of the bison with the Prairie Island Indian Community.

Waukesha, Wisconsin, is known as Guitar Town because it’s where Les Paul was born. But it’s also home to so much more than that.

Le Claire is a storied river town, a classic Mississippi River port that boomed in the mid-19th century. The old river pilot homes are still here, which are testament to the fact that river pilots were needed because here is where the river makes a sharp turn to the...

Austin MN is home to Hormel Foods’ world-famous SPAM Museum. But meat lovers like John McGivern also must stop at Knauer’s Meat Market and the Tendermaid Sandwich Shop. Nature lovers can’t miss the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center. And if you plan to visit at the right times, you can be wowed by the Oaxacan basketball tournament or the Austinaires.

This charming town in northwest Illinois is named after a mineral mined here 20 years before the gold rush in California.

Grand Rapids, Michigan was once known as Furniture City. Now thanks to craft brewers, it’s self-coined as Beer City.

The Menomonee Valley in Milwaukee Wisconsin is becoming a vital and
happening place.

In Milwaukee WI’s Menomonie Valley, the Harley Davidson Museum,
Palermo’s, Potowatomi Casino and BBC Lighting are well known and always fun. But there’s more happening here. Do you like pickled foods? Bay View Packing is for you. Art? Warehouse Art Museum is unreal. How about eating and drinking? Twisted Fisherman and Third Space Brewing got you!

n 1900, Kalamazoo was the celery capital of the world! No kidding. The nearby “mucklands” –which must not exist where I live-are perfect for growing celery! Earlier, in the second half of the 1800’s, Kalamazoo was known as paper city. The Bryant Paper Company here in Kalamazoo became largest Michigan manufacturer of book paper. And by World War II, a score of local mills made Kalamazoo the largest paper producer in the nation.