Posts Tagged ‘Pardeeville’

Don’t tell your kids you’re going “Antiquing” unless you want to be met with that look you get when you say it’s time for your booster shots.  In fact some parents probably are feeling their teeth start to hurt at simply the prospect of taking their kids to an Antique Shop.  Well, it can be done.  Even if shop owners occasionally grimace!  The first challenge of course is getting the kids to come along willingly, the second is getting through the day without buying a broken vase.

Well here’s my nickle coming from a few years experience in the parenting game. First off we never advertise adult pastimes with adult phrases like “Antiquing”.  No, we go “Exploring”.  Exploring is an open ended journey to somewhere where you don’t exactly know what you’ll be doing.  Well, we know… We also know kids love adventures and framing our days plans that way helps.  We may “stop” at an antique shop or two.. but that’s not “Antiquing”.  It’s simply one part of a day that involves a variety of activities.  I’ve found that keeping kids guessing is a good plan as long as they also have guaranteed “kid times” to look forward to.  My favorite phrase with our son when he asks what we’re doing is, “Who knows what we might do?”  I leave him hanging but at the same time I promise certain positive points such as play or snack times.

When we do end up doing something that may seem atrociously boring to a child we dole it out in small sips.  “A spoon full of sugar” as Mary Poppins sang.  In between the boring adult stuff we fit in “slide breaks” at the local parks, a quick snack in another location, and most definitely lunch at a local cafe. Kids thrive on diversity.  The more diverse our day, the more they tend to tolerate our grown up moments.  This is not catering to children mind you, simply playing fair for the benefit of everyone.  Sometimes this takes a bit of research.  For instance while we’re online looking up the “shops” we are also mapping the parks.

When it comes to browsing antique shops, farm markets and other seemingly not so kid friendly spots we have two goals;  To move at the child’s attention span and keep it interesting.  The better job we do at keeping it interesting the more time we get to browse at our own pace.  In fact, the more engaged we are with our son, the more we ALL enjoy the experience. It can work with practice.  In our experience it does no good to keep children at arm’s length in a place like an antique shop.  It only increases the children’s boredom, causes conflict, and may result in parents cleaning up a china doll from 1847 as they reach for their credit card.

Last week we visited two antique shops in Pardeeville just about a half hour east of our base camp here in Baraboo, the Pardeeville Antique Mall and “The Big Chicken”.  I’ve posted a gallery here. This is the beginning of building a new section on antiquing in our area where we will only include shops we’ve visited ourselves. Antique and resale shops tend to open and close so quickly it seems the only way to make sure we’re giving you good information.  Call this the kick off.  For more on that just go here.

Feel free to take your kids Antiquing, ah, I mean… Exploring!  And Good Luck!

—

Comments? - Parents, how do you manage your kids when trying to enjoy a little adult exploring on vacation?

It’s funny.  There are often places in our part of the state that I can write about online and the owners would simply never know.   As much as many of us live on the internet almost daily, there are many who don’t find a use of it in their lives. They don’t think of the internet as a way to advertise and simply depend on the locals and drive by traffic to survive.  Once such place is the “On The Way” cafe in Pardeeville, Wisconsin.  Too bad too. I think a lot of visitors to the area would enjoy the stop.

The On The Way cafe is everything you would imagine a small town diner to be, right down to the cigarette smoke wafting through the air from the patrons sitting at the counter.  Yeah, we could do without the smoke too, but we’re not offended by it. The walls are covered with a mish-mash of decorations that either at one time attracted or caught the humor of the owner; a vine of plastic flowers, a sign that says “No Whining”,  autographed dollars tacked above the service window, a framed print of a farm house, a pumpkin sitting on a toilet with a pie underneath captioned, “How pumpkin pies are made”.  Even the tables scored the old fashioned napkin holders and condiment racks. Classic.

Our waitress was a very friendly middle aged woman who managed all of the cafe’s tables and counters on her own.  When we were there, there were maybe another 7 or 8 customers besides ourselves. She always took time to chat and check in to see how we were doing.  Another advantage of small town diners is staff that is not always racing around and often seem genuinely pleased to interact with their patrons.

The menu was filled with standard sandwich and breaded steak options. We chose the bacon cheeseburgers which are the only true test of a small town diner’s prowess.  While we waited our sodas came, in cans… with straws. No glass. My cup of coffee was sadly pretty horrid, but on the other hand I had been drinking a Latte all morning and diner coffee was quite a shocking leap into the abyss.

When the burgers arrived, the smoke, the 80′s hair band music wafting from the kitchen and even the bad coffee suddenly faded away as we were suddenly lifted into burger heaven.  We all agreed, that these were the best bacon cheeseburgers we’d eaten since back in the day when diners like this one were more common.  While I could sense the a sudden jump in cholesterol, it was totally worth it.  It’s hard to describe the flavor of a properly done burger other than to say the cheese was real, and the meat has not been soaking up 10% water which is so common these days. Real food, even diner food is something special.

After our meal we learned another thing about small town diners, bring cash.  Many simply can’t or won’t pay that 3% transaction fee charged by credit card companies.  My son and I sat “hostage” on the bar stools and chatted with our waitress at the counter, while my wife drove down to Pardeeville’s only ATM.   It was about 2 pm when we finally were walking out the door.  Which was a good thing.  The diner was closing for the day.

From the outside, the out “On The Way”  cafe easy to miss.  There are no big signs or open windows to give it away.  You almost have to be looking for it.  The hours are Mon-Thur. & Saturday 5am-2pm, Fridays 5am to 8pm and Sundays 5am-noon. If you are into small town diners, can tolerate cigarette smoke and 80′s hair band rock, the bacon cheeseburger is practically manna from diner heaven.

On The Way Cafe
321 South Main Street
Pardeeville, WI 53954-9452
(608) 429-1507

Google Map

View Baraboo Area Travel Guide in a larger map