Fried chicken, mac & cheese, greens, and corn bread. Yum.

The Viking Brewery

When the first Saturday in October rolls around, you go to Dallas, WI. Well, that’s what we did this year, and two years ago. (We had to skip last year, unfortunately.) What’s in Dallas? Viking brewery! We were happy to see that the Oktoberfest celebration has grown up a little. It’s not the biggest celebration around, but for $5 you get a stout glass mug full of beer. Subsequent refills are $1. Pretty good, eh?

Kids + Viking

They had some local arts and crafts, some regional produce, and “off” sales at the brewery. That’s where you buy the liquor and consume it elsewhere… The opposite of “off” is “on,” but the brewery didn’t do the on sales, although you could more or less roam the town with a frothy mug. One disappointment was that the live steel combat didn’t actually happen. We had a lone viking to represent the troupe of fighters. He brought some inflatable swords with him, and posed with the kids so that more or less made up for the lack of a pitched battle and clashing iron.

Viking must be doing well for itself. Distribution used to be more or less only in the Twin Cities area, but now it has expanded into the Milwaukee area. We still can’t get it in the Fargo metroplex, but we’re holding out hope.

Dallas has a pretty good playground right on the river. This year it had expanded with some kind of gerbil-tunnel-inspired crawl-through structure.

The Train

Lucia going down the vintage slide. Paul catching.

Sofia posing on the train.

Sofia posing again on the train. Alex plays a supporting role.