Only in Wisconsin: 10 stories from 2023 that highlighted life in the Badger State

Welcome to our list of "only in Wisconsin" stories from the past year. It's been a doozy.

We embraced Simone Biles. We saw birds we've never seen before. We ate a lot of food, and not all of it was cheese. But much of it was in supper clubs.

We found out that the next season of "Top Chef" would be filmed here, primarily in Madison and Milwaukee. (And we had plenty of suggestions for Wisco-based challenges.)

We learned Wisconsin has more traffic roundabouts than any other state in the country. (Feeling dizzy?)

Let's get into it.

Simone Biles is the GOAT, and she embraced Green Bay

After the Green Bay Packers signed her husband, former Houston Texans safety Jonathon Owens, in May, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles wasted no time getting the lay of the land in northeast Wisconsin. To the delight of people from Green Bay and across the state, on X she posted "GO PACK GO," then she asked social media users for their Green Bay recommendations for "food, things to do, etc."

Wisconsinites inundated Biles with their favorites, including dining options such as supper clubs, chophouses and breweries. Chives Restaurant of Suamico, a favorite of former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (remember him?) got several shoutouts, as did Kwik Trip, our favorite place for just about everything we need in a hurry.

Among the advice Wisconsinites gave Biles, who grew up primarily in Texas, was to "buy some warm clothing." She did! And still got cold.

Another well-wisher told her not to worry about Wisconsin traffic, because she would soon get used to all the roundabouts.

GOAT hat:There's a story behind Frozen Tundra Man and his special hat for Simone Biles

What's up with all these roundabouts!?

Wisconsin has 554 roundabouts, more than any other state. This is surprising, actually. We would have thought that older places with more history of dense traffic, such as Massachusetts, would have more. But the Badger State has embraced the circular intersections for a variety of reasons, said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor of civil and environmental engineering Xiao Qin.

Qin also is the director of the Institute for Physical Infrastructure and Transportation and the founder and director of the Safe and Smart Traffic Lab at UWM.

There are many good reasons for the proliferation of roundabouts, he said. They are statistically safer, because they have fewer "conflict points" than traditional intersections. Although crashes between cars do occur, they tend to be less serious. Roundabouts are safer for cyclists and pedestrians as well.

Roundabouts are better for the environment, bring efficiency to traffic flow and ultimately cost less to maintain, Qin said.

Most of the roundabouts are in eastern and southern Wisconsin, in the Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Oshkosh and Appleton areas.

Duh, Wisconsin is part of the Midwest

We might have some feisty rivalries with our neighboring states, but in the end Wisconsinites believe we're all part of one Midwestern family.

A survey by Emerson College Polling and the scholarly journal Middle West Review asked more than 11,000 people across 22 states two questions: Do you consider yourself to live in the Midwest? Do you consider yourself a Midwesterner?

In Wisconsin, 94% of those surveyed said they "live in the Midwest," and 86% consider themselves to be Midwesterners.

Most of the people in the states surrounding Wisconsin answered much the same. Iowans and Minnesotans have the strongest sense of Midwest identity, with 97% of those surveyed in each state considering themselves to live in the Midwest. We think that makes sense, because what else do those people have?

Lake Geneva is one of the country's most romantic towns

We know this, too, but people from outside the state don't. Wisconsin is a great place to fall in and be in love. Maybe the secret is seeping out, though. In October, New York Travel Guides ranked Lake Geneva as one of the top 50 most romantic towns in the U.S. (It's 43rd.)

The travel guide pointed to 140 towns across the country, and in addition to Lake Geneva, it also gave a nod to Sturgeon Bay, which squeaked in at No. 139. Travel Guides scrutinized 600 towns in compiling the top 140.

What criteria did the digital publication use to find the places best suited for l'amour? The towns needed to have romantic places to stay, romantic activities for visitors (think spas, horse-drawn carriages), historic architecture and scenery, and cozy coffee shops and restaurants.

Lake Geneva racked up points for romantic places to stay and historic architecture and scenery.

What's it like to spend a week living in the Pottawatomie Lighthouse on Rock Island?

No power. No electricity. No bathrooms. But reporter Patti Zarling found the experience of being a volunteer docent at the Rock Island State Park lighthouse to be enlightening and peaceful.

"It’s hard to describe how dark and quiet it is on an island with just a handful of others. You lose your connection to the outside world and learn you can live without checking Facebook every day. You slow down and have deeper conversations around a campfire," Zarling wrote in a story that ran in late September.

The original lighthouse on Rock Island was built in 1838, but it crumbled away due to the use of poor construction materials. Builders learned their lesson. The lighthouse was rebuilt in 1858 and that's the building that's in place today. The original building was the oldest lighthouse in Wisconsin and the third oldest on the Great Lakes.

In the end, Zarling said she found "it so interesting to learn about the colorful characters who lived and worked in these places, what brought them here and how their achievements paved the way for Great Lakes commerce."

Wisconsinites love to eat and have the world records to prove it

Wisconsinites hold seven food-related Guinness World Records, and only some of them are about cheese, according reporter Jelissa Burns.

Students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering created the world's largest bowl of cereal in 2020, using 9,000 pounds of Cocoa Puffs. Steve Ruppel of Wausau holds the record for the fastest time to drink one liter of gravy. Dufeck Wood Products in Denmark provided the wooden boards required to make the largest charcuterie board. Wenzel's Farm of Marshfield created the longest meat snack stick, measuring 314 feet long.

On the cheese front, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin broke the record for the largest cheese platter and Weyauwega Star Dairy produced the longest piece of string cheese in 2021, measuring 3,832 feet.

But our favorite record holder is Donald Gorske of Fond du Lac, the person who has eaten the most Big Macs in a lifetime. He's gobbled down 33,400 of the burgers, nearly one every day for 50 years.

"This was never a record for one day just to get into the record book, but rather an every day record, day after day," Gorske told Guinness.

There's something just so Wisconsin about that, isn't there?

Supper club culture, defined

There's no place Wisconsinites would rather eat on a Friday night than an old-school supper club.

But what makes a Wisconsin supper club a Wisconsin supper club? Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Hannah Kirby tried to answer that question this year as part of our What the Wisconsin series, where reporters take on questions about our state, our communities and the people in them.

There are some obvious markers of a supper club. Fish fries. Prime rib. Old fashioneds. Grasshoppers. The food has to be made in house. But there also has to be something more, something friendly, down home, comfortable.

And according to supper club expert and author Ron Faiola, "twinkly lights, dark wood paneling and taxidermy" comprise the "holy trinity" of supper club decor.

Supper clubs:14 of Wisconsin's best, according to readers

'Top Chef' and its new host Kristen Kish come to Wisconsin

Season 21 of the popular Bravo reality show will be set "in the heart of Wisconsin," the television channel announced in July. It wasn't long before the show's new host, season 10 winner Kristen Kish, was spotted in the state, visiting everything from Leon's Frozen Custard in Milwaukee to The Elegant Farmer in Mukwonago.

After the announcement, Wisconsinites took to social media to suggest cooking challenges. Among them: Kwik Trip-sourced ingredients, Friday fish fries, Door County cherries and brats. Packers running back and Door County-lover AJ Dillon also offered to be a guest judge.

Rare birds found their way to Wisconsin

An ancient murrelet, normally seen on the Pacific coast, was spotted on Lake Superior near Ashland in November. It didn't take long for the word to get out and the birders to congregate.

Nick Anich, a conservation biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, spotted the bird first.

"It's one of those unique days," Anich told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel outdoors editor Paul A. Smith. "Can't predict them, but they sure are memorable."

"Anich posted his ancient murrelet find on social media, including the Wisconsin Rare Bird Alert Facebook page," Smith wrote. "It was the first 'chaseable' sighting of the species in state history, a gem of an opportunity for contemporary birders and wildlife watchers."

Dozens of birders drove up north from across the state and added the species to their "life" list.

The murrelet wasn't the only celebrity bird to show its beak in Wisconsin this year. In September, five American flamingos visited Port Washington. Why? The consensus is that Hurricane Idalia pushed a number of the birds from their usual turf that's much farther south.

And let's not forget the spottings of the roseate spoonbill, the flame-colored tanager, painted redstart and white-tailed kite.

It's been enough for Smith to proclaim 2023 as a year of 'celebrity' sighting for Wisconsin birders.

Wisconsin is home to the reigning world champion bricklayer

Wausau mason Michael Schlund won the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 World Championship in January. His boss, Aaron Kowalski, owner of Kowalski Masonry of Wausau, was his "tender," meaning that he brought the bricks to Schlund.

Schlund laid down 759 bricks, each weighing about three pounds, in an hour. That's more than a ton of brick, and Schlund probably also used about a ton of mortar.

Schlund said he develops a kind of tunnel vision in the competition. While he hears the announcers and the crowd (thousands of people watch the competition), they are just background static.

Physically, the hardest part is "throwing the mud down," Schlund said. "It's tiring, because I'm throwing as fast as I can go. And you're laying the brick as fast as you can go. And trying to do it so it looks nice. See, there's a very fine line between quantity and quality."