For a lot of people, it’s perfectly normal to take a quick trip to the local Target, Walmart, or farmer’s markets for groceries. But for sophomore Avery Nolden and senior Katie Nolden, a road trip to Wisconsin is what counts as a successful grocery shopping trip.

Right after school on a Friday evening, with packed bags and a full car, the Nolden sisters and their dad left for Wisconsin on a 16 hour road trip.

“I packed Thursday night and I had my bag in the car before I went to school and we left Friday at around four,” Avery said. “We started driving; we were in Oklahoma by the time it got dark. We just kept driving. I woke up at six-ish and we were already in Wisconsin.”

Besides the family’s personal belongings, two extra-large ice boxes and one regular-sized ice box were stuffed in the back of their trunk. Plans to fill the boxes up with groceries and meat were made weeks beforehand.

“We went to visit family,” Avery said. “He has a cattle farm so he was butchering cows and we went to pick up beef.”

While their main intent was the family’s fish fry event, bringing home freshly cut and packed beef from the family cow farm was the highlight of the Nolden trip.

“We were visiting to go try some fish fry at an event they had planned out so we decided we were going to go try it,” Katie said. “We were just going for that one day and the drive was only 16 hours, overall not that bad if you slept for most of it.”

The Nolden family is usually seen shopping for groceries and meat at Kroger and Costco, but their decision to venture all the way to the old-school rural life of small town Wisconsin did not disappoint.

“When we first got there, we went to a cheese factory and we got a bunch of cheese curds and cheese and sausage,” Avery said.

The many farms across the town of Osseo made access to fresh fruits and foods easier.

“We went to an apple orchard and we got a few bags of apples,” Avery said. “It is all so much better than the meat and fruits we get in regular food markets because it is all really fresh.”

The rural aspects of Wisconsin clashed with the city life the Nolden sisters are used to in Frisco as Amish residences and large ranches occupied most of the town.

“When we were there in Wisconsin, it was so different because there was no cell service in some places,” Avery said “It’s all rolling hills and farms.”

Wisconsin has a long history of cheese production and is known for its excellence in the dairy industry. As a major agricultural state, it is full of fresh varieties of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and meat.

“This whole area in Wisconsin is this farming district and there are farms wherever you look,” Katie said. “It was so different than what you see in Frisco every day because everything was much more realistic and natural; you don’t even have cell service in some places.”

The highlight of their trip was the beef the sisters got to bring home. After being butchered in the family farm, a massive fourth of an entire cow was packed, iced and set headed to Frisco–nearly 1,100 miles away.

“It was the time of the year that they raise cattle on the farm; they butcher them there,” father Chris Nolden said. “We expressed some interest, like, if we’re already in a great farming district, we’ll take a side of some beef home with us too.”

The Nolden family took advantage of their adventure to Wisconsin and came back home with piles of beef as a savory souvenir.

“It was so cold, we didn’t have to have ice the beef because they were rock hard,” Avery said. “We put them in the coolers, closed it and put a sleeping bag over it to keep them cold. When we got home, more than 24 hours later, they were still cold.”

The Nolden family believes the meat they picked up in Wisconsin is a much healthier and affordable option to what most families are used to at local meat markets.

“The meat is much better; it’s a cleaner taste, it’s raised pure, it’s pure natural. They are grain-fed, grass-fed beef,” Chris said. “There’s no antibiotics. It’s truly, truly all natural and we know the exact source of it.”