By Logan Campa, Saroj Dhital, Caleb Nicholson, Brad Peot

As we begin this article, we want to make known of our intentions. During this most current semester a group of friends and colleagues at UW-Superior have been making an effort to attend a couple of bars every Saturday night, with the goal of having one drink at every bar in the city of Superior. This is our Superior Wanderings….

As we began the night of March 27th, we noticed it was once again a beautiful day in Superior, WI, and rather than have a DD (always necessary when driving and drinking) we chose to make the walk to Tower Ave and the bars we intended to attend that evening. Our first stop was to be Mama’s Bar on Ogden Ave, so with a rough plan in mind we headed in that direction.

As we walked, we of course talked, of school, future plans, crazy situations that occurred this past week, and many other topics. However, as we approached closer to our turnoff down Ogden to Mama’s Bar, we chose rather abruptly to head down Tower first, for a drink at the Dugout Bar, and so we headed to this great establishment.
Dugout Bar is a fairly small bar, but overall has a good atmosphere about it, especially with its bartender and owner, Forest (not Gump). That night, it was mostly a crowd of older people, certainly not college students like us, but we know this is not always the case at the Dugout. As we sat and chatted and enjoyed a good hockey game, with Madison eventually winning over St. Cloud State, we had finished our pitcher of beer. All of us were thinking the same thing, shall we grab another, or shall we wait until the next establishment on our evening travels. As we were all watching the final minutes of the game, Forest walks up and brings us another full pitcher of MGD, commenting, ‘We looked like a sad bunch with empty glasses’. We were all in dumbstruck, so much so that we forgot our manners and did not thank him immediately for his kind and generous gesture. Needless to say, we did summon up our tongues to thank him and left him a good tip.

After finishing our pitcher of beer at the Dugout (and leaving quickly to ensure another was not brought to us) we headed to Mama’s Bar. Mama’s is a rather obscure bar that in all honesty, looked a little shady. But it was on our list and it needed our business. Upon entrance, we noticed it was sparsely attended, with not a younger adult insight. But, as always, we purchased a pitcher then went to their empty pool tables and enjoyed several good and competitive games. During our games, and upon need for another set of quarters, one of the ladies at the bar asked us for money to demonstrate a trick. We declined, but upon insistence, we decided to watch this trick of hers for free. It involved 5 pennies, which one person would touch up to 4 of them and she could use her electromagnetic powers to discover which pennies were touched. And walla! She pointed out all the pennies that were touched! (With only a little help from the man sitting next to us who watched which pennies were touched).

Upon our exiting Mama’s Bar, we headed down Tower towards the Capri Bar, a place that looked quite good as we passed it on our way to Mama’s. As we ventured towards our next establishment, lo and behold we encountered a rather large group of younger adults, sporting their 6th Annual Superior Pub Crawl shirts. Upon inquiry, we learned this must be a rather new and perhaps little known event. Which made us think how this was not learned about at all at UWS, and if so why it was so narrowly advertised (upon research on google and facebook, a superior pub crawl could not be found).  Anyways, we once again ordered a pitcher of beer at Capri, which had a good crowd of young people, several of whom we knew and chatted with. One of the best features of this bar is the free peanuts; however it does make you quite thirsty, requiring more $4 pitchers of beer.

As we ended our evening and headed home, we realized it was still quite a nice night, considering we are in the northland. But the one thing on our minds was the Superior Pub Crawl, which led to a discussion on a general lack of events on campus for us older and of age students at UW-Superior. We talked about events other campuses do throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin, involving alcoholic drinks, and we could not figure out why during our time at UWS there has not been an effort made to have a beer tent at one of the outdoor concerts, which would allow for safe and responsible drinking, in a fun and relaxing atmosphere. But perhaps, this is a topic for another time and other Superior Wanderings…..