Come for the cheese, stay for the cows on a Wisconsin road trip

"Don't miss saying hello to the calves!" says a sign posted at Marieke Gouda at Penterman Farms along Hwy. 29 near Thorp, Wis.

"We haven't done that before," I tell my husband, Bob, nudging him away from the building that houses a creamery, gift store and restaurant. During a visit in the middle of August, rows of calf hutches line the grass outside the spacious cow barn like a village of plastic igloos.

This farmstead creamery has been a favorite stop when visiting Wisconsin relatives. Besides the allure of a bathroom break, ice cream and cheese, there's a seasonal jumping pillow, a 12-foot cow statue that offers fun photo ops, a soccer field and play areas for kids needing to roam, run and let loose pent-up energy on road trips.

The farmstead dairy sits two hours east of Minneapolis and 30 minutes east of the Interstate 94 exit near Chippewa Falls. Classic red barns and silos rise from the rolling cornfields and green pastures as we near Clark County, which leads Wisconsin in milk production.

Roads labeled as X, M and N cross creeks and rivers, curve along century farms, and pass Mennonite homesteads where laundry flaps on clotheslines. We know to drive carefully, on the lookout for bicycles or horse-drawn buggies that clip-clop along the shoulders.

At the Penterman barn, fans keep the summer air flowing as cows line up for rotating vertical brushes that scratch their backs. Some snack on a mouthful of hay or find a shaded sand bed for a snooze between milkings. Tags in their ears include names such as Emily or Pearl, and Fitbit-like devices track their digestion, exercise and overall health.

I hear a plaintive "MmmmMEH!" behind me and see Bob waving me over to the hutches where he's scratching the black and white fur of a chatty Holstein. We murmur a cheerful, chirpy conversation — the kind you usually have with dogs who treat you like the most awesome human on the planet.

Down the aisle of hutches where many of the young calves are resting, a brown-and-white calf sticks out its speckled pink nose. It seems to want nothing more than to nuzzle my hand with soft, fuzzy lips and a warm tongue that reaches out and licks at my palm and knuckles. If I lived nearby, I'd be picking out my favorite calves and needing to visit often.

Owners Rolf and Marieke Penterman, both originally from the Netherlands, have built their business to a herd of 400 cows with the help of close to 40 crew members. They dub the barn "the cow spa," and estimate that their cows — mostly Holstein and Brown Swiss — produce over 27,000 pounds of milk per year, roughly 648 gallons more than the average dairy cow.

Clark County ranks among the top milk-producing counties in the country, and while the number of dairy farms may be dropping, there are still an estimated 6,300 in Wisconsin. The Dairy State's estimated 1,200 cheesemakers produce more than 600 varieties that make up at least a quarter of the nation's cheese, according to the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin.

Visitors can watch the milking process in the Penterman barn or head to the shop with windows overlooking the creamery, where raw milk is pumped and the cheese process begins within five hours after milking. Milk thickens in vats and whey is drained from curds that form into wheels of gouda aged on pine planks. It takes 8.5 gallons of milk to make one pound of gouda.

Marieke Penterman, who trained as a cheesemaker in both the Netherlands and Wisconsin, has been winning national cheese awards since 2007, just four months after she made her first gouda.

We envy the Café DUTCH-ess diners who are gathered around plates of gouda grilled cheese sandwiches, cheesy omelets with gouda and bacon from Thorp's award-winning Nolechek's Meats (a local favorite for 70 years), fried cheese curds, and even pancakes with the addition of foenegreek gouda.

We have to save our appetites for a family potluck, but we hover around cubed cheese samples, carefully savoring them and trying to decide how many varieties we can wedge into the cooler to enjoy at home, along with Nolechek's summer sausage and some New Glarus beer.

Aisles of Wisconsin wines and shelves of imported Dutch candy tempt us, too, but we're dialed in on gouda, circling indecisively. Young or mature? Smoked cumin or foenegreek? Herbacious burning mélange or honey clover?

We load up with new flavors to try, eager for an at-home happy hour. They're the kind of cheeses that encourage us to eat slowly, to mull over the depth of flavors, and to remember the sweet calves we'll hope to see again.

If you're heading into west-central Wisconsin, here are a few other cheese stops:

Yellowstone Cheese, Cadott: This little place 10 miles east of Chippewa Falls off Hwy. 29 makes some of the best, freshest cheese curds. They make a variety of Colby, cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses, flavored with everything from olives or dill pickles to bacon or habaneros. We grabbed a block of Longhorn Colby so fresh it was still warm, with the squeaky salty goodness of a giant cheese curd.(yellowstonecheese.com).

Cady Cheese Factory and Shop, Wilson: An hour east of the Twin Cities, you can peruse more than 100 kinds of cheeses in this shop that's been around since the early 1900s making longhorn cheeses and producing the Cady Creek Farms line. It's now part of the Burnett Dairy Cooperative, and sells other Wisconsin-made goods, including maple syrup, Olson's ice cream, Cow Tales and Cow Pie candies. (burnettdairy.com).

Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery, Ellsworth and Menomonie: You may have seen bags of curds in your grocer's case from Ellsworth. The cooperative, which processes milk from 250 dairy farms, sells the curds (plain or flavored) wholesale, but also makes a variety of cheeses from cranberry Muenster to fiery-hot Jacks. Visit the creamery in Ellsworth (which celebrates the Cheese Curd Festival in June) or its new retail store in Menomonie for an array of snacks, meats, liquor and treats. (ellsworthcheese.com).

La Grander's Hillside Dairy, Stanley: Fans of Culver's fried cheese curds can go to the source at this dairy dating to 1916. It uses close to 800,000 pounds of milk from 140 producers each day to keep up with demand. Visitors can buy curd bags up to 10 pounds, along with 50 varieties of cheese, including several kinds of string cheese, cheddar, Colby, brick and parasio, a blend of Parmesan and Asiago (lagranderscheese.com).

St. Cloud-based freelancer Lisa Meyers McClintick (Instagram: @minnelisa) has been writing travel features for the Star Tribune since 2001.