This was trip two to a new city to determine if I could move there, to relocate happily to Madison. Minneapolis had been a great city where Ann and I had much fun, but I had to see what Madison had to offer. Gretchen was an enthusiastic travel buddy, not only because she was anxious to get out and do something different, but because Madison is a town her own parents are considering as a possible place to land when they are ready to relocate. This would be a big trip of feeling it out to see how livable the place was.
At 3:15, she met me at my car with her two little bags and another tiny grocery bag of snacks. Seriously, I need to pare down when I travel because I look like a total diva with my luggage. AND I still forgot to pack some essentials.
We were on the road by 3:30 with a quick stop at my bank for cash and an assessment that I had enough gas to get us there.
Gretchen has a GPS, which she also brought with like Ann did on our trip to Minneapolis, so we were in the (mostly) capable hands of Sally’s twin, guided by satellites and maps that weren’t exactly up to date. I did defy the GPS and took Rt. 12 all the way there, but she had her revenge when she refused to find our hotel and we drove right by it, headed into downtown Madison instead of checking in and dumping off our luggage. In a smooth, I-meant-to-do-that move, we decided to eat first and then check into our hotel. It was only 5:30, and on a Friday, that’s still early enough to have our pick of places to eat before the ghastly crowds descend upon the good places.
Let me first say that I was given a goldmine of a list (and map) of local attractions and places to eat by a friend and longtime blog-reader, Anon AV Boy, aka David. Knowing me well enough to cater the trip itinerary to my personal interests, he gave me a list of places to go and restaurants to dine in that most travel agencies couldn’t begin to offer. For the first trip ever, I didn’t pore over an assortment of guidebooks of Madison to over-plan, but instead relied on the information he gave me as a former resident and huge fan of the area. This was priceless, let me tell you, so thank you, David. Hats off to your awesomeness!
Driving in Madison is an issue if you are easily confused by one-way streets. Parking in Madison is an issue if you don’t use the parking ramps. Your best bet is to get around on foot or by bike because there are more places to chain your bike than park.
We chose to eat at The Great Dane Pub. If you’re not impressed with the micro-brewed beers or food, the building itself is a marvelous sight. One of the best things about visiting a town rich in history and significance is the architecture that’s survived, and the old Fess Hotel lives on in The Great Dane Pub. I had a yummy drink that was hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps, though I forget the name (which has nothing to do with the alcohol consumed, I'm just forgetful), and Gretchen sadly ordered a Sierra Mist when she found that they had no Guinness. Poor thing. Looking for Guinness in a brewpub. So sad. Anyway, we split a bread and honey butter appetizer, then I had a buffalo burger (Sustain-a-burger) and Gretch got the walleye fish fry. The food was delicious and I was impressed with the variety of greens they topped my burger with, and Gretchen fell in love with the tartar sauce. Once sufficiently stuffed, we wandered down Doty Street toward the capitol and gazed at the enormous building in the fading sunlight. I made a mental note to go back the next night for more dramatic views in the dark.
We made our way back to our hotel, checked in, and found it to be less than inviting. I won’t mention the chain name, but the carpet had food freshly ground into it, it smelled dirty and moldy, and the walls were so thin we could hear people breathing in the rooms above and around us. Credit is due, though, to the beds, which were squishy and soft, just the way I like them, and even if the bedspread scared me, I knew I’d sleep well and not have back and hip problems all weekend. We chatted for a while, read for a while, and then passed out by 11.
Saturday morning we were tortured awake by our neighbors getting up, slamming doors, yelling, and otherwise carrying on at the crack of dawn. This always causes me to stay in bed later than I want to just to catch up on the robbed sleep, so I did. Sometime before 9 I finally gave up and got dressed. While Gretchen forced her exhausted self up to shower, I wandered down the dark, dingy hallway to the breakfast room, holding tight to my English muffin and really only holding out hope that they had a toaster and butter. Much to my astonishment, there were real breakfast choices for people. Biscuits and gravy, fruit, varieties of toast choices, hard-boiled eggs, a waffle iron and waffle batter, real fruit compote, and a living, breathing fellow who made omelets to order. I prepared my usual, English muffin and two hard-boiled eggs, grabbing a little bowl of peaches, and skedaddled back to the room with my food.
By 10 am we were on the road headed for downtown Madison again. First stop was the farmer’s market. Once inside the Senior Center, I realized that the farmer’s market was the place to be in Madison on Saturday mornings. HOLY CRAP there were a lot of people crammed into that little space! We visited all the vendors and I had a tough time choosing between cheese sellers, so I didn’t get any cheese at all. Instead I bought some buffalo (cheaper than my own source) and a bag full of mixed baby potatoes, which I am presently dying to cook. Gretchen got gingersnap cookies and some sort of peanut buttery thing, pointing out that I bought the healthy stuff and she bought the junk. Hmm. Someone tried to hand her a leaf of raw spinach to taste and I laughed hard. Gretchen eat spinach? It is her arch-nemesis! It is her kryptonite! It would be the death of her! Before someone else tried to kill Gretchy-poo, we high-tailed it out of there.
From there we went to the Henry Vila Zoo. I was expecting something on the size of the Racine Zoo, given that it’s free, but it was more like a little sibling to the Lincoln Park Zoo. In fact, some of the habitats mimicked those in the LPZ.
The lion gave us a real show, stirring from a slumber to growl and roar, answered by the tiger next door, and then he continued long after his neighbor quieted down.
Inside the ape house, we saw orangutans not doing too much, but the chimps were absolutely captivating. A male chimp sat at the window watching the people and a keeper stood guard out in front to make sure that the visitors behaved in a way so as not to stress him out.
Then he made a sign to her that he wanted a snack and she opened a door that went behind the exhibit room where all three chimps had now gone. She asked each of them to perform certain tasks like showing her their fingers, toes, ears, butt, etc., and they all complied happily. She rewarded them with trail mix and they signed things to her to communicate. It was amazing. I had no idea that teaching chimps sign language was fairly standard, nor did I know that they understood so much English. What an eye-opener!
We saw capybaras being fed, bears being lazy and ignoring crowds of adoring visitors, and penguins conversing with people.
The highlight for me was seeing the buffalo and prairie dogs, which brought back a flood of memories of my South Dakota trip and a longing to return.
They had a spectacular herp exhibit, too.
We left around 3:00, wanting to hit certain shops but both of us forgot to bring the awesome list David compiled for us, and we decided to run back to the hotel to collect it. On the way we stopped for a quick lunch at Noodles & Co., got to the hotel by about 3:45, and turned right around to find Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier. The GPS did us wrong. Very wrong. It wanted me to turn in places where there were no streets or drive over large islands full of flowers and trees to get down streets I didn’t have access to. We finally got to the front door of the chocolate shop at 4:15. Unfortunately, it closed at 4 and would be closed on Sunday, so it was a total loss.
From there we returned to State Street (passing an overly-friendly college age guy openly smoking pot while walking down the street) and wandered the shops downtown, then got back into the car and drove down Monroe Street, looking for more quirky shops. I found the Willy Street neighborhood, recommended by David as the Flower Child Area, which it totally was. We found another chocolate shop, the James J. Chocolate Shop, on Monroe, getting there 15 minutes before they closed, and we loaded up on chocolate. We drove all around the University of Wisconsin campus, saw the Badgers’ stadium (Gretchen was thrilled; I was ambivalent), checked out Lake Mendota, and then had dinner at Tex Tubb’s Taco Palace.
Tex Tubb’s is a Tex-Mex restaurant, which I usually avoid in favor of authentic Mexican cuisine, but I thought we’d give it a shot since it boasted a ridiculous number of varieties of tacos. We were surprised to see the selection was indeed unusual. I had a tilapia taco and a brisket taco because I’m weird like that, while Gretchen had a shrimp taco and a traditional chicken taco. They all were to our liking!
After stuffing ourselves silly, we drove back to the capitol and bundled up for a walk around and 200 pictures of the building from every angle.
That’s the way I shoot. Pure, but en masse.
While wandering around, this was where we spied our first group of homeless people, who seemed to be camping out on the capitol property. Ironic. There were quite a few people walking downtown and many younger people bar-hopping. Overall, it was very quiet.
Though there was very little traffic and I was standing on the driveway up to the capitol building, I asked Gretchen to stand behind me and stop any cars that would otherwise run me over while I shot so many pictures at so many different shutter speeds with metering tweaks. Gretchen is an awesome car stopper. I wasn't run over a single time!
This has nothing to do with the fact that no cars even approached and everything to do with the fact that she chased them all away before they could even consider approaching. Gretchen also suggested some interesting shots I might not have seen, like the reflection of the dome in the buildings across the street.
All she needs is a camera and she could be dangerous. But then, who would watch my traffic?
On the way back to the room, I made a sudden stop on a road I could see nothing on, wanting to get a view of the Madison skyline reflected in the lake. After a few dead ends, I found a boat launch area, scurried out and onto a short pier, set up my tripod, and began snapping pictures of the buildings in the distance. It turned out to provide the ideal vantage point and it was purely by accident that I ended up there.
As I was backing away from the boat launch, Gretchen spotted a muskrat swimming on the edge of the lake. Cute little guy. Like many people, she thought it was an otter. Sorry, dear, muskrats are a dime a dozen in the Midwest and otters hide so well that you'll almost never see one in the wild. Besides, muskrats are easy for me to identify because they're much, much smaller and swim with a purpose, steadfast and strong, unlike otters that zip and twirl, spinning and dipping below the water like the acrobats and showoffs that they are. He was a cute muskrat though.
We got back to the room around 10 pm, tired from so much walking, and fell asleep just before midnight.
Sunday we awoke just before 9 again, not disturbed as much as the previous night, but no less unwilling to rise earlier. A repeat of the previous morning had us taking turns using the washroom and eating, then we dawdled a while and checked out of the hotel by 10:45.
With our trusty list of places to go and things to see, we felt completely done with the things we wanted to do. It was pointless to do much of the outdoor stuff or natural areas given that it was soggy and still un-springy, and we’d raided the shops we wanted to visit. Feeling like we got everything out of the trip that was needed, we decided to head to Lake Geneva on the way home.
The GPS sent us down odd country roads, on and off of Rt. 12. I don’t know if it saved us time or gas, but it seemed like the GPS headquarters must have been bored and punchy, so they gave us a scenic route for the drive. That was fine with us. We weren’t in a hurry.
Once in Lake Geneva, we didn’t grouse too much about the paid parking, being sufficiently accustomed to it now. We visited many shops, played with some greyhounds in front a dog supply store, and got some ice cream at Kilwin’s.
We walked down by the lake, on the piers and toward the beach. I stopped dead at the end of the pavement where the sand began and proclaimed that I had gone far enough and wouldn't be walking in the sand. Gretchen asked why and I answered that no matter what you do in the sand, even if it's just walking, sand makes its way into crevasses and areas of the body that were far, far away from the sand. She laughed and said that was stupid, that sand doesn't travel up the legs to the rest of the body. Clearly she has not spent much time at the beach lately. She walked to the edge of the water and asked me to take her picture. Feeling generous, I took two steps forward into the sand, snapped her picture and then backed gingerly onto the pavement.
Me: Did you see that? I even stood on the sand for you.
Gretch: Wow, I'm impressed.
Me: Now I have sand in my buttcrack.
Gretch: No you don't! There is no sand in your buttcrack!
Me: Yes. Yes there is. I can feel it, every step I take, it's wearing away at my flesh. I don't know how it got there, but just touching the sand with the soles of my shoes got sand in my buttcrack.
Gretch: You're nuts! You don't have sand in your buttcrack!
Me: Yes I do.
Call it a hung jury. There was no convincing me I didn't, and there was no convincing her I did. Suffice it to say that I felt that sand in my buttcrack for the rest of the afternoon. Stupid sand.
Gretchen got her first taste of Jimmy John’s, much to my amazement, and I believe she might just be as hooked as I am.
We drove home, I dropped her off at her place around 3:30 in the afternoon, and we each talked about what we would like to do with the rest of our day. I was going for a bike ride and she was thinking about going for a walk, possibly to see a movie. There's something about going on a road trip that ends early that lends itself to inspiring people to do more with their time than the ordinary tasks and chores.
All in all, Madison was a great trip. I'm not convinced at this point that I'd ever move there, but it was a charming place to visit. A very successful adventure.
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