Madison, WI - Fall 2007

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

After going to the girl's fall parties at school, we stopped by the house and made some quick last minute additions to all the stuff we hauled, we left around 4 pm. We drove uneventfully until we got to Wichita where I was lead on a detour "around the city"...literally around the city. Once back on track we headed through Kansas City where the thing to always remember when following I-35 through there is "the middle lane is our friend". The girls were asleep by this time, so they missed seeing the Marriot and its rainbow of colors. After some rather boring driving we made it to our first stop at Bonnie's aunt and uncle's house in Leon, IA...otherwise known as Mast Family Farm. We got in around midnight and went straight to bed.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

We got up pretty early as our hosts were early risers and we were downstairs. Since we went straight to bed the night before we didn't have any of our luggage with us downstairs, so we went out to bring things in and were greeted with an awesome sunrise.

Once the sun got up over the horizon, rain moved in and we settled in for a day of visiting. I got few short naps in as well as I had been up from 6 am Tuesday until 12:30 or so Wednesday morning. The girls got better acquainted with the 2 four legged residents.

Katie went with her aunt Katie for a four wheeler ride during one of the breaks in the rain.

We also played a round of what is pretty much considered the Mast family game, Rook, in which I took a super sound defeat. After my defeat was complete we headed over to Bonnie's other aunt's home to have dinner with her family and a bunch of her cousins. After a good dinner and some visiting we headed back to the farm and off to bed.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Our journey to Madison began with problems. First thing was Bonnie's cell phone battery was dead and needed to be charged so that we could contact Scott. Before we left Oklahoma, something in the charger hole (otherwise known as the cigarette lighter hole for those more nicotine inclined) broke, everything was working correctly until that morning and we tried to fix it. Somewhere in the process of trying to fix that problem it must've caused a short in the radio, because it ceased to work as well. Great googly moogly we were off to a great start! We decided that we'd just have to move on and deal with it later down the line or try to find a store where we could get a wall charger and charge Bonnie's phone that way. So we got on the road and encountered more of the same from the day before, rain, rain, and more rain. We got on the road and about 30 minutes outside of town Katie began complaining about her stomach hurting, oh joy. So we stopped at a rest stop and waited a little while to see if that all subsided. Katie said she felt a little better, so we went on for a little ways and then Emily chimed in and said she needed to go to the bathroom, lovely, she could've told us that while we were actually at a bathroom 15 minutes earlier. So I found a gas station, where I encountered the Spanish Inquistion by the attendent there who thought for some reason I didn't know how much gas I could put in my tank, she kept questioning me about how much gas I wanted to put in the car and telling me she didn't think I could get that much gas in my car...psycho. Once I convinced the lady that I could put $30 of gas in my car and still have room for more I went ahead and topped off the tank and Emily got her business taken care of and we got back on the road. We were in rain off and on until we got to Des Moines, where we made a pit stop at a Super Target and bought a converter to make the phone charger work in the regular wall plug...which works well because we can run regular plug in appliances in our car anyway. So we got the charger going and the phone got charged. We also picked up a small pair of self-powered speakers so we could use our Zunes to play some music so it wasn't completely devoid of entertainment in the car. Once we got that little item solved we were back on the road and encountered more rainbows in a day than I'd seen in a decade prior, many of them were doubles so large that we could only fit one at a time in the frame.

We crossed the Mississippi in Dubuque (which we deemed Duh-Boo-Key...there is a story which I will spare you).

After crossing the river the scenery changed drastically as we entered Wisconsin.

We drove for a while admiring the new scenery and got to Scott's house around dinner. For those that are wondering who Scott is, he is a friend of Bonnie's from her college days in Indiana. We got settled in and decided that rather than get out again we would just order pizza in. Scott went and picked us up pizza from Glass Nickel Pizza, a Wisconsin pizza chain that I would liken to Hideaway for us Okies, almost as good, but maybe I'm just partial. We had the Socre Bleu (Classic Italian Sauce topped with House Blend Cheese, Canadian Bacon, Yellow Onion, Hard Salami, fresh diced Tomato and crumbled Bleu Cheese.  Walnuts Available Upon Request) which was quite tasty and also got a 4 cheese for the kids which was also pretty good. After a good long evening of visiting and getting acquainted/re-acquainted it was off to bed as we had a big day ahead.

Friday, October 19, 2007
We got up fairly early again, at least for being on vacation, and got ready to head out on our next adventure. We were greeted to "baked oatmeal a la Scott", which was quite good. After a hearty breakfast we headed out to Cave of the Mounds, where we toured the cave.

Our timing couldn't have been better, we finished up our tour just in time for 3 or 4 bus loads of middle school students to show up.

We left there and headed over to Mt. Horeb, WI where we toured the World Famous Mustard Museum. We sampled a variety of different mustards there that they had for sale.

We each chose our own mustard to bring home, choices were as follows:

Bonnie- Richard Rothschild Farm's Raspberry Honey Mustard Pretzel Dip (I don't have a clue how that one tastes, it just didn't appeal to me so I didn't bother trying it)

Katie- Noyo Reserve's Merlot 'n Chocolate Mustard (yeah it sounds odd, but it's not bad)

Emily- Inglehoffer's Honey Maple Mustard (really good, my second favorite of everything we tried)

Me- Delicae Gourmet's Key Lime Jalapeno Mustard (of course I'm going to say mine is really really good...because it is)

After we made a quick tour of the actual museum part of the museum we packed up our goodies and headed back to Scott's house so that we could drop off Angie for a work meeting. After taking Angie home, the 6 of us headed over to Middleton, WI for lunch at Hubbard Avenue Diner where I enjoyed a black bean burger and waffle fries...yes I went vegetarian for a meal and yes it was quite good. I finished off my lunch with a slice of double chocolate raspberry cake that had a thick white icing and various shades of blue polka dots that reminded me of a fur job on one of the creatures in Monsters, Inc., it was very good too.

After a good lunch we headed over towards Baraboo, WI and Devil's Lake State Park, making a quick stop along the way so Scott could pick up some apples at a local store there. The view from their parking lot was awesome.

We proceeded to Devil's Lake State Park which continued to show the beauty of fall in Wisconsin. Upon entering the park, the sky seemed to change color immediately upon passing the sign...it turned into a bright yellow color and everything took on a yellow hue wherever you looked.

The lake was beautiful and everywhere we looked within the park the colors were just amazing.

The girls seemed to enjoy themselves.

Since the kids had been "tortured" by having to ride for so long, we took them over to the playground there in the park and let them unwind for a while.

We loaded up and made a brief stop by Dr. Evermor's Scultures along the road near Baraboo. Pretty neat. 

Since it was getting dark and they had closed the main part of things, we just got out, snapped a few pictures and off we were for Scott's house to pick up Angie before heading to dinner on State Street. I wanted something local, but ethnic that evening, and State Street was the perfect place. For those that haven't been to Madison, State Street is the place to go if you want to find any kind of ethnic food; I saw everything from Mexican to Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Nepalese, Brazilian and about every other South American country, German, you name it, it was there. So to satisfy my desire for ethnic and local, we had African food at Buraka. Good food. I had the chicken peanut stew along with some black beans and rice and some tostones (fried plantains). After dinner and a short walk along State St, we headed over to Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Store for some ice cream. It was mighty good. I had a dip of Zanzibar chocolate which was a blend of dark African chocolates (I figured I'd just continue on with the evening's African theme). One wall of the shop was covered with a large mural of aliens painted by a local artist. I snapped a small pic of just a probably 2' x 2' section of the mural with my camera phone, the whole thing was on the order of 20' x 8 1/2' or so by my best estimation.

After our trip to State street we went back to Scott's and crashed for the night.

Saturday, October 20, 2007
A moderately early rise and we were off for the capitol square and the farmers market. We walked around sampling all kinds of goodies. The first cheeses we sampled were cajon, pesto, and colby curds made by Hook's Cheese. We ended up buying a bag of pesto and colby to bring home. There were many different types of foods being sold there. We also ended up getting a package of baby red rice popcorn before passing numerous fresh flower vendors and making another stop for some rather yummy beef sticks being sold by a local meat processor. Somewhere in the mix of all this Bonnie ran into an old friend from her childhood days and so then our group of 7 became 9 and we proceeded to another stop and some yummy baked goods. Katie and I split a chocolate turtle pastry of some sort and Scott and Angie's son, Nate, got a donut that could've doubled as a life preserver for a Cabbage Patch Kid...that thing was huge. We then stopped at the next corner for some yummy spicy cheese bread. We passed a few more vendors before we came across a guy playing guitar and singing with a sign stating he was working for tuition and books. I found it humorous. The next corner brought us to a woman making balloon animals, so the kids just had to have one.

We stopped and sampled some baked cheese (which we also bought some to bring home...if you have an electric skillet, just slice it into little cubes, warm them up and poke a toothpick in them, quick appetizers) and then it was on to a look around the state capitol building. 

The inside of the dome was really neat. Unfortunately it was so high up and our camera so piddly that we didn't get too many good shots, but here is one that Bonnie got.

After checking out the first 2 levels we hit the elevator and went out to the observation deck just below the dome and surveyed the city from above. Beautiful views of the city from every part...

After our tour of the capitol buildng we went over to Monona Terrace for a quick look around. Monona Terrace is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed community center and park that overlooks Lake Monona. I wish I'd gotten some good pictures of it, but you can check out their website and see just how awesome it is.

After stopping there at the terrace and Angie running into an old acquaintance I was feeling pretty left out in the running into people I know department. We decided lunch was a good plan, so we headed to State street once again and Bonnie and I dropped in to a couple of shops and picked up a souvenior here and there before we got to our next lunch stop, Potbelly Sandwich Works for a sandwich. It was a good stop because the food wasn't heavy and our sampling at the farmer's market left me wanting something light if I was to do any more walking. We went to Steve & Barry's and picked up some Wisconsin gear there and we were off to the cars and back to Scott and Angie's. We made a quick pitstop there, said our goodbyes and we were off again for Iowa and the Mast famiy farm.

We made a rather uneventful trip back to Iowa. We stopped at the Ox Yoke Restuarant in Amana Colonies and had dinner. I opted for the more German food items. They weren't horrible, but they weren't anything like Old Germany here. We made it to the farm around midnight again.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

We got up and got dressed to head to worship. We headed to Leon because the last time we were in town we worshipped with the congregation there. We got to town, found the building and there was no sign of anyone at the building and there was no sign indicating the building was still in use. We decided to head to nearby Davis City where we made an unfruitful search before heading to Lamoni and another unfruitful search. We decide to turn around and head back to the farm, but on the way back we saw a sign for the congregation in Davis City, so we followed it and low and behold we were 30 minutes early for worship. We worshipped with the congregation there, talked to few people and then headed back to the farm for a big family lunch with all of Bonnie's family that lives around there. We had a big lunch and then it was back on the road again. We drove and drove and drove. Things went well on the return trip. Emily even wanted to help out.

We started noticing lightning everywhere around us and by the time we hit the last toll gate on the Kansas Turnpike, the winds were howling and shortly after leaving there the rains came down. It rained hard and heavy and we got into some hail between Perry and Guthrie. Near Guthrie, the hail that had already passed through was piled up and looked like it had snowed. We made it back home around 11:45 pm and did a quick unpacking before we were off to bed.

Summary

All in all and despite the rough start to Thursday morning, we had a great trip. Good company, good food, lots of fun and beautiful scenery.

A special thanks has to go out to Bonnie's family in Leon, IA for lodging us and giving us some hearty meals.

A big thanks also goes out to Scott and Angie for opening up their home to us and being our tour guides for our time there. We had a great time. Thanks!