Ms. J and I were in Madison, WI over the Independence Day weekend to visit our daughter. She’s spending the summer working in Mad-City, and clearly enjoying herself immensely.
Madison is the Wisconsin state capital. It’s also the home of the University of Wisconsin’s main campus, and Wisconsin’s second largest city.
We had a wonderful time. We stayed about three blocks from the state capitol building. Here are pictures.
One cool building! (It’s also the host for Dane County Farmers’ Market, the largest producer-only farmer’s market in the nation.)
We ate very, very well at Graze and Restaurant Muramoto, thought The Old Fashioned was OK, and had a nice breakfast at Marigold Kitchen. Pics below, with captions. (Our daughter is one fine photographer; I ceded control over the camera to her.)
Graze
The Old Fashioned
Muramoto
No pics from Marigold Kitchen, but here’s an extra from Ian’s Pizza, an excellent salad/pizza place.
Ms. J insisted on a bit of culture. Good on her, as we visited the Chazen Museum of Art on the UW-Madison campus. One very, very fine art museum! Beautiful building, first-rate art, and a very eclectic mix. My kind of museum.
By the way, UW-Madison is an extraordinarily civilized institution of higher learning. It should probably come as no surprise that the top-tier state school in the state known as America’s Dairyland makes its own Babcock ice cream, and has its own Babcock Hall Dairy Store. And it’s surely no surprise that the Wisconsin Union has its own lakeside terrace with beer service.
I did not get my beer at the union, but we did have a nice experience on Sunday morning/afternoon. USA Cycling had its national championships on the capitol square on Sunday. Big deal races! Ms. J and I decamped to Colectivo, intending for Ms. J to have a coffee or two while we waited for our daughter’s work break and the final goodbye. Alas, and as it with many coffee places, there was beer. So on a delightful, very overcast—we felt a few drops of rain—and cool afternoon, I got my “outside” beer, we watched some very committed and talented young people zip around a one click (kilometer) course, and had our goodbye.
No caption needed here, but I do need to share the pretzel with mustard from Colectivo, from an earlier day.
Before I wrap things up, here’s Ms. J and one cool dude in Mad-City.
In conclusion, my sister and brother-in-law, Pam and Craig, put us up in Rockford, IL and fed us.
One fine trip!
P.S. I did leave out walking on State Street, an excellent martini bar (Opus), a pool hall, and what had to be at least $100 in charges at local coffee spots over three days. One owner told Ms. J and the daughter he’d notice if they didn’t show up on Sunday morning. I thought, “damn straight.”
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