On Wisconsin

Doug, Cameron and I picked up Samuel at 9:30 this morning for our weekend trip to Madison, Wisconsin.  Cameron had decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin earlier this month.  Since he had never even been to the state, he thought that a trip north this fall break was in order.  Samuel had been to Madison for a triathlon with his dad five years ago and remembered a lot of the area.  Doug and I had not been to the capital city since the 1990s, so we didn't recall very much of the town.  The drive was shorter than we predicted and with only one stop we were on campus in a little over 4 and a half hours.  The hardest part of the trip was actually trying to find a place to park.  Thankfully, there were plenty of spaces near the state capitol building downtown.  

We originally picked State Street Brats for lunch, but it had a long line of students outside of the restaurant waiting to get inside.  We moved on to our second choice, The Old Fashioned.  Cameron loved the menu including the ability to add Braunschweiger to a chicken sandwich.  I enjoyed all of the old beer signs around the bar including ones for Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz.  The cheese curds were ranked #1 in the state so we started off with those.  They were really good.  Everyone added a sandwich to the meal rounding out a very filling lunch.

Our next stop was the University of Wisconsin bookstore.  Although we didn't buy the cow bibs, we did find a lot of great items including an Old Style shirt for Doug, a Bucky badger shirt for Cameron and a Christmas gift for Uncle Phil.  After the shopping trip, we spent the rest of the afternoon on a self guided walking tour of campus.  Wisconsin has the same amount of students as the University of Florida and IU, but it definitely felt bigger.  We thought it was very pretty, especially the areas near the lake.  Their Union was packed with alumni as this was their homecoming weekend.  We got a kick out of the flamingos lined up on the lawn.  Cameron found out later that it was a prank from the 1950s that turned into a fundraiser for the university.  We ended our walking tour at Camp Randall Stadium, so that we would know where to go for tomorrow's game.

Our hotel was about ten minutes from campus, so we headed there next.  After unpacking and making sure that everything was in order, we found a miniature golf place to try.  It was definitely unique as it had both inside and outside courses.  It was also challenging as the best score of the night was 56.  It was definitely a great way to spend the evening.  Our last stop was Mr. Brews Taphouse which was near our hotel.  It was a nice find and the food was delicious.  I was wiped out from all of the walking, so Doug and I spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching "The Proposal."  The boys had a separate room and decided that this would be the perfect time to watch "The Blair Witch Project", especially since Samuel had just returned from a three day hiking trip in Kentucky with two of his friends.