Madtown Lakeside Stroll With Pumpkins

Things have been pretty rote lately. Going to work, going to bed early, watching season 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which is awesome, by the by). Very funny, for Curb watchers, this business about Tagashi's favorite black swan may be one of my all time favorites. "Listen moron, I'll tell you what swan-killers don't do...".

I registered for some continuing education classes to work on a Substance Abuse Certificate through UW-Madison that I thought was last weekend. I learned on Friday morning that I had mixed up the dates, but we had already booked a hotel. Since we paid in advance, we decided to go to Madison for a little mini-getaway. We woke up late and made our way to Madison in mid-afternoon where we dined at a great little Laotian place called Lao Laan-Xang. Awesome veggie egg rolls with marinated tofu, nummy!

We walked through Library Mall, up Bascom Hill and over to the Lakeshore Path and all the way out to Picnic Point and back. Afterward we stopped for an ice cream treat in the Union. Babcock Chocolate Peanut Butter remains my favorite. Yes, I recognize this is not vegan food. I'm really in a low place in that regard. However, I'm still maintaining as a strong, strong vegetarian.

We stopped in the UW Bookstore where I bought a Bucky decal for my car. It only took me six years to get a hint of my UW pride back. We got visitors' passes to Memorial Library where I showed Ry my favorite study spot in the 2nd floor periodicals room (a lot smaller than I remembered). We moseyed up State Street looking in store windows and stopping in a few on the way.

Finally, we ended up on the square at Harvest, where we enjoyed a scrumptious and locally sourced meal. It's been a while since we engaged in any really fine dining and it was a lovely treat. There were two young college students right next to us on what appeared to be a very awkward and expensive first date. We walked back down Langdon street to our car passing fraternity houses and droves of students walking to parties. One enterprising young fellow offered us $5 cups and the opportunity to watch girls dance around a stripper pole. Indeed, there did appear to be young gals (fully clothed) dancing around a stripper pole in their living room with purple party lights flooding out the front window. We took a pass on that, obviously.

The next day we intended to go for a bike ride on the Glacial Drumlin Trail but it was too cold. Instead we opted for a slow drive home on Highway 18 where we visited a small pumpkin sale out of someone's front yard. We picked out three pumpkins for our front steps and two pretty little acorn squash.


Ry checking out some punkins.


Punkins in the trunk, bikes on the roof.


Silvio is now comfortable enough to go everywhere he's not allowed and to start acting naughty, which he has.


Ry's first take at sourdough English muffins.