Down to Dayton

What a beautiful weekend. Friday evening I went for a long walk with Rodney, then Travalon, OK Cap, and I went to a new place in Waunakee called Mr. Brews for microbrews and fancy burgers. (Yes, we ate red meat on a Friday, but it is the Easter season!) I had a “coffee cream ale” called Batsh!+ Crazy, and you could really taste the coffee. OK Cap had a raspberry ale, and Travalon had a brown ale. We all tried each other’s brews, and they were all very good.

Saturday morning Travalon and I met Richard Bonomo and OK Cap for coffee, then Travalon and I went to a book signing with free samples of pie, because it was the Norske Nook cookbook. If you want to bake those famous Norske Nook pies at home (like lingonberry sour cream), then get yourself a copy of this book. It is beautifully photographed. Then we went to a record store, and there was a piece of metal sticking out of one of the record bins, so I scratched my arm. To my surprise, they had a first aid kit and supplied me with Bacitracin and a bandage. Rich, Rodney, Travalon, and I headed off to Devil’s Lake and joined just about everyone in the state there, since it was such a beautiful day. We walked the “low path,” since Rodney probably couldn’t climb the bluffs. After we dropped Rich off, we drove down to Paoli for the Hop Garden’s grand opening. I have mentioned this tiny brew pub before – they have some potent brews, and the owner grows his own hops. The owner lives in Dayton, a tiny town I had not heard of before, so Travalon thought we should make a road trip there. Once we got back, Rich and I went to the health club to work out (so that was three times for me this past week), while Travalon watched the fight. He couldn’t get into the place that was showing it, but you could see it through the windows, so a whole bunch of people gathered in front of the windows to watch it for free. Since it was a beautiful evening, Travalon didn’t mind standing outside.

Yesterday Travalon, Rodney, and I drove down to Dayton (Wisconsin), which is basically a bunch of houses on the Sugar River – we couldn’t even find a bar or church, but it is bigger than Martinsville. It has a number of streets, including ones named Madison and Milwaukee. Then we went to Belleville and walked by the lake, and then we came back to town and started from Tenney Park to follow the bike path that goes across the isthmus, to Yahara Park on Lake Monona. We passed Mickey’s Tavern, and in the parking lot I saw one of the most offensive bumper stickers ever: it used various religious symbols to spell out the word “Idiots,” much like those “Coexist” bumper stickers you see everywhere. The only bright side is at least they insulted everyone (including Satanists!) equally and didn’t just reserve their scorn for Christians. One woman walking with a little girl and a long-haired dachshund told us, "Your dog should be illegal, he's so cute! He looks like a little lamb from the back!" In the evening Travalon and I met Jilly Moose, OK Cap, Luxuli, and Prairie Man at Nonno’s Italian Restaurant, which used to be a Mexican restaurant and still has the same owners – they just decided to become Italian for some reason. I had squid ink pasta with seafood – yum! That is one of my favorite dishes ever. So it was a wonderful weekend with plenty of outdoor time. I love May!

Famous Hat