Well, never say never I suppose.

In this post last year I stated that I was through with traveling.

Well - that did not last long.

So, here I am, typing on my blog in cold Madison, Wisconsin (actually McFarlane but close enough). After I returned home to St. Louis and realized that obtaining full time employment was not in the stars for me I had to accept another travel contract. This one, like Cincinnati, is close enough that I can go home on weekends. This was essential as I am still employed back in St. Louis and plan on working there part time when I am home.

Even though a wrench was thrown into my plans I feel excited about this opportunity. The facility I am at is very new which not only translates to state of the art technology but also to a nice looking work environment.

Rob and I went up to Madison a couple of weekends before Christmas to check out some rooms off Craigslist to determine if I was to take company housing or not. Since I already signed the contract I figured we might as well also tour the city. Madison is a really cool, different city in how it is set up. Apparently (going back to Geography lessons) Madison is situated on an isthmus - a strip of land between two bodies of water, these being Lake Mendota and Lake Menona. Everyone here is incredibly friendly and it seems like such a college town.

Friday night all 3 of us went downtown to the Great Dane Brewery. Food was excellent (try the french onion soup) and the beer was great. We met up with a few of Maggie's friends at another smaller bar down the road and had a small walking tour on the way.

Next day Rob and I woke up fairly early to go explore the city. The street where all the boutiques are is called State Street. This is the main shopping part of downtown Madison with the University of Wisconsin at Madison being situated right in the middle. The length of the street is pretty long but also very walkable. The end comes to the steps of the beautiful Capitol Building. On our way there we saw SO many people out ice fishing as well as being active by either biking or running. Madison seems like a very walkable city despite the snow on the ground.

After we shopped and walked around for some time - Rob wanted to go nighttime snowboarding/skiing at Tyrol Basin. The rate was great at about 25/person including all the ski gear, and a lesson could be tacked on for $15. Granted, this was not Colorado Rocky Mountain skiing but it was a sizable.... hill... with some steep slopes and a short lift ride up. Rob was gracious enough to buy me snowboarding lessons. My snowboard instructor, Lawrence, who wanted to be called Rainn, his rapper name - tried to show me how to snowboard. I did not like it and actually stopped our lesson about 30 minutes in. Rob, being the great salesman he is, talked me into skiing, which I picked up with a quickness. So the trip wasn't lost after all. I was pretty anxious about the ski lift which Rob also had to talk me off the ledge about but that fear was quickly abandoned when I realized how easy it was. I still have a hard time stopping when I'm skiing so I just fall. :) I'll learn it sometime soon.


This is where the comedy lies. I have never skii'ed/snowboarded in my life. There was this one time if you to count when I was at a childhood friend's house. We found an old school wooden snowboard and tried snowboarding down a 20' (I'm being generous here) hill. But I digress...

In addition to my inexperience, I was also anxious due to the much hyped blizzard Northern Illinois/all of Wisconsin that was predicted to happen.

So after skiing, having a few beers at the lodge we decided to leave because the snow that was coming down wasn't powder, it was wet. We were soaked head to toe and freezing. The snow was piling up and we drove my little Ford Focus to the basin and somehow had to get it back. As we were leaving we realized how bad the roads really were. A 40 minute drive took us 2 hours.

While our drive from Tyrol back to McFarlane was long it was not as scary as our ride back to St. Louis the next day. We were caught in a blizzard on our way home. After we passed Rockford IL the highway was nothing but a sheet of ice. Going over 30mph would send my car into a fishtail across the road. What should have taken us 4 hours took us 8. The wind was blowing the snow so hard and fast that you could not see a car three lengths in front of you. We saw a tractor trailer almost eat it as well as numerous cars in the ditch.

We debated in Bloomington IL whether or not to drive the rest of the way (we were doing 30 on the interstate the entire way) as it was only 5pm and we would make it in by 10. I drove the entire way (my insistence) so I let Rob try, about 10 miles down the road we both decided it was not safe and stayed in McLean, IL. The motel was not bad except the indoor pool was closed (which was a total disappointment). We made it through and drove the rest of the way in the morning after the sun melted all the ice. Come to find out that outside of Springfield IL the interstate was completely shut down due to a multiple car pile up so we were lucky to have stopped when we did.

Anyway, that is my Madison adventure so far. I plan on finding things to do while I am up here. Will update soon.

Much Love
L