Visiting Andy in Wisconsin

Dad, Mom, and Andy at Andy's house in the woods.

We drove from Cincinnati to Madison, Wisconsin in one day, almost 500 miles.. Even at 80 mph, it's a long day on the road. This will be the longest drive on our trip. We have a few more 400+ milers, but it'll mostly be shorter runs. 

The drive was mostly easy: no major traffic around the few bigger cities we passed. But it was singularly boring. North central Illinois is unrelievedly flat. Unlike most farm country I've driven through, this stretch had nothing, and I mean nothing but corn. Very little cattle, no soy beans, no orchards, no hills, almost no trees. Just corn, with occasional wind farms, massive silos, and ethanol production plants. It was a relief to get to the relatively rolling flatness of Wisconsin.

We spent our first evening in Madison with Andy coming in to visit us from his house in the countryside.. We stayed at a spanking new Avid hotel in Monona, just outside of Madison. Very new hotel. Everything has a "new construction smell" to it. We went to a nice little Peruvian restaurant about a mile from the hotel. Then we spent the evening at a place that became our favorite spot for long conversation on our last trip to Madison last September. The Tasting Room is a cigar bar just cross the parking lot from our hotel. Fine cigars. A good beer, wine, and cocktail selection. Gas fire pits outdoors and a few fireplaces indoors for cool evenings. Go in, grab some cigars from the walk-in humidor, order a cocktail, and get ready for a nice evening of conversation. The last time we were in Madison, we weren't staying anywhere near the Tasting Room, but went there on a whim. Even though Vicky doesn't smoke cigars, we all had such a good time that we went back the next night. Ditto this trip, except we were staying right next door this time.

Peruvian Pescado Frito

Relaxing at the Tasting Room

Just like Christina, Andy has made a big change in the last few months. He moved out of the coop he was living in downtown Madison to a small house on 8 acres of woodland in an area surrounded by rolling farmland about 20 miles from Madison. At first Andy was leery of the commute to work, but after a couple of months on the property, he is extremely happy in the serene setting. And he's happy at his job. Lots of responsibility handling dangerous equipment and working big tree trimming and removal machinery. He's content and has plenty of time to pursue hobbies like reading, wood working, carpentry, and learning to make hand-made hunting bows.

He shares the rented house with a couple of mushroom cultivators who only occupy their room a couple of days a week. The mushrooms are grown in a windowless outbuilding. The rest of the property is woods, with a variety of pines, oaks, box elders, walnut and hickory trees, buckthorn shrubs, and several other species. Since Andy works with trees for a living, he's already intimately familiar with all the trees on the property. 

We spent the next day just relaxing at Andy's woodland home. We took a walk through the woods.  Andy and I went for a run in the countryside near his home. We came back to work with Vicky on a puzzle (which is more of a Christmas family tradition when the kids visit us in State College).  And we just spent time catching up. Andy felt great having us there because, although he's lived or traveled quite literally all over the world,  it's the first place where we've visited him that he really considers a place of his own. 

We spent most of our time with Andy just hanging out

A tough puzzle

We spent our last evening again at the Tasting Room. More great conversation. Today we're off to South Dakota  and on to the rest of our adventure.