Midsummer in the Midwest

We had the good fortune to be able to stay with William's brother Peter in Madison for an entire week, which was a much-needed break from the long days of driving. So much of a break was needed that we barely did anything at all on Saturday and Sunday (June 20-21): we did walk around downtown and the Capitol a bit until it started raining on Sunday but most of the time that weekend was spent reading and catching up. Also, it was generally 95-100 degrees during the day - Pete's apartment is air-conditioned and we were theoretically happy to go out and walk around but the reality was that cool air is frequently preferable to heat and humidity, no matter what there is to see. On Monday afternoon we went over to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum and saw lovely flowers and trees until (once again) the heat drove us into the visitor's center. They had a good selection of books on sustainable living and urban homesteading but the limitations of the car are such that we really shouldn't be buying anything at all besides groceries on this trip. It's all for the best, really. That night we went to Buraka for Ethiopian food, which was delicious, and I think that may have been the night that we made root-beer floats at the apartment as well. 

Pete had to work on Tuesday and Wednesday so we decided to get all our necessary errands out of the way on Tuesday while he was busy. We got the car washed (twice; they sent it back after the first time because it was so dirty!) and the oil changed, and got some stuff to put dinner together. However, some of Pete's friends invited us over for pizza and cocktails and we were able to introduce them to Tokyo Tea which was one of our favorites from O'Flaherty's in San Jose.  On Wednesday we thought we would settle in and catch up with email and photos...but William's hard drive crashed and so we got to go over to the local Apple store where they determined that there was nothing they could do to retrieve his data. We've been backing everything up regularly since then so hopefully there will be no more major disasters. 

Thursday and Friday were the days of the major expeditions. We spent most of Thursday hiking at Devil's Lake (photos in a previous post) which involved going nearly straight up through a hill of boulders until we got to the top and could see out over the lake and the forest. The landscape was fascinating and there was always something new and interesting around the next corner, even if that something turned out to be a gaggle of Girl Scouts on a field trip, but about mid-afternoon we decided that we had done enough for the day and that we needed to head on to the next adventure. So we proceeded directly to Blue Spoon Cafe in Prairie du Sac where, in the best life-is-uncertain tradition, we had excellent gelato for lunch followed by sandwiches for dessert. We got ourselves home and cleaned up just in time for some friends of Pete's to come over for the evening. Friday we rented a canoe and lurched around the two lakes right next to Madison: Lake Monona and Lake Mendota. They are joined by a short canal and there is a lock from the canal to Lake Mendota, which was a lot of fun to go through in a canoe. I originally thought that paddling a canoe would be the perfect thing to do after the hiking on Thursday - my legs weren't working, so I would use my arms instead - but it just meant that EVERYTHING hurt on Friday night. The only possibly solution to this dilemma was margaritas, so we had some with our burritos at Casa de Lara and then wandered off back to Pete's where I wrote the last non-photographic blog post. Maybe I should have margaritas more often, and then the blog would get updated???

We went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday before we left, mostly so I could stock up on cheese curds for the 3-hour trip ahead of us, and drove to Evanston, IL on Saturday afternoon where we stayed with Joe and Lynn Jencks. Joe is a close friend from college who has spent the last 10 years on the road as a professional singer-songwriter, so it's rare to find him at home and I was extremely pleased that our schedules managed to converge. Lynn is in graduate school at Northwestern but she's not *quite* as busy in the summer so we managed to spend a lot of time together catching up and comparing notes. They had a few friends over on Saturday night: the standard BBQ progressed into folk singing and whisky tasting and we all had a splendid time. Sunday afternoon we went for a walk and ended up wandering into Nevin's where we found John Williams holding forth with his usual exuberance  - we didn't have instruments so we sat and listened for a while and then I distinguished myself by singing a song in Irish. We had dinner at Addis Abeba (more Ethiopian) and drove 45 minutes south to the other side of Chicago to go to Kevin Henry's session. I may have a post entirely devoted to sessions in the future - I have a lot to say about them at this point in the trip, and not all of the things I have to say are complimentary - but this was absolutely the best session I have ever been to. People were kind and welcoming, men who have been playing for longer than I've been alive were courteous and asked about people they knew who lived in the Bay Area, stories were told, we were invited to play and complimented when we did so, and the lift and lilt of the tunes was...magical. We played standard 'beginner' tunes that suddenly sounded lively and full of spirit, and then the twisty tricky tunes had a simplicity and grace that made me wonder why everyone doesn't play them. I can't wait to go back.

This is turning into a long post, so I think I'll leave it there. Stay tuned for Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Montreal, which is where we are right now...