let the meetup begin!

The meetup was organized by Kim (DCBackpacker) and began with dinner at the Essen Haus in Madison.  Shortly after we arrived, Jeremy (festerwretch) and Jackie (happyjack) joined us.  Carrie (csabo) and two friends joined us.  We had a drink and dinner and free pretzels and began the small talk - who are you, where are you from, where have you traveled, etc.  After dinner, Carrie and her friends left, presumably off to another party, and we moved down to the bar area taking our pretzels with us. 

We ordered a round of drinks and as the waiter brought Jackie her drink, he said it will be $21.

50.  That's an expensive blue drink!  As we drank, more stories came out and the pretzels were eaten.  The bar had tons of steins on the ceiling - patrons can store their mugs up there.  I hope they wash them because most were pretty dusty looking.  We decided to move on, so I grabbed a pretzel for the road. 

Next stop was the Great Dane brew pub (recommended by my mom!).  The upstairs was full, so we went downstairs to the Rathskeller.  This was fun and I liked the atmosphere better than upstairs.  The pub makes their own beers and we saw the vats in an unlocked room...  We had a couple of trespassers with us ;) but we eventually ended up in a booth with beers and dessert.  I got a delicious brownie sundae, mmmm....  After one drink, we moved on.

Final stop was the Local Bar.  We found a table and had a drink (of course!).  A bachelorette party or two passed through that night, leaving some souviners that we played with.  We sat next to a cool colored glass window that was missing a pane.  Jeremy decided it was a good place to put our empty glasses - I wonder if anyone found them yet?  After awhile, Kim left us so she could get some sleep to watch the Iron Man the next morning.  And then things got crazy.  More drinking, singing, adult humor, and who knows what else.  We finally got kicked out at bar closing by a screaming bartender. 

And then we got lost.  I wanted to find my bank that I saw earlier in the day to get some cash, but clearly I had absolutely no idea where it was.  Somehow Jeremy remembered where were parked, or rather how to get there and we found our cars.

  On the way some crazy drunk photos were taken and then the highlight of the evening after bar close - the foam!  We forgot about the foam party we saw advertised earlier - oh how that would have been fun!  Oh well, we'll just use this foam laying on the sidewalk and bubbling out of the dumpster.  I suppose playing with bubbles that were on the ground and in a dumpster was not the brightest thing I've ever done, but it sure was fun!  And doesn't the soap cancel out the dirt anyway?  After some laughs and goodbyes we left Jeremy and Jackie and went back to our not 5-star hotel.  I didn't see any drunk people there except me.  We collapsed into bed and drifted of into passed out land and a good 4 hours of sleep before we had to get up to get me back to the airport.  (the next morning I found my pretzel and ate it)

We pulled into town and decided to drive around and take in the sights.  First up, try to find the meetup location.  Check.  Next, go to Olin Park (based on my mom's recommendation) for a nice view of the skyline and Lake Monona.   And it was a nice view indeed!  We walked to the "beach" and down to the boat launch and docks.  While there we could hear a loud concert so we decided to investigate.  It was a free concert but we never found out who was performing.  On the way back we passed a crazy high stop sign.  It was maybe 30 feet up the air?  And for what?  No idea.  We passed my mom's old high school and Ella's Deli.  The first hotel we tried was booked so we lowered our standards and got a cheap room at the motel 6.

  As they gave us the last double room (on second floor), they implied that second floor is reserved for drunk college students.   Hmmm, this could be fun.  It was a little sketchy but it turns out that we did indeed return drunk (or at least I did) and then the room seemed fine.  On the way back to the meetup location, we "cruised the square", again per recommendation of my mom, around the state capitol.  Apparently that was the cool thing to do in high school - I don't know if it still is.  It was actually harder than it sounds - there are apparently two squares and the inner square is one way only.  But we finally figured it out ;)

We parked for the meetup and walked back to get our pics of the super high stop sign and a few signs of the Essen Haus and other random things before the meetup.  Turns out there is an Iron Man competition in town this weekend.  I thought maybe Madison had almost as many bikers as Amsterdam, but I guess they were there for the race.