Movin' Right Along: On to the good stuff

So now I'll begin recapping our 11 day cross country trip. This trip was extensive, but totally fun and well worth it.

Day 1: Drive from State College, PA to Madison, WI. We decided to drive straight to Madison, stay over in a hotel and bike around the city the next morning. However, all the hotels in Madison were booked because of some conference. And I mean ALL the hotels! So we did some more research and saw a nice review of a motel in Mt Horeb. It's a small town about 15 miles outside of the city. Mt Horeb (aka Trollway) is a sleepy little Norwegian town that has an affection for Trolls. There were carved trolls all over the Main Street. Brad and I walked to a local brewery called the Grumpy Troll and it totally hit the spot! We ordered fried cheese curds and Spetsnaz brews! Delicious! We also enjoyed quizzing one another with Trivial Pursuit cards that were on our table and we actually read a question about Mt Horeb! (see picture). The people in this town were extremely nice and we enjoyed their accents. :)

I wish fried cheese curds were available everywhere!

We couldn't believe we found a trivia question about Mt Horeb!

Brad is posing with the Troll Mayor.

I'm posing with the Warrior Troll.

Day 2: It was a beautiful day in Madison and we took advantage of the bike friendly city and spent the morning in the bike lanes and bike paths of the city. We really loved the University and campus. It sits right on the lake. We stopped to check out the pool, but nothing to write home about. We also biked by the Capitol and we just couldn't get over how easy it is to get around the city on bikes. The city is full of fit people out biking and running or sailing and kite surfing. It is really great to see. We had lunch at UW’s Memorial Union (the student center). It’s right on the water and serves beer (good Wisconsin beer) - UW students are extremely lucky! We finished up our morning in Madison with buying Bucky the Badger cheese curds and New Glarus Fat Squirrel beer.

We then drove to Sioux Falls, SD for the night. We had dinner in our hotel room and tried out Fat Squirrel. It is a very good nut brown ale (especially good after a long drive).

Here is a view of the Capitol from across the lake.

I quickly took this picture when we were stopped at a traffic light!

Day 3: We stopped at a Hy-Vee grocery store to get food for camping in Custer and Badlands in Sioux Falls. People in the super market were extremely friendly. I couldn’t believe how many people said “hello” and “good morning.” Unfortunately, it stormed all night and our poor bikes spent the night in the rain on top of the car, but as we got closer to the Badlands we had better weather. We arrive at Badlands around 2:00 and it was incredible to see. South Dakota is so flat and then the hills of the Badlands in all their glorious colors seem to come out of nowhere. Unfortunately, my camera does not do them justice. We set up our tent and then took a few short hikes to see the area. It was really hot, but very windy which helped make it tolerable. We then took our bikes for a ride to see more of the park. We really wanted to see a black-footed ferret, but I think they are pretty rare. We rode a few miles to a trailhead and took a really steep trail up to a beautiful outlook. We hiked back down, then rode a little further, not realizing the wind was at our backs. We had quite a tough ride back to our campsite! I think I may have gotten a taste of what it feels like to ride the Queen K during the Hawaii Ironman. We capped our day off with a nice camp dinner and a great sunset.