July 30, 2011

Madison

This morning, I woke up and immediately went for a 3-mile run in my sister's neighborhood. I knew if I waited, that I would just skip the run, so I wanted to get it out of the way. When I was done, I took a shower and got ready to head to Madison with Jerry.

It took about an hour to get here from my sister's house--not a bad drive at all. We went to the hotel, even though it was only 11 AM, and asked if we could have an early check-in. They let us, even though check-in was at 3. The view from our room is AMAZING...
The view from our hotel window

This is the farmer's market going on below our hotel... awesome!
We went down to the street and walked around the farmer's market, which took up more than the entire block. We bought some goods, mainly for gifts. I got my sister a chocolate whoopie pie (YUM!), my brother-in-law some jerky, their basset hounds some homemade dog treats, my kids some popcorn. I bought a loaf of whole grain bread for myself, and Jerry bought some cheddar-jalapeno rolls.
Whoopie pies!! This was red velvet and German chocolate.

My loaf of bread

Jerry's cheddar jalapeno rolls

The dog treats for Remy and Lucy
After we dropped our goods off at the hotel, we got lunch from a cool little place called Teddywedgers. It's a teeny tiny little shop that serves nothing but pasties, and it was recommended to me by Robyn. Robyn, thank you so much for the suggestion!! My husband and I both LOVED the pasties, and we plan on getting another for breakfast in the morning ;)  I got a veggie one and Jerry got some sort of breakfast one.
Teddywedgers!  Barely big enough for two people to stand inside (dunno the woman in the pic!)

Veggie Wedgie was my pick--tomato sauce, mushrooms, peppers, and mozzarella

My veggie pasty

This is what it looks like inside... it was SO GOOD
Jerry was completely stuffed after eating his pasty, but I always save room for dessert, so I chose to eat my whoopie pie ;)  I had the red velvet one. The filling was buttercream frosting, which you all know is like crack to me. This was such a great dessert for me!
Red velvet whoopie pie!
After that, we walked up and down State Street for a little bit, and went into a couple of shops, and we stopped for a beer at a brew pub. I'm not a huge beer fan, but my husband loves beer as much as I love wine.
Yes, that is my brown Goodwill dress :)

Some guy on a hunger strike... I wasn't impressed

At the brew pub
Now we are just relaxing in the hotel room for a little bit, and then we'll get dinner. We have reservations at a comedy club tonight, which should be fun. I love comedy clubs!
Yes, that would be wine in my hands

Oh, I have to mention something that I find so neat about Madison... there are bicycles EVERYWHERE. Back home in Michigan, I see maybe one biker when I go out somewhere. Here, there are probably more bicycles than there are cars! There is a bike lane on all the roads in the city (a full-size car lane devoted to buses, bikes, and cars turning right only), and there are tons of bike racks in front of every shop. There are a tons of bicycle rental places on the streets, that kind of remind me of a Redbox ;)  There is no attendant, and you just put in your credit card--$10 for 24 hours. I really need to get a picture of all the bicyclists, because it's pretty amazing. My husband and I both commented on it a few times.


Is your city very cyclist-friendly? Like I said, where I come from, it is very rare to see someone on a bicycle. In Madison, they are EVERYWHERE.


10 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, our town isn't bicycle friendly, nor pedestrian friendly. That's when I run I'm either at the gym or the track where I know I'm safe.

    We celebrated my mom's 76th birthday today and since she just went through a horrible time battling cancer we celebrated big time today. You would have LOVED her cake! (I ordered it!) Gobs and gobs of buttercream covering the entire thing with a layer of chocolate and yellow cake 1/2 filled with canoli cream and the other 1/2 was a chocolate fudge that's like the most decadent chocolate Betty Crocker frosting you have EVER had! It was worth every calorie. I hope I can get to sleep tonight!

    Enjoy the comedy club!

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  2. yay, so glad you guys hit up teddywedgers and enjoyed it. Did you know that you can buy them uncooked as well, and then take them home and pop them into the oven? That's what we did last time. Time before that we got there just to find they were closed for vacation, so I'm glad that they were open for you.

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  3. OMG I'm so jealous! I LOVE RED VELVET! :) Yum!!

    You look so tiny in your pics :)

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  4. Goodwill looks great on you girl! :) I am glad you and Jerry are enjoying yourselves.

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  5. AnonymousJuly 31, 2011

    I have not gone to Madison for a while, but I love walking State Street. Always so much to see and so many random people (like the hunger strike guy... wth?). It looks like a day well spent! You look amazing, think of how much more enjoyable life in general seems. I'm feeling inspired! Thanks for sharing.

    http://missapril-30before30.blogspot.com/

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  6. oh wow. im so jealous of the bike friendly town and the bike redbox! haha. AWESOME!

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  7. By the way, one of the guys in the background of the hunger strike picture looks like he's eating. Do they take turns?

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  8. Yummmm those whoopie pies look sooo good!

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  9. AnonymousJuly 31, 2011

    I'm so glad I got a chance to catch up on your blogs. We have been camping for a few days (we had a blast) but when I got home I remembered you guys were going to Madison and I was looking forward to hearing about your trip. I hope you had a better trip home then you did on your way there. Yikes! My birthday is next weekend and I have been fighting with myself for 2 weeks on whether I'm going to let my hubby order a buttercream frosted cake or not. I'm powerless against it's charms! Have a great week!

    -Jen (jennygump21)

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  10. I am new to your blog and LOVE IT! I am 230 lbs and am on a weight loss journey. I just started running/walking with my dog in the morning before work and I go to the gym to workout 3-4 times a week, or when I can. I work in downtown Madison and it was so cool to see that you visited here. I LOVE downtown Madison, but I could never live there. LOL! But it is beautiful. I had to chuckle that you mentioned you weren't impressed about the guy on the hunger strike. He made it about 90 days! Then I never seen him again, which was totally NOT a bad thing! You are a huge inspiration to me. Your post about what you love the most about losing weight really hit me. I will be reading these often as a reminder to myself about what it will be like when I lose the weight. THANK YOU!!

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I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

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