Madison - Part 2

Jo had some business in Neenah, WI last Friday so I tagged along to spend a little time touring beautiful Neenah.  Turns out you can walk through the downtown in a fairly short time and there was really only one shop that I felt warranted me shopping in, so I kill some of the time until Jo was finished, I decided to stroll through a few neighborhoods to see what Neenah had to offer from a housing standpoint.  One highlight was finding a miniature Statue of Liberty that a local businessman donated to the city - don't ask me why, he just felt the need.  I had a great time admiring some of the larger houses in Neenah and strolling along the shores of Lake Winnebago.

 After her meeting finished up, we drove down to Madison to finally get to see a UW football game since we hadn't made it to one as yet.  Saturday was an absolutely perfect fall football day.  Not a cloud in the sky, temperatures in the mid to high 50's, and a light breeze.  Plus the Badger's played great against our new Big Ten rivals, Maryland.  We stayed to enjoy the band during the fifth quarter before walking up State Street to see the old sites.  After a great dinner with Kathy, Drew, and Amy it was time to pack up the car to head home.  To cement the perfect football Saturday our other alma mater, Illinois, won against Minnesota.

Sunday morning we hiked for our daily exercise covering about 5 miles and then stopped for a cinnamon roll at City Market just to be sure we didn't waste away to nothing from all that exercising.  Sunday afternoon was trick and treat time in Milwaukee.  The city schedules tricking and treating for a weekend afternoon around Halloween.  While it is safer for all the kids running around the houses, some of the mystery of Halloween seems to be lost.  It was great fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes with princesses being a very popular theme among the young ladies.  We finished our weekend watching the Packer's lose - oh well, can't have everything.

I also finished pulling all the fall crops from the garden last week.  This meant the last of the acorn squash (which after roasting and combining with some gnocchi made a great pasta dish for Sunday), onions, leeks, and carrots.  We had pretty good carrot crop this year with less of the gargantuan, mutant carrots that we had last year.  Only parsnips and some mini-Brussels sprouts are left.