Memorial Day Weekend

We spent a long weekend with our good friends, Sheri and Bruno.  Bruno was in Madison teaching a course and Sheri flew in on Thursday night.  So we picked her up at the airport and headed over to Madison for a few days since we all had spent time there during our scholastic years.  Friday morning while Bruno yakked on a teleconference - some people don't get how vacation works - Sheri, Jo, and I headed out for a walk along the lake shore path enjoying the great temperatures, views of the lake and campus, all the while reminiscing about our days on campus.  We then came back to pick up Bruno before walking over to the Shortstack for some blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes.


Next up was a quick tour of our new condo before we headed over to the world's largest Bratfest - it said so on the sign, so it must be true.  But as you might expect with four scientists reviewing a claim like that there were many questions on how it was measured: number of brats served, total length of all brats served, number of people actually eating a brat, etc.  We never found out, but we had fun enjoying a brat, the Oscar Mayer Wiener mobile, and people trying to run around in inflated plastic balls on a lagoon.  For those not in touch with Jo's Facebook page, I've included Sheri and Jo's award winning attempt to look like a hot dog.

After all the excitement at the Brat Fest it was time to chill out on the Wisconsin Union Terrace with some of Sheri's graduate school friends who still live in the Madison area.  It was fun to hear stories of Sheri and Bruno's exploits during college while enjoying the view of Lake Mendota all the while consuming a lot of beer (something like 4 pitchers between about 6 people).  Fortunately, I was the designated driver so didn't land up with any ill effects - like some of the others.  We finished the day's eating events with a delicious meal (notice the theme of us moving from food opportunity to food opportunity) at Kathy and John's place.  Then it was off to New Glarus to hear the VO5's perform.  One of the players in the VO5's was a roommate of Sheri's which explains why we were listening to 70's disco music at 11:00 at night.  Although, it did bring back a lot of college memories for Jo and I.

Saturday after a trip around the square enjoying the farmer's market and picking up some veggies for dinner later that day we headed back to Milwaukee and a 6 mile hike down to the kite festival to get a little exercise working off some of the previous day's beers and to see the kites in action.  Then since we hadn't consumed any food or beer in at least 2 hours we moved over to the Humboldt Park beer garden for a pretzel and beers.  Finally, it was home to make a refreshing pasta dinner and to collapse in the family room.

Sunday dawned overcast but the rain held off enough for us to get in a 2 hour hike of the Seven Bridges park on the south side of Milwaukee.  We got a little wet at the end but enjoyed the somewhat foggy views of Lake Michigan and the several ground hogs that kept scampering off the trail just in front of us.  After lunch we all seemed to want to catch up on some sleep while the rain came pouring down as at one point we all had our heads down and our eyes closed.  After a dinner of BBQ ribs, potatoes, fresh asparagus (from the Farmer's market), and rhubarb crisp (not cobbler as we found out) with fresh home-made vanilla ice cream we settled in for a rousing game of Mille Bornes - the boys won!!

Then all too soon it was Monday and time for everyone to head back to reality.  But not before we got to taste Jo's new recipe for creme-brulee french toast and a short hike around the neighborhood.  We had a wonderful weekend with our friends from Connecticut and really wish we could see them more often than the 1,000 mile distance allows.  We tried, but we weren't successful (as yet!) in convincing them they need to move to Madison in the future although we are now connected to Sheri's old friends in Madison for some extra help in moving them westward - hint, hint, hint.