Saturday September 27th, 2025 - Fall trip to oregon - Days 14 and 15, Prairie Du Chien and Madison WI, Just urban walking in Madison

After our great breakfast at the River District hotel, we headed towards Madison.  We had a nice loop hike picked out for the University of Wisconsin arboretum but it was pretty warm and humid by the time we got near Madison.  We ended up just going straight to our hotel with the plan that we could park the car and wander around town until check-in time.  Surprisingly, they let us check-in VERY early, about 11:30 am.  Our room was gorgeous with a floor to ceiling window overlooking Madison's growing downtown.  

After dropping out stuff and using the bathroom etc, we headed out to walk around Madison and have lunch.  State Street is Madison's pedestrian shopping street that starts at the Capitol building and goes many blocks West towards the UW campus.  It was pretty warm but by preferring the shady side of the street we managed to avoid overheating.  We spontaneously decided to eat at Noodles & Company because we like it and there aren't any remotely near us back home.  The food didn't disappoint.  We followed that up with ice cream from Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream.  That was great too but my dreams of having a nice dinner in Madison were quickly fading.  We walked along one of the lakes near the end of State street before heading back to our hotel on some other, less crowded streets.

Back at the hotel Brian napped on the bed while I set up my iPad and quietly watched part of a Ken Burns documentary on Benjamin Franklin while dozing on the settee in the other part of our room.  After our naps we watched a Chopped and a Master Chef Junior episode to kill some time before going out.  Madison has a bear bar (!) and it was only .1 miles from our hotel which itself was right next to the capitol.   Madison always had a few gay bars back when I would visit from suburban Chicago back in 1998 and 1999 but they were far from downtown in low-rent areas.  It's really surprising to me that they can afford prime real estate downtown for Woofs.  The same people that own the bar own an Italian place next door and they serve a subset of the items in the bar which is really smart.  Our bartender, Sam, was very playful and funny.  We spent most of our time talking to a charismatic local, Justina, who had a lot of insane stories about travels gone wrong etc.  In terms of a fur-fest, this particular night wasn't particularly exciting but I was impressed that the bar exists at all and does well enough to have as many events as they have etc.


 

 

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