Exel Inn of Madison

The weather was the story today as we traveled from Chicago to Madison, WI. Things were great until we reached Madison and then all the elements combined to make an interesting evening. But we weren't deterred. We walked thru the campus and down State St to see the impressive capitol building. Monday morning we took off for our end point of Mitchell, SD. Along the way, we saw farms, cows, and more farms as we drove thru WI, Minn and SD. Before ...

Wow, can't believe it's been a year since I left my house and moved onto the road. With hindsight I wish I took more pictures. I was in great places where I didn't document with my camera. Hopefully this next year I will be again motivated to write in this travel blog and take more pictures.

While I was in Madison I had a great time! So many good friends! I took photos of the Dairyland Cowboys and Cowgirls barn dance, the Union Terrace and ...

We rode for 630km today .... a bit more really because we did a few detours trying to find a place for a deep-pan pizza lunch (very difficult since most places are closed on Sundays, which we didn't know - or expect!) and at around the 200 km mark on my odometer, we found
ourselves on the Chicago Sky route (this narrow highway 'bridge' with no shoulder) and so we had to turn off quickly to try and find any gas station or risk me running ...

From Roswell we traveled north through a tip of Texas. No photos but lots of memories of seeing and smelling cows in feed lots. We drove through a nasty little snow storm in Kansas City, MO. and I now know how well Shorty Too travels in the show.

Madison was significantly colder than NM, the lakes were ...

Holy **** that was a long travel day. After around 5 hours of sleep Sunday night, we woke Monday (today, I think) at 5:30am Dublin time. We're just now getting in to bed at 10:45pm WI time (which would be 4:45am Dublin time). Travel went reasonably well. We'll fill you in once we've had some sleep and readjust a bit to life in the States. But... we made it! C&J

... the cops. The car in front of me was doing about 90... I was behind him at 80... I saw the cop turn out... I got the hell off the highway luckily there was an exit right there. Unfortunately the poor soul behind me was stopped. I know the Celica is conspicuous, but there have been people driving a lot faster than I do and you never see them get caught. Oh well.. I watched myself after that. Once I got close to ...

... but he insisted on buying my meal. We arrived back at the house sometime between 8 and 9 pm. Again, the ladies ignored me from their post and continued watching the biggest flat screen tv that I'd ever seen.

I went directly to my room where I slept in my clothes and put my suitcase against my door in case an angry Tibet wife wanted to kill me in my sleep. Twelve hours, later, I emerged hoping that everyone had left the house, it seemed ...

... to this dome is a dining room which is screened in. The second dome is a library, some bedrooms, an art room and the laundry room. Everyone sleeps in tree houses and the sun piercing through the trees, fresh pine-scented air, and the crowing roosters are what you wake up to in the morning. The hostel has a labyrinth, a glass house for yoga and meditation, and a pond with a canoe to use there and on the other streams. There is also have a sweat lodge that they set up for ...

Just received an email today, from someone who has been to Addis. I had been reading her "travel log" entries and added her to my "favorites" list of TravelPod members. With each person I encounter, I am moved by their wonderful descriptions and journal accounts of their experiences in Ethiopia. Izzi contacted me personally via ...

... of Washington, DC that I've been to. I did some sketches of the animals and I might scan some of them to add but they are a little disorganized. As I remember my two favorites were the kangaroos and the orangutans that had a scale in the cage and you could see their weight when they got on it. Also the ...