Madison Marriott West Middleton

... Wisconsin, we proudly donned some cheese heads and Sammy got his picture made with the giant farmer holding cheese and a sausage. You'd have to be there to understand. Minnesota has really taken on environmental issues with hundreds of huge windmills. The last stop of the day was dinner in Sioux Falls, SD. We ate at Bob's made famous in the Roadfood book. It was as described. We love it and the owners. Time for bed. On to Mt Rushmore........

... 2009 Pug Hug. I also walked up State St and took photos of people. I enjoyed these photos so posted them here too.

This is the end of this section of the blog. I plan on continuing to travel, in fact I'm writing this from Ashland OR where I have not taken my camera out of it's bag yet...hmmmm.

1 year, 40,000 miles, improved physical health, lots of adventures, visits to beautiful place, and connecting with new and old friends.

... br>move.... the poor people trying to get back into Chicago after a weekend must've been waiting for hours! I noticed that the standstill on that side went on for more than 10kms!

Today our aim is to get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The next day we should be in Rapid
City (the badlands!) where we'll pass by Mount Rushmore...

Hopefully we'll have enough time to take it slowly and meander through Yellowstone ...

Just got housing information for Valladolid. Looks like everyone is right in the middle of the city. Downtown area. The university isn't too far from where I'm staying...judging by Google Earth. This is a screenshot of the area I'll be in:
http://i29.tinypic.com/2cigois.j pg

Nothing else really. Just preparing for this whole thing. :)

... through their teeth simultaneoulsy, and predictably one woman called out, "but we have a Black President!" At this point we had already diverged from the topic of India's economy and had to get back on track, but our collective gut reaction got me thinking. I've been teaching in DC for 5 years in schools that are in practice almost entirely segregated, but Barack lives 4 ...

... a street light that had fallen on the sidewalk. The universe is conspiring to make me an amateur photographer.

Lectures today: brief intros to ancient history in South Asia, different religious traditions of South Asia, and architecture in India. Best of all, we ate dinner with children's book author Kashmira Sheth, whose books, Blue Jasmine and Monsoon Afternoon, all the Fulbrighters read before arriving.

This ...

I'm running on no sleep after a long first day in Madison, but I wasn't too beat to see early 4th of July fireworks lakeside on the University of Wisconsin campus- had to try out the "fireworks" setting on my new camera! Madison is beautiful, and the weather is lovely DC spring. All the Fulbrighters met today, enjoyed 45 minutes of Hindi 101, and watched a performance of classical Indian music after dinner.

Off to bed with me!

... iced over for the hardy fisher people. I reconnected with my friends at line dance and actually remembered some of the dances.

Stayed in Madison for 2 weeks while I caught up on doctor appointments. I was reminded why I left as the weather was damp and cold and my body responded with pain. Oh well.

... was a boat tour of Chicago River and Michigan Lake. Our guide was a hoarse sounding, quick-witted local who didn't think much of Chicago's sports teams! As we chugged up the river we could see the huge buildings of various guises that make up the Chicago skyline. Sears Tower was indeed huge (3rd in the world currently) and we couldn't see the top for the clouds. Even without being architectural gurus of any kind, we could apprectiate the great effort and impressive ...

... 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 ...