Sheraton 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 ...

... other people selling water at the lights rubbish car yard after car yard you can get an idea of what the area is like by the quality of the cars in the car yards with the cars getting better as we moved up the street. This goes on for miles and miles.

Somehow we ended up under an overhead railway just like the movies. We were stuck behind a bus and couldn’t move when a loud explosion happened behind us. Everyone on the street jumped the car in front of us pulled over ...

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 ...

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. :)

... after the mugginess of New Harmony. Bratfest was great fun and C, being of German heritage, was happy as could be to have a brat and a beer for lunch!  I have not fared as well; have caught a wicked cold and spent the rest of Sunday fighting it off. Now, on Monday morning, C. is off to Frank Lloyd Wright's home at Taleisin but I'm staying in to beat this thing.

... we got to take a free ferry across the merrimac river. for those of us who have had to travel in the van, we got to have a little snicker at everyone else because they could no longer claim to be part of the efi (every fabulous inch) club. there is a nice little ice cream stand near the ferry entrance, so we all grabbed cones to munch on during the ride across. we took a break on the other side to cool off in the shade and leisurely finish our snacking. once ...

... Additionally, I ask for your prayers as this journey begins. Please see the attached pictures- they are of the five children with whom I will be living for 10 days. You will notice that the center (it is very new) is nearly empty- certainly not containing elements conducive to a "learning environment" - it must be hard to study with no chairs or tables... I can hardly imagine. Which brings me to ponder whether I will be sleeping on a bed while I stay??? I think ...

Welcome to my travelogue. I'm going to try to keep dropping English right here before I reluctantly return to the US to attend law school...or something. This way you can see my photos, read my inner monologue, and generally roll your eyes at the egocentrism that is keeping a blog. Go ahead, try it: roll your eyes at me right now. Ok, we've got that out of the way. So now, I'm put to the difficult and expensive task of preparing for a trip like this one. I'll be ...

You know, I had never been to Wisonsin before. One of my goals on this trip was to visit a whole bunch of states that I had never seen before. So, having never driven there, I underestimated the travel time. And I arrived at the hostel at 1 AM. Ugh! Thanks to the kind ...

After moving from my nightspot I went to a roadside picnic area past Cambridge on route 12 and had my lunch. Then on to Madison, a new capitol for me but that was before I started touring all the capitol buildings. My main area of interest was the arborrtum, which I toured and then to the best free zoo ...