Roadtrip!

Friday afternoon and I was yawning lazily when Haley and Britton sauntered into my cube and announced they'd been thinking about taking a road trip to Wisconsin. Sounds fun, I said, when were you planning on going? The response was, ohh…how about, tomorrow?? Well heck, I figured this most accurately reflects the spontaneous, poorly-planned nature of road trips, canceled the rest of my plans for the weekend and started looking up directions.

What I learned in Madison:
-People are really, really nice in the Midwest. Not that Chicago is a particularly unfriendly city, but in the parking lot of a state park, an elderly couple walked by us, then turned around and apologized for not saying good morning. Now I'm confused.
-Avoid making superior statements such as "You'd really have to be a moron with a capital M to fall into the water." when you are about to go kayaking because it inevitably means you will fall into the water. And as we found out, it's extremely difficult to climb into a water-logged kayak, and even more painful/embarrassing to swim back to shore sans boat.
-Wine tours are more fun when you're not the DD. Also, our tour guide sounded exactly like a flight attendant in tone. It was so distracting, I don't remember anything else she said.
-The mosquitoes mean business. After a valiant attempt at picnicking in the park (near water), we decided to have a cozy picnic...back at our lovely insect-free Econolodge room.
-I was a lot better at picking up the rules for spades (which actually involves strategy) than for kings or the other drinking games (which do not). Perhaps this was because I started drinking during the latter.
-Hiking in the Midwest involves walking through prairie. And a few forested sections and minor hills, but mostly a lot of flat prairie. "Don't worry, you won't get lost," we were told, "You can see the entire trail from here anyway." All right, note to self, next time we attempt hiking and kayaking, we're going some place with elevation changes.
-I lost my Cracker Barrel virginity, and although I was kind of disappointed in my food, the kitschy general store littered with Yankee Candle products, lemon heads and Halloween costumes more than made up for the bland food quality. If only I could bring a rocking chair home with me.

Driving back to Chicago was rather depressing. On the plus side, we could easily go on another road trip pretty much any weekend we want. Let's hear it for living in the real world!