From the Archives - Madison, WI

You can tell its been raining in Kodiak lately because I have been posting 'From the Archives' blog entries.  But I can report that the skiing is not too bad, and that I have still managed to go skiing every day.  Some days may have been a tad like combat, and others have been super wet. None of them have photographed well.

So on to Madison, WI where I went to graduate school in the early to mid 1990s.  Madison was my first experience with the midwest (not that I've had much more since then).  I lived in the pictured 2 room apartment on Chamberlain Avenue for almost 6 years.  I could hear the crowd noise from the football games at nearby Camp Randall.  If I was listening to the game on the radio it would create an effect of delayed stereo.  Somehow I never got tired of the parking lot view.  I read a lot of really boring academic anthropology articles in that rocking chair.

Some of my favorite spots in Madison included: State Street (pictured - I bought my coffee at the little 'Steep and Brew' shop on the left under the black and white awning) - no cars allowed, just bikes, buses and pedestrians; Lake Mendota (pictured) - a winter playground and I used to skate or ski around the lake on a weekly basis; the Student Union and the Ratskellar Bar - the beer was very good and very cheep and often served in enormous 44 oz 'dixy cups' that had to be drunk quickly or the bottom would fall out, and finally the Arboritum and Picnic Point which were both great places to go for a hike when I needed a study break.  Picnic Point stuck way out into Lake Mendota.  

Go Badgers!  Patrick