Welcome to Madison, WI! Where the cheese is squeaky, and the bitter fall weather is… wait a second. Why is it 65 degrees, here? Isn’t this November?
Granted, we went to the farmer’s market on Saturday and it was miserably cold and raining. But the last few days have been crazy sunny, and way too warm for a jacket, much less the coat I brought.
We mostly came here to visit Jim’s family. We were going to bop around Door County to take photos of fall colors, but the foliage was mostly gone, and we were reeeallly tired of driving, anyway. So we’ve roamed State Street a couple times, made some tapas for his parents and aunt and uncle, and done Freakfest on Halloween, which was a sight I had to see, I’ve been told.
We had a lot of fun – Jim’s cousins Jenaille and Caela and their boyfriends (Mike is pictured photobombing us here) and various friends went up and down State Street. There were a lot of super heroes this year: Batman, Iron Man, Captain America… the best ones we saw were probably the toy soldiers that marched around, randomly stopping in classic poses for long periods of time. We just went with the easiest costumes we could think of using what we already had – Rosie the Riveter and a lumberjack. We just needed a bandanna, lipstick, a beard, suspenders, and an axe!
We also went to Devil’s Lake (which I posted separately here). We may go on another hike while we’re here. Yesterday we went to Jim’s family farm, which I didn’t get any photos of. But it was a lot of fun! All his uncles and aunts were there, doing projects. And I don’t mean “projects,” like the kind I’m used to people doing on “farms.” These guys really get down to business. They’ve renovated an old silo with hand-cut wooden stairs and carved banisters going up, and a copper-sided gazebo-type thing at the top, with a 360-degree view! They also have a garden “shed” with running water, a kitchen island, a microwave, and a fire pit, where they all hang out and eat the delicious things they grew in the garden.
We were supposed to be helping, but we ended up just standing around talking to everyone the whole time. And then eating their food. Heh. Hopefully we will be back for Christmas! And hopefully there will be snow.
For Day of the Dead, I decided to make traditional Ecuadorian Colada Morada and Guaguas de Pan. This always takes longer than I remember (I guess that happens when you only make something once a year) so I spent most of the day cooking down the spicy, fruity drink, and waiting for the dough to rise and fall. But eventually they were done! The babies were fat, as usual. Oh well, they were tasty. The recipe for these can be found here and here.
Until next time! Only a couple more days until we are back on the road, heading back West toward home.
Anna
Anna A. Snook 