Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

Okay. So, my weekend away was amazing. We headed to Blue Mounds State Park and met my brother for some cross country skiing. The conditions were fast and icy, not my favorite...Especially when I haven't really skied all year. My brother tired to help me feel more comfortable skiing down  hills, but I needed some practice. So, I told him and John to head out on the longer course, and I would repeat the easier course and that worked out really well for me.

We headed to the Grumpy Troll for lunch and then made it to Madison and checked in to our hotel.
My brother had to go help with Winterfest and we made plans to meet him later for dinner.

 We decided to walk around Lake Monona at sunset and check out the cool ice formations up close and personal. It was cold as hell outside, so we didn't walk for long, but it was gorgeous.

 Stinky texted to say she was at my brother's house and our friend Burne to tell us he made it to town as well. We made plans for the evening. We were all meeting at the bar in our hotel and then we would figure out where to go for dinner from there.

We decided on Brocach the Irish Pub and it was great. They have a wonderful fish fry on Friday nights and John ordered an awesome appetizer of fries with melted cheese curds and veggie shepherds pie on top of them. Holy cow! That was good. Stinky and her cousin got some time to hangout and they are already planning their next time to hang-out.

My brother finally finished volunteering and we all headed to his place. He wanted to sit in his hot tub, which just happens to be located outside where it just happened to be below zero. I was too much of  a wuss to go in there, but most of them did and John said he hair was freezing. Crazy people....

On Saturday morning, we headed downtown to watch the skijoring. It was ridiculously cold and the dogs still were kind enough to pull their humans around on the snow. It was kind of fun to watch.

John and I headed to the indoor hot tub at the hotel to warm-up and then we grabbed Burne and went back out to have lunch and check out the high school cross country skiing championships. My brother asked if we wanted to ski that day, but we decided to take a break, since we were still so sore from the day before and it was about 20 below with the windchill.

In the evening, we met even more family members for Mexican food and margaritas. Ole'! We had to scurry back downtown by 7 to help Burne get ready for his race. I'll write a little more about that tomorrow and hopefully upload a video of it.

I will say, that the race was some good old fashioned, icy, cold fun. There were a lot of costumes. Which, is as it should be, as far as I'm concerned. One guy wore almost no clothes...And did I mention it was freezing outside? I can't imagine that could be at all good for a person. Anyway, the pin~ata guy above, wore my favorite costume.

We headed back to the Irish Pub and met our teammate and his wife and talked bikes and RAGBRAI and racing and then we all were way to exhausted to stay out any longer.

 We woke up to our last day on Sunday morning and got some packing up done, then headed to Marigold for breakfast. If you ever go to Madison, try to eat here. The food was amazing and the ambiance was charming. the duck confit hash was one of the best things I've ever eaten.

We met my brother back at Blue Mounds for one last ski. The temps were almost in the twenties, so it felt nice and warm, but the snow was falling...Which made the skiing slower, in other words, better, for me. We got a good hour and a half in, while Burne rode the fat tire trails there, then we met Stinky for lunch back at the Grumpy Troll.

Driving home was tricky in the storm, but we made it all in one piece and then we had to contend with the beastly cats. It was just one scary adventure after the next on Sunday...