That Was Wisconsin, That Was Yesterday

Let me start this post by going back two weeks ago to try and catch you all up on this crazy but wonderful month.

A couple of Thursdays ago, we were heading to Madison, Wisconsin to celebrate John's birthday and race at Trek Cup CX. Unfortunately for me, I woke up that morning with a screaming migraine. Wah.

I still thought I might be able to do it, since I wasn't supposed to race until Saturday morning. I tried my damnedest to get rid of the migraine without taking my meds, which would make it so I definitely wouldn't be able to preride the course that day.

We stopped in Dubuque for lunch on the way to Madison and had a nice meal.

We made it to the Trek Bicycle headquarters to try to pre-ride the course. I was feeling pretty weak anyway, but then I tried to ride up a very steep ramp and only got about 3/4 of the way up and I wasn't strong enough to go any further. Right then I realized I just wasn't going to be strong enough to race that weekend.

I promptly rode back to the car, took my migraine meds and threw in the towel for the weekend. At first I was sad that I wouldn't be able to race, but the course at Trek is so hard that it would have been too stressful for me and by not racing, I freed up the weekend to just have fun with family and friends instead.

We met my brother and his wife for dinner that night and then went home to bed.

Friday morning was John's birthday. We got up and John opened  his gifts and then we headed to Marigold, one of our favorite breakfast places in Madison where John got himself a fancy coffee and duck confit hash. So good.

We headed back to the Trek bicycle factory headquarters so John could do one of his favorite birthday activities - race his bike.

He didn't have the best race that day, but he still had two more days of racing to go to fix that.

It was a fun day to watch races and see stuffed sheep wearing helmets and socks.

We met my brother, his wife, her mother and my oldest sister at the Weary Traveler for John's birthday dinner. Since my oldest sister was having a lot of leg pain, we just went back to my brother's house to hang out afterward.

Coadster drove up after work that day and got to Madison around 9:30. John said he had a great birthday. Yea!

On Saturday morning we went to breakfast at Lazy Jane's Cafe and then went downtown to the Farmer's Market. They also had a craft fair downtown, so we wandered through that too.

If I had decided to race on Saturday, I would have had to be at the site by 7 am to pre-ride the course and then race and then watch John race and we would have been there all day.

So, it probably worked out better that I wasn't strong enough to ride up that steep ramp. After the Farmer's Market, John headed to the race site to warm up and Coadster and I decided to have a fun women's day about town.

On our way to the car, we saw this mirror lying in the grass. It made for a funky photo.

We decided to go to the zoo since I hadn't been there since the girls were much younger. We did make a quick stop at the beach. It was too cool to swim, but it was nice to hang out and check out the view.

Since Saturday was Stinky's birthday and she decided to stay in Iowa City to make money waiting tables on game day, we took a photo by her favorite animal, the giraffe.

The zoo was so much better for the animals than it was back in the 90's. The seem to have redone most of the exhibits to make them nicer for the animals.

Coadster and I went to the petting zoo, so we could meet some new friends.

We also got some expensive zoo ice cream that I paid for even though Coadster found $11 in the parking lot. But I guess that's how it is when you're a mom, even when your daughters are in their twenties...Ha ha.

We left the zoo and went back to the race site to watch John's race. My brother and his adorable dog came too. So, we got to watch some races together as a family. It was a lovely day.

Our friends Chelsea and Burne came to town by the time we got back from the race. We were all starving so we went to a pub to eat dinner and then we met my brother at the Tornado Room for a drink. The Tornado Room is super cool. The upstairs bar room looks like something from Goodfellas and it's pretty loud. The downstairs is amazing. It's very 1960's and has maps all over the walls and it's pretty cozy and quiet. I loved it.

On Sunday morning Coadster headed back to Iowa City and the rest of us went to watch John do his last race and then the pros race the World Cup. It was finally nice and warm.

John had a good race and we went to the new secret bar on the course. It was called the Decoy Bar and had all kinds of hunting related stuff around it. They also had snacks and the beer was free. It was a magical place.

I love bike races because people dress up in costumes and as I always say, I can't get enough of people dressing up in costumes.

The pro races were great to watch. As far as I'm concerned, the women's race is always more interesting than the men's race. This one was no exception. There were two women battling for first and at one point, the younger woman was trying to jump over the barriers on her bike and crashed. Luckily for her, she crashed in front of her competitor, so it slowed them both down.

We finally headed home after the races. We stopped at the lovely town of Mt Horeb on the way home. The town has a troll theme, but they also have a place that serves some of the best pizza I've had. It was a great stop on our way out of Wisconsin.

It was a such a fun and busy weekend, and then we only had a few days until the next Cyclocross World Cup race weekend, but luckily that was in Iowa City.