Madison

We headed to Madison for a day of genealogy work at the University of Wisconsin - State Historical Society. The collection is located in a beautiful old library. It was a bit of a distraction, what with the beautifully painted ceiling and walls in the reading room. We picked a good day to do indoors work - it was rainy and generally miserable all day. We had to travel about a half mile or so down State Street to get to the library. An interesting walk - college town with lots of restaurants, bars and inexpensive boutiques. I was struck that incense, Indian fabrics and posters are still popular.  I felt a little bit of nostalgia for my college days.

We wandered out into the area surrounding Madison and visited a pretty nice "garage shop" museum - the National Museum of Mustard. It was actually pretty well done. I learned some new things - like Canada is the world's largest exporter of mustard seed and mustard is produced in almost every state.

They had a very nice shop with lots of mustard and pretzel sticks to sample them.  I think I have developed a new taste for dipping pretzels into mustard. The museum and shop were pretty busy for a place that is kind of out of the way.

On Saturday, we went to downtown Madison and visited the Dane County Farmer's Market. It is advertised to be the country's largest total produce market. Close parking was sparse so we went back to the parking lot we knew and walked down State Street. The vendor's booths completely wrapped around the Capital Building square. We quickly figured out that there was a traffic direction to follow if you didn't want to be swimming upstream the whole time. And you walked at the pace the crowd set - it was like swimming with the salmon during spawning season. The produce looked great, but wasn't cheap. And there were lots of fresh flower vendors. We noticed that a large number of the vendors were Hmong and several wore traditional clothing. Generally, the young ones interfaced with the public, the parents kept the tables full and the grandmothers sat in the back putting together flower arrangements or packaging the purchases.

The market ended at 2 pm, so we walked into the Capitol Building to take a tour. Security was minimal, which surprised me, given it is a government building.  No checking of backpacks or purses, no walking through a scanner. The tour guide make a point of it, telling us that Wisconsin is very devoted to making sure the government is open to everyone. It was interesting -  I felt a bit uncomfortable that no one was checking for weapons or bombs. After all, the building is a symbol of government and there are a lot of wackos who are not happy with the government.

The drive to our Madison campground passed through some beautiful farmland. We had a beautiful day for the trip.

A large number of barns in Wisconsin have this design style. You can't see the first floor on this one because the corn is so high.

We are seeing more milk cows out in the fields munching away. Before today, we mostly saw cows standing in mucky, yucky pens.

State Street in downtown Madison had several interesting sculptures.

This sculpture pays homage to the state's mascot, the badger.

I forget how many different mustards were on display, but it was a lot. 

This display showed international displays, organized by continent and country.

Here are mustards from California, haven't seen most of them before.

A nicely done video gave the story of where mustard is grown, how it is turned into the mustard product we know and a little on all the varieties.

A collection of mustard pots from across the years and countries.

Mr Mustard looked like he had a bit of an emergency, so Russ cut short his visit.

Vendors were happy to pose for photos.

Several vendors were selling dried flowers, including these cattails.

Several honey vendors. This one looked like it might not have gotten all the bees out.

These were the strangest gourds. Not sure what you do with them.

Several Hmong vendors wore traditional dress.

Many of the customers ate their purchased lunch on the Capitol grounds. It was a beautiful day for a picnic.

Fresh cheese curds and cinnamon rolls were the two most popular products. I tried my first curds - delicious!

This honey vendor really got into his craft.

The capitol's building interior is beautiful.

No idea who this guy was. Kind of startled Russ.

The Governor's meeting room was very ornate.

The building has 48 different stones used in rooms with the staircases using some of the more exotic ones.

The building was designed to use natural light where possible. This is a skylight. The room used very little artificial light.

I forget what kind of stone this is, but the cutting caught a fossil in the walls of the Supreme Court room.

Badgers could be seen above several doors.

The Supreme Court room is about the size of most courtrooms that I have been in. All Wisconsin citizens are allowed to sit in on hearings - they wouldn't all fit, but they could come if they want.

The state government is patterned after the federal government. This is the house room.

"Old Abe" is a replica of an eagle who was the mascot for the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. The original bird died in 1881 and its stuffed remains were placed in the Capitol Building. When those remains were burned in a fire, a replica was created and placed back into the building.

This large painting was commissioned to depict a Civil War scene, but after it had been finished, it was decided that some other figures needed to appear, so one of the soldiers was painted over. If you look closely, you can see his profile.

Did not know that raccoons had the same weave color as me.