Day 2

Starting odometer reading: 70,786

Ending Odometer reading: 71,214

Miles driven: 428

Total miles driven on trip: 725

Total States visited: 5

Day 2 began fairly early. We were out the door and on the road by 9 AM. Aside from a little bit of traffic leaving Chicago, it was smooth sailing all the way to Madison, WI where we stopped for lunch and a tour of the University of Wisconsin. We ate at a place called Marigold Kitchen in the shadow of the state capitol building. Kate had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes and goat cheese which I sort of wished I had ordered. I had a chile-braised pulled chicken sandwich that was also awesome but maybe a small step below Kate's sandwich. I hate having order envy and it seems to be happening fairly frequently recently. I vow to order more intelligently in the future.

After lunch, we drove to UW's campus, parked and went to the visitor's center to grab a map and briefly talked to a student working there who gave us a few recommendations as to what the campus highlights were. Armed with these recommendations, we went for a walk through campus. It was quite hilly which I wasn't expecting. Students were overwhelmingly causcasian (which is not something that I usually notice) and given the number of them that I saw parked outside various classroom buildings, each one is issued a moped or bicycle to ride around campus. We walked through the botanical gardens which were........underwhelming. All of the grass was very dry and yellowish and it seemed as though it hadn't rained in some time. The thing that really makes UW's campus unique is the gorgeous stretch of land that abuts Lake Mendota. We went for a walk along the lake, took a few pictures and then checked out the student union that has a great view of the lake and serves as a jumping off point for further exploration of the lake (you can rent sailboats, canoes, kayaks, etc. here).

After our brief tour, we left for Minneapolis. Aided by Harry Potter, we arrived around 6:30 at the Minneapolis International Hostel. The hostel is in an old house in a cool neighborhood right across from the Minneapolis Art Institute and a park. After a dinner of Velveeta Shell's and Cheese (Kate's first experience), we explored the neighborhood in search of a place to buy a six pack of beer. The immediate neighborhood seemed to be a strange mix of Vietnamese and Hispanic and was a mix of really nice houses and houses that made me question whether or not I should feel unsafe. We were ultimately unsuccessfull in our walking mission to get beer so we gave up, went back to the hostel, got in the car and drove to a liquor store. There, we bought a six pack of Summit Brewing Red Ale, a bottle of Seagrams 7, and a BOX of wine.

While we drank our beer, we played Trivial Pursuit "Greatest Hits" which featured a mix of questions from the 80s, 90s and Pop Culture addition of the game. This got a bit confusing because unlike the regular version of the game, you roll two dice - one of which is a regular die that indicates how many spaces you may move and the other indicates which set of questions you should draw from (there are stacks of 80s 90s and pop culture question cards). So, this combined with me trying to listen to the francophones who were preparing dinner in the same room where we were playing spelled disaster for awhile and Kate jumped out to an early lead. I eventually overcame these obstacles and was able to vanquish my opponent. Riding high upon my wave of victory, we went to bed.

They don't make bed's for people as awesome as me.