Weekend in Wisconsin - Part One (Friday)

We live in Northern (Northeast) Illinois, relatively close to the Wisconsin border, for all of you who are not familiar with this part of the country or are not great with geography, Illinois shares its entire northern border with Wisconsin's entire southern border. We sometimes are made fun of because we are so close to Wisconsin. Why you ask? I just can't explain it, I guess you have to live around her to get it. We are constantly making fun of Wisc. for being "cheese heads" and for having the Packers, and for talking slightly stranger than we do. I hear they make fun of us too, not sure why except that I heard lately they are tired of us thinking that their state exists for our vacations. Huh? Why of course it does. I truly love taking trips to Wisconsin. It is ever so slightly less flat than Illinois, has lots of beautiful farmlands and just this unexplainable feel to it.

Last weekend we took a trip up to the Wisconsin Dells. I, a rare exception for a Chicagoland person, had never been there before. But before I get ahead of myself, we first went to Madison (one of my favorite cities ever) to visit my cousin Andrea and her family. Her husband Denny is in school at UW Madison for a PhD in Philosophy. They have two kids close in age to ours. More on that leg of the trip soon.

First I wanted to show a couple of examples of the majority of what you see when driving the highways of southern Wisconsin. These were actually taken at the end of our entire trip.




On Friday, midday, we headed up to Madison to our lovely hotel called "Super 8". After settling in for about 5 minutes, I called my cousin and we headed over to their apartment on campus. It was a 10 miles in 30 minutes trip. But we've been in Madison before so knew what to expect. Plus, as Andrea suspected, a 30 minute trip is short to us Chicago folks. When we arrived, Ella and Dora (Andrea's almost 5 year old daughter) were fast friends, Dominick (her 3 1/2 year old son) fit right in and Miles took a little while to warm up, but was in there too. I have to pause to say that I truly believe Ella and Dora may be soul mates! I've never seen Ella so drawn to any other child. When they met over a year (maybe 2) ago at my great aunt's memorial service, they were best buddies. Ella doesn't remember that. When we left that night they were asking each other for their phone numbers! I hope they get to see each other again soon and at least stay in touch. They should be in Madison for at least a few more years. Well... On with the pics...

Dom and Miles being boys...





Dora and Ella, best cousins...







The bunch. First cousins once removed...





Oh, and lest I forget, here I am with my cousin Andrea.


Next up will be our fabulous hotel room at the water park...