For a change, the online directions I had were accurate and easy to follow, so I had a better chance of looking around me.
Reebok CrossFit Games
The road went through a huge park area full of people, and my immediate impression was that if that's what Madison residents look like, I'd never be able to fit in with the neighbors. I've never seen so many obviously fit people in one place in my life. Hundreds of them. Hundreds. All walking, jogging, running, bike riding. Wore me out just looking at them.
Turns out they were there for the Reebok CrossFit Games, which usually move around but were being held for the 3rd time in Madison. Madison was recently voted America's Fittest City by Fitbit, and the Games eventually crowns the "Fittest on Earth." In case you know as much about CrossFit as I do, here's how they describe it:
CrossFit is a high intensity exercise program and competitive fitness sport focusing on functional movements (movements of everyday life, like squatting). Think Olympic weightlifting meets gymnastics meets running and everything in between.I'm sure they were all having a wonderful time, but even in retrospect I find it intimidating. Still, it reminded me that I need to take more serious steps about getting healthy.
Madison's water
Madison is partly defined by lots of water. You can sort of see, in this internet photo below, that the capitol sits on a narrow piece of land between 2 large lakes, and the main route into downtown runs along Monona Lake (the southern one). In the photo, Lake Mendota is at the top (north).
I took that main route along the lakeshore, and one of the first things I noticed was a tunnel that wasn't marked on any map and that I wasn't expecting. It was different from other tunnels, though, because it didn't seem to go underground. In fact, there was a building all along the water side of the road. After I'd driven under it twice, I remembered that in Dallas and Seattle there are parks built over the tops of highways, and I thought maybe that's what this was. Well, sort of.
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| Monona Terrace in foreground |
Monona Terrace was inspired by a drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright and is a huge convention center (and wedding venue). You can see the convention center is 2 stories tall, and the roadway runs beside the 1st story. Above the 2nd is an outdoor terrace that spans the roadway below. The whole thing is really quite attractive and must have cost a mint to build.
Wisconsin State Capitol
The current building was completed in 1917 but the dedication was delayed, by a lot. First there was WWI, then - well, you know how world events seemed to snowball. The official dedication wasn't until 1965. By then, the building was starting to need renovation.
So it was renovated in that wonderful style we associate with the '60s and '70s: dropped ceilings, florescent lighting, partitions, paint to cover original artwork. Fortunately, beginning in the late '80s and extending into the 2000s, true renovation was conducted. The previous "improvements" were undone, original artwork uncovered, and modern heating, electricity, and plumbing was installed.
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| showing how the wings fit together |
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| taken at the entrance to the Supreme Court wing |
The dome is the largest among US state capitols. It doesn't seem that way in these photos, but I think that's because the rest of the building is so massive.
The rotunda is surrounded by 4 identical wings, each housing a different part of state government (Governor's Office, State Assembly, State Senate, State Supreme Court). There are elaborate carvings at the entrances to each wing (at the ends of the wings), each depicting appropriate classical scenes (the one at the Court entrance is entitled "Law," for instance).
By state law, no building can be taller than the pillars around the dome, so the Capitol stands out on a downtown view. (Austin, TX, for one capital city, was stupid stupid stupid to not enact something similar. My opinion.) You can see the results in that Monona Terrace photo above.
The gold statue on top is called Wisconsin. She was sculpted by Daniel French Smith and is made of bronze, gilded with 23.5 carat gold. She originally cost $20,000, and in 1932 was cleaned and regilded for $444 (I guess that's when bread was 10¢ a loaf).This internet photo is the closest view that wasn't copyrighted. I'm sorry because you can't see that on her head is a helmet on top of which is perched a bunch of grapes and a badger. The badger is the official state animal, but the grapes aren't an official state anything so I don't know the point of them. More classical references maybe. Still, she's much more attractive and impressive than many state capitol statues.
The building covers a city block, and I'd figured on a Sunday morning there wouldn't be many people about. I still hadn't realized what being America's Fittest City would mean: city streets were practically crowded. Cars parked all around the square on both sides of the street, people walking themselves or their dogs, jogging, sitting at outdoor cafes drinking coffee in the sunshine - lots of people.
I was really lucky and found a parking place in front of the capitol, and someone immediately parked in front of me. This time I didn't get cut off so much that I couldn't leave but it made me nervous. Plus, I'd parked on the left side of the street, which meant that the dogs had to exit the RV into the traffic - which shouldn't have been a problem on a Sunday morning, but it was. Especially because Dexter likes to bound out and as far away as his leash will let him, while Gracie hovers nervously at the door and takes her own sweet time about coming out and I have to convince her to come out while I'm trying to keep Dext from flinging himself in front of a car . . . I've made this mistake a few times before, and each time I swear I won't do it again. One of these times, I'll forget about parking convenience and go with safety instead.
We had a nice walk around the square the building sits on and only started running into dogs on the last side, which was lucky. Beautiful summer day, not yet hot but working on it.
More on Madison
I was in or around the city a number of times, and one day I learned just how diverse the population is. I'd stopped at a laundromat which was in a very small strip mall. While I was sitting in the RV with the critters, waiting on the machines to do their cleaning jobs, I took a closer look at the shops around us. From left to right I saw:
Just For "U" Salon
Namaste India
African Market and AM Beauty Supply
Halal & Hijab Market
laundry and dry cleaning
Akari Sushi
And the clientele I saw were dressed in saris and hijabs and a range of international clothing. It was nice to know.
Madison is home to a business called Delta Beer Lab, which I noticed because of their billboard. It said "Stop In Periodically" and showed some lab beakers labeled "Ex It He Re" which I thought was all very clever.
If I run across more notes on Madison later, I'll update this post and say so on the title.
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