On Foot Behind Enemy Lines

In the very imperfect world of college basketball, your team is nothing if you do not make it to the Big Dance.  For the uninitiated, the term "Big Dance" refers to the 68 team field comprising the NCAA men's basketball single elimination tournament, which dominates this country's sports scene for a span of three weeks.  Thirty-two qualify for the tournament by winning their conference championships.  The other thirty-six teams are invited by a selection committee to be "at large" entrants.  Teams that, as of this writing, are nationally ranked in the top twenty are virtual locks to participate in the Big Dance, either because there's a good chance they'll win their respective conference championships, or, failing that, they'll be invited by the selection committee as an at large entrant.  Likewise, teams whose records are currently well below .500 in their conference have almost no hope (or expectation) of reaching the NCAA tournament, unless they pull off a miracle and win their conference tourney.  This year's Notre Dame team, with an ACC conference record of 5-9, is in that second group.

The thirty or so teams which fall somewhere in between the two categories cited above, and which play in one of the so-called "power conferences," are commonly referred to as "bubble teams."   The Big Ten is a power conference, and the Gophers are on the bubble.  As of last Thursday the Gophs had a conference record of 5-6, tied for sixth in the twelve-team Big Ten with seven regular season conference games to go. Unfortunately, only three of those seven are in the beloved "Barn" (aka Williams Arena).  According to my North Dakota high school math, that meant that the Gophers would have to win at least one of their four road games to finish with a .500 Big Ten record -- that is, if they won all three of their home games.  The local hoops gurus have routinely stated, in matter-of fact fashion, that finishing with a regular conference record of 9-9 would be enough to get them into the Big Dance.

The four game road slate included Wisconsin on February 13, followed by Northwestern, Ohio State and Michigan.  Momma Cuan and I decided that the Gophers desperately needed our help in Madison, former home of daughter Gina and future (tomorrow!) daughter-in-law Lindsey, and one of our favorite midwestern destinations.  We figured even if the Maroon & Gold lost, there was a good chance we'd manage to have fun in Mad City.  Both of those prospects proved to be true.

The 275 mile drive to Wisconsin's capital is an easy one along I-94.  Wisconsin is one of the few states which do not require leaving the interstate highway to find beautiful landscapes.  This is particularly true in winter, when the farm fields are blanketed with deep pristine snow, and one can see much deeper into the woods than is possible during the other three seasons.  If it weren't for the omnipresent state troopers hiding out underneath bridges and on entrance ramps, medians and other invisible sneaky places, the journey would be near-perfect.

Not counting our requisite Norske Nook lunch stop in Osseo, we arrived in the capital city four hours after we left home.  Upon our arrival it took us what seemed like almost another four hours first to find our hotel, and then to figure out how to navigate the convoluted Madison streets to reach the hotel's parking ramp. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura once famously (infamously?) opined that St. Paul's street design must have been drawn up by a bunch of drunken Irishmen.  Ventura was criticized for saying that, but after trying to make sense of Madison's endless array of one-ways, diagonals, inner and outer circles, blockades and indecipherable street signs, Ventura's quip could certainly apply to that city too; just substitute "German" for "Irish."

Our hotel, the Best Western Inn On The Park, was located right on the square --sometimes referred to by the locals as the "inner circle" -- which surrounds the capitol, on the corner of Carroll & Main.  The ramp usage is free for the Inn's guests.  The valet informed us that the Badgers' home arena, the Kohl Center, was at most a fifteen minute walk from the hotel.  That was the first of many pleasant surprises regarding the walkability of downtown Madison.  Prior to being schooled by the valet, I would have thought that the Kohl Center was three miles away.

Our fourth floor room was fairly large, with a view of The Tornado Room across the street.  I had to snap a picture of that great steak house and send it to Michael, because the two of us dined there last September on our way to the Notre Dame-Oklahoma game.

Momma Cuan and I had almost three hours until tip-off at the Kohl, so we headed for The Great Dane for dinner.  It was another easy walk, albeit in the opposite direction from campus.  Every beer served at The Dane is brewed in-house.  The Nitro Bock 4000 is so-named because it was the 4000th barrel brewed by the proprietor.  Of the beers I've tasted so far this calendar year, it is my new favorite, displacing Northbound's Solstice Brown Wheat for that honor.

Our server told us the shortest way to walk to The Kohl from The Dane was to cut straight through the capitol, which he promised stayed open until 10:00 every night.  I don't know if he was pimping us for wearing our Gopher garb, but in any event it turned out to be a bum steer.  Nevertheless, the brisk walk to the game in the twelve degree weather was only twenty minutes.

The Kohl Center is very modern, the antithesis of The Barn.  The place was crawling with red and white, but no one gave us any grief for obviously being from the wrong side of the St. Croix.  Over the years I've found the Badger fans to be good natured, maybe due to the fact that Wisconsin teams usually have their way with Minnesota, regardless of the sport.  (Okay, maybe hockey is an exception!)  The students in the section right below our upper deck seats were a riot.  When the band played "Tequila," the kids all bounced around like Mexican jumping beans.  And whenever the Gophers' Latvian forward, Oto Oseniecks (Oceans Eleven), touched the ball, the young Badger fans would scream, "Yankees rule!  Yankees rule!"  Sure, that may have been poor sportsmanship, but I laughed anyway.

The less said about the game, the better.  Final: Whiskey 78, Minny 70.  Watching the Gophers' futility, it was hard to believe that they had beaten the Badgers by thirteen points in the Barn last month.

After our cold walk back from the game to The Inn, Momma Cuan and I decided that Jameson nightcaps were in order.  As you know from my June 3, 2013 post (Sojourn In Sudsville), a key element for Momma Cuan and I in selecting an urban hotel is that it must have a good bar.  Jerome's off The Inn's lobby filled that requisite nicely.  Two of the four sides of the tavern's room had floor-to-ceiling windows, half of them with a view of the capitol.  It just might be the best view in town.  We enjoyed the scene so much that we reprised the visit before turning in the next night too.  I did have to wonder, however, if the bartender was hosing me on that second visit, as the tab for two Jamesons then was $20, compared to $18 the night before.  Maybe I look like a rube.

On Friday morning we got out of bed in time to have brunch at Capital Brewery, just off the square on fabled State Street.  We each started out with a mug of coffee and a cup of clam chowder.  After that, there was no sense pretending; we each ordered a beer to go with our fresh lake perch sandwiches.  I decided at that point that if, in the late sixties, South Bend had a bar as close to the ND campus as Capital Brewery is to U Dub, it would have taken me six years to graduate.

The two non-drinking highlights of the afternoon were visiting the Madison Museum Of Contemporary Art, and a unique cheese store on the square called Fromagination.  The museum's featured exhibit -- a traveling exhibit organized by New York's Whitney Museum Of American Art -- was Real Surreal, a display of (mostly) paintings in which common elements are depicted with strange juxtapositions or exaggerated features.  The collection focused on works created during World War II and immediately thereafter.  A companion exhibit titled The Mystery Beneath was more of the same, but concentrating on Wisconsin artists.  Although I'm usually more attracted to classic European masterworks, I hereby readily and willingly admit that I was extremely impressed by what I saw at the MMOCA.  One of my favorite paintings was Triangle Inn No. 1 by Wisconsin artist Santos Zingale, who until 1978 was an art professor at U Dub.

Momma Cuan and I went back to Capital Brewery for a quick happy hour pint in between cultural stops and then off to see more little shops, the best of which was Fromagination.  When we first entered the small store, I was almost knocked over by the pungent aromas  emanating from the shelves and display cases. Three minutes later I did not even notice.  Fromagination has almost any kind of cheese you've ever heard of (except probably Velveeta!).  The pamphlet offered to customers categorizes the Wisconsin cheese inventory into product made from sheep's milk, cow's milk, goat's milk and "mixed and various milk" (e.g., Casa Bolo Mellage, produced by Carr Valley Cheese from a mixture of sheep, goat and cow's milk).  Momma Cuan decided to buy some Dunbarton Blue made by Roelli Cheese in Shullsburg, Wisconsin.

We must have browsed in every State Street store which sold infants' wear.  With Rosie now nine months old and Hortence due in early April, it's amazing how my attitude about clothes shopping has done a one-eighty.  A year ago, I would have found a watering hole and waited with a beer for Mary to come out of the shops.  Now I only use that strategy if the sought-after clothing is not intended for a grandchild.

Dinner that Valentine's night was at one of our old Madison standbys, the Essen Haus.  That German restaurant is another example of a destination which I would have guessed was well beyond walking distance from our hotel.  To the contrary, we hoofed it in less than twenty minutes.  Momma Cuan had the sauerbraten and I had the Bavarian Combo, a selection of German meats including jaeger schnitzel, weisswurst and wiener schnitzel.  I should have ordered the sauerbraten.

A funny thing happened after dinner, as we made our way to the indoor beer garden to finish our drinks, listen to the Steve Meisner trio play German polkas and watch the customers dance.  I still had almost a whole pint of my doppelbock left, and Momma Cuan had over half the complimentary bottle of Chilean merlot which had arrived earlier with dinner.  Mary finally decided that she simply could not ignore the inferior quality of that wine, and furthermore, when in a German restaurant is it not a given that you should be drinking beer?  But what to do with the half-full bottle?  We offered it to the four older women sitting at the table next to us, and you would have thought we'd given them the keys to Haskell's wine cellar.  They thanked us profusely.  Something told us that they most likely were not wine connoisseurs.  The fact that they actually enjoyed the Chilean vino was our first clue, but what removed all doubt was when the lady next to me dumped several ice cubes in her glass to chill the merlot.

Saturday morning was another beautiful sunny cold day in Madtown.  The temps were in the low teens, perfect for the Winter Festival events happening on Capitol Square.  The four streets were closed off, and huge trucks dumped piles of snow on them to create a wide track for snow shoe races and cross country ski competitions.  We wondered if the thought ever occurred to the event organizers to use one of the two huge lakes on either side of the isthmus as the venue rather than going through the effort and expense of bringing in copious amount of snow via trucks.

We were smart enough to purchase hot coffee at the nearby Starbucks, and then stood outside across the street from the capitol to watch the competition.  After awhile, we strolled around the square, "embracing winter" as Mary's mantra goes.

We stopped in a few more shops, including the Wisconsin War Veterans' Museum Store, watched the ice sculptors work their magic, and eventually made our way to the Overture Center For The Arts, Madison's impressive performing arts showpiece.  There, we enjoyed a concert by Black Star, a drum squad organized by the Boys & Girls Club Of Madison.  Those fifteen (or so) kids were skilled on the various types of drums incorporated into their show.  For a few numbers they were joined by local rappers whose charisma and talent had everyone in the multi-age audience smiling.

After exiting the Overture Center we started to retrace our steps from Thursday night.  We found Gorham Street and minutes later were belly-up to the bar at Brickhouse Bar-B-Que.  We inhaled scrumptious brisket and local craft beer while we watched the Olympics on the flatscreen overhead.  On the way back to Capitol Square I couldn't resist stopping for a look-see inside A Room Of One's Own, possibly the coolest book store I've ever been in.  It reminded me of Majors & Quinn in Uptown Minneapolis, only a little nicer and more user-friendly.  I was excited to find Graham Nash's autobiography, Wild Tales, which I purchased.  He was a founder and rhythm guitarist for the Hollies, my favorite band of all time not from Liverpool.  Most Americans probably know Nash more for his affiliation with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

We stopped to watch a little more of the cross country skiing competition, which was scheduled to run all day and into the early evening around Capitol Square, and then took an Olympics-viewing break (as if we deserved one) in our room.  Although hardly hungry after the big Brickhouse lunch, we walked over to Francesca's a few blocks away for pizza.  The place had a European feel to it, an interesting mixture of Italian cuisine with French ambiance.

We took the long way home, walking around the square one last time.  I believe I have personally seen twenty-four state capitols -- yes, I am linear enough to have kept track!  The Madison building, whether viewed at night or during the day, is number one on my list for beauty, elegance and setting.  (An aside, based on previous Madison visits: The view of the capitol at night from John Nolen Drive, with the lights reflecting off Lake Monona, is stunning.)

Sunday was our getaway day. Until the valet retrieved our car for us that morning, we had not used it the whole time we were in Madison. We were pretty proud of ourselves for being hardy Minnesotans. Skyways?  Who needs 'em?  Besides, Mad City doesn't have them!

Just one noteworthy item regarding the Sunday trip home.  We discovered a new restaurant along Interstate 94 called Timber Valley, which is in Hixton, Wisconsin.  There is a short history behind our discovery.  On the aforementioned drive to Notre Dame last September, Michael and I stopped for gas at a Clark station just off Exit 105 around 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday.  Attached to the station was a restaurant, and the steady flow of customers streaming into the place caught our attention, causing us to make a mental note to check it out on some future trip.  That opportunity presented itself to Momma Cuan and me on Sunday as we pulled off the road around lunch time.  Mary had a half baked chicken dinner and I had a big ham steak.  The food was very good and so was the price: $22.00, including a soft drink.  My only regret is that we had no room left to try one of their homemade pies, of which there were a dozen or more to choose.  I would love to compare Timber Valley's desserts to Norskie's, which is only seventeen miles up the road.

When we paid our bill, we noticed that, other than the gas station/restaurant and a small storage facility across the street, there was little else visible besides farm land.  Mary asked the young cashier, "Where, exactly, is Hixton?"

"This is it," came the reply.