so far so good; madison deserves the cool bike-friendly reputation it has. we were able to start far out of town in a nice park and ride paved pretty trails to the center of town for a fine meal at a brewery. the sashimi and cranberry mustard were tasty enough to make all of the "yah sure", "you betcha", and "don't you know" commentary of northerners seem sincere and welcoming. normally, being the capital city of a state makes it as cool and hip as being the president of the high school chess club, but madison has a vibrant pedestrian and bike-welcoming downtown surrounding the hilltop capital building. someone even left some pro-bike pamphlets shoved under our brake cables. (although, truth be told, there's always something unnerving about agreeable propaganda.)

after madison we finally made it across the mississippi (thank god for spell-checkers) and are officially, if only mildly, WEST. we camped 600 feet above the river on some bluffs and went for a hike this morning before heading west to sioux falls, south dakota for a walk and some food. (guacamole, olive salsa, and sangria for the foodies out there.) we've been trying to coordinate driving with stella's naptimes with a decent amount of success. her carseat in the van faces the dogs and she has learned to stick out her tongue and pant at them. this is amusing in the van, but seems disconcerting to passersby in the street when they get enthusiastically panted at by a baby.


it occurred to me today that this is the first time in my life i've gone somewhere with no real definite plan about when i'm coming back. we've been planning and working our hineys (hinies? high-knees?) off for a year to make this happen but we really don't have much in the way of plans once we get there. i'm committed to 9 shifts a month in albany but other than that we don't have much that we're obligated to. we still haven't figured out exactly where we are going to stay but i don't even know if there's a good reason to stay anywhere. we got a PO box so that the IRS could waste some paper at us, but other than that we may just go ahead and keep in wander-mode for a bit; we seem to be getting the hang of it and my brain feels a lot more active for having all of the new stimuli that the last couple of months have offered.

i'd like to add a bunch more pictures but rural south dakota has about as much band width as a mosquito leg.