ADVENTURE!

Following in the footsteps of Day-of-Spontaneity 2005; that glorious day which saw Jeremy, Anna and me to a renaissance faire in Cambridge, WI and then, somewhat accidentally to Wisconsin Dells where these pictures were taken:

Anna and I decided that we needed to celebrate the beginning of the season with a day of ADVENTURE. We didn’t know what the day would hold, only that it would exist and that it would begin at 8 with breakfast at Sophia’s on E Johnson. After a leisurely breakfast, we got in the car and Anna asked the question, “Which way do you want to go?” You see, the only thing we knew was that we were leaving Madison and heading in a direction. So we picked a road and went for it. This particular road led kind-of West-Northwest (I think) after a few forks, we ended up in Mount Horeb, a place of legend and lore. Our first stop was at what we thought was an antique store but what turned out to be an antique extravaganza. It seems Mt Horeb likes old stuff. Or, maybe they don’t and that’s why it’s all in the stores? At any rate, we had a lot of fun with the crazy stuff for sale. These were some of our favorites:

On the left is a picture of me with a painting of some kid. This kid was quite possibly the scariest kid that ever lived. He may have been dead before this painting was made. On the right is a picture of a “New Era Scientifically Processed Potato Chips” canister we found which advertised the heightened amount of alkalinity in these chips and the fact that they were 95% digestible.

After an hour or so in Antique Mall #1, we climbed back in the car and headed for downtown. On the way, we noticed the huge amount of troll statuary. Anna and I are very open-minded people and we have nothing against trolls per se, we just thought it odd that there were soooo many troll carvings. On the way downtown the promise of a garage sale waylaid us. It turned out to be a bust so we hit the trollway. It turns out that Mt Horeb is the “troll capitol of the world.” Whether the statues are the cause of this moniker or the result of it is something we didn’t learn. I’m kinda glad that there’s still some mystery. So, we parked and set out on foot. The trollway has many shops and all of them look like this:

and were full of Norwegian stuff. The staff in these stores were the epitome of midwestern friendliness and were sometimes just a little too helpful. I needed to find an ATM and was given the following explanation:

so the ATM is in the AmCore bank on Main St in the 300 block. we're in the 100 block, so it's about 2 blocks down. so you're going to walk down Main St that way. The AmCore will be on your left; you'll see the sign, it's right across from the Mustard Museum. When you get to the AmCore, the ATM is in this little alcove to your left.

I listened to this explanation for longer than it would have taken for her to walk me to the ATM, nodding the whole time.

Anna and I headed to get cash. Upon turning, we made the amazing discovery of the infamous, world-renowned Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. For those of you not in the know, the mustard museum is a cool thing. We were greeted with a huge welcome and the concept of the mustard museum and its layout were explained. We started with a video presentation of “Mustard: Spice of Nations” but due to it’s excessive portrayal of rodeo and other non-mustard things, we moved on. The main floor contains a wealth of mustard history from around the world. Literally thousands of jars are on display and a lot of the accompanying advertising and paraphernalia. We browsed but it was pretty clear that we were just biding our time till we could hit the tasting room. The tasting room is like a car dealership but with mustard instead of cars. Tastefully arranged by world region or special feature (ie: Turkish, alcoholic, fruit, prize winners, etc) We found a few things we wanted to taste and headed back to the tasting table. Mustard tasting is a lot like wine tasting. Each mustard’s unique aspects were explained and we tasted, trying to pinpoint the subtleties of the mixed flavors and, sometimes the lineup of complex, multi-part tastes. We often had to “cleanse our pallets” and we were treated to more appropriate examples of what we wanted. For example, I had grabbed a brown sugar mustard but our moutardier knew that this wasn’t the one I wanted. She knew that the flavor I was looking for was more likely to be found in the Praline Pecan mustard (which was delicious by the way and will be bought in the fall for serving on Butternut squash) We also tried some special chocolate sauces and a dessert hot sauce which was crazy and awesome. In summation, go to the Mustard Museum!

After the mustard, we needed lunch and so, went to the Blue Skies Soda Shoppe. It was an old-style soda fountain place. It read. We had phosphates. Beautiful photographic proof of phosphates, taken by A.M.:

I also ordered a club sandwich and whipped out my new mustards, which totally read.

After lunch we needed more antiques. We found a sketchy sketchy place. We tried on hats. Mine was an old-school explorer hat. We also spent about 45 minutes looking at old postcards. Old missives are funny! Anna’s big find was a postcard that read, “Feb. 13, 1914 I am going to commit a robbery to-night. I suppose Gunners told you. ‘Riste’” We laughed. Anna also found a card with a picture of a camel that said, “My name Hubert Hump.” We laughed and through her laughter Anna explained, “There’s no verb!” I found the card below. I’ve pointed out the ruffnesses.

This is the back:

We laughed. Then we took a picture of us as a troll and his farm animal. After Antique Store #2, we found Antique Store #3 which was kinda lame except for its ridiculous cellar called, “Betty’s Basement”. Betty apparently didn’t ever throw any crap away; she just put it in this basement. Treasures abounded.

We left Mt Horeb and headed in some random direction, exploring the countryside. We were looking for some sort of abandoned building. It was harder to find than we expected. We eventually settled for a semi-abandoned building made of metal. This wasn’t really the aesthetic we were looking for but it was ok. We just kinda hung out and had fun in nature before heading off on a new mission to discover the Mazomanie nude beach. We didn’t want to be nude or even to really see nudity. We just wanted to know where the beach was. We never found it. We did however find a battle site and some Native American Burial Mounds in the wilderness.

I got a tick.

We had fun on our ADVENTURE.