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Madison Nightlife Aug 26, 2011

We stayed up rather late last night, so we all were a little slow getting up and about Friday morning. It looked like there must have been a big party last night from all the empties visible in the morning. The plan for the day was to play a round of golf at an executive course nearby. Once we all were up and moving about, David fried up some breakfast and Lynn had already boiled up some eggs. They added in some toast and we ate a tasty breakfast before we headed out to the links. The course was very nice and green of course. The course was not very busy and we got to tee off as soon as we were ready. It is a short, flat course, so we were all walking with pull carts to carry the clubs. Nancy has not had a club in her hand since we last played in San Juan Capistrano about 7 months ago. So I was not too surprised when her first tee shot sent the threesome on the tee box to our right diving for cover. Fortunately, her ball nailed a spruce tree and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Her mulligan shot went sailing straight down the middle of the fairway for about 150 yards. Good job Nancy! Lynn recorded her first birdie. She hit a sweet chip shot from just off the green that sent her ball rolling straight into the cup. Nice bird! The ladies were banging the ball pretty well so it didn’t take very long to play our nine holes. We had gentle breezes and temperatures in the high 70’s, which made our day perfect for the golf. After golf we headed back to the Mackenzie residence for refreshments. Dave and I headed down to his favorite local bar, “the Outpost” for a couple of beers. All the local dudes knew Dave and exchanged various greetings. For the evening’s entertainment, we drove a very short distance to downtown Madison. The city and campus of University of Wisconsin are built on and around three lakes, at least. The Dane Dances are a regular Friday night venue during August. They are held on an enormous rooftop plaza alongside Lake Minona. When we got to the plaza, there were already hundreds of people dancing and listening to the music. The Madison community turns out in great numbers for their events. The entire area between the plaza and the Union Center on Lake Mendota was alive with groups of students, tourists, and locals, out enjoying all the food and music venues. We sat along the lake on campus and listened to another live band. There were numerous places where we could get drinks, and we did. The Madison waterfront is a wonderful and robust location. We really enjoyed ourselves and look forward to our return.

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