On, Wisconsin!

So aside from sulking in the hotel room watching the pitiful excuse for a hockey game last night, we did a bit of shopping and walking around Madison this weekend. I think we drove around in circles for twenty minutes trying to relocate the Sunkist ghost sign I saw while driving into downtown Madison. And then we went to two Octopus Car Washes so I could get pictures of the Octopi - one of my favorite signs I hadn't grabbed a picture of yet. Below is one of my favorites. At the second location we had to make a quick exit because they were trying to get us to come in and get a car wash - oops, sorry. I'll have more pictures of various things in Madison up on Flickr probably tomorrow.

One of our favorite activities while in Madison, is to shop the bookstores. Because if you've ever seen our apartment, you would know we don't have enough books . We ended up at Avol's and I scored two cool books, both for under $20. The first was a Marcel Duchamp art biography - a first edition from 1959. It has a lot of good pictures of his works. The second caught my eye as I walked by:


Something about the design of the cover I just love. I'm curious to read the travel tips pre German unification. The book includes pictures - below are my two favorites:


How great are those? This book is better than the German Phrase book I bought that included how to say "Help, I have the runs," to a pharmacist.

Today we first went to a postcard show with Amy's parents. They're huge collectors - my ADD only allows about 30 minutes of viewing before I get cranky. Amy bought me a cool vintage CTA subway postcard. One of these days I'll put pictures on here of all the cool Chicago postcards and other vintage souvenir type things I have. The nice thing about Amy's parents going to so many flea markets and antique malls is whenever they see cool Chicago stuff cheap (which it usually is outside of Illinois) they'll pick some up for us. We got a 1933 Century of Progress walking cane for Xmas! After the postcard show, we went to the largest antique mall in Wisconsin in Columbus. They weren't kidding - apparently it was once a canning factory (complete with working freight elevator) and they had stuff on 3 levels. We spent 3 hours there and didn't even see it all. I exercised restraint and only bought the original Star Wars double LP. I'll definitely have to go back some time - I also got some cool pictures of the water and light plant which was next door.

And of course, no trip to Wisconsin would be complete without a stop here on the way home:


String cheese, cheddar cheese spread and Sprecher's Orange Dream Soda. Yum.