I arrived in Madison and headed off to pick up my car.  Unfortunately there is no Emerald Aisle at Madison so it meant that I was at the whim of the staff as to what I was going to end up with.  The bags were not even close to rolling when I reached the area and the car counters were right there, so I got my keys first and was handed the keys to a Chevy Equinox.  Considering I was hoping for something like that for a week so I had some space, guess it worked out ok.  As I turned around the bags were rolling and I had my bag in hand quickly and out to the car.  But I got lost in the car park trying to find where I was meant to be going (I should pay more attention to the directions).

One the flight coming in I had noticed FiFi the B-29 on the ground on the opposite side of the airport and the ladies at the National Counter had given me directions to that side of the airport.  So that is where I was headed, I got around to the far side and there wasn’t all that much of a crowd which was good.  What was dissapointing though was they wanted $15 just to walk up near it, let alone get in it, and then the line to get near it was huge.  With no real cash on me, I just gave in and walk around the fence line, since I knew it would be at OshKosh later in the week.  I bode my time!

I headed into the city via the nearest Walmart to pick up the chair that I was suggested to buy and a slab of water for the week.  The hotel I was staying at was right in the middle of downtown and it was an easy find via the GPS.  I was heading to the Doubletree by Hilton Madison.  When I arrived I had to wait for the hotel shuttle to stop blocking the driveway so I could stop blocking the street and once that happened I was able to park the car briefly.  Checked in nice and simply and my status was not mentioned and if I had of not mentioned it, I doubt I would of gotten any of the benefits.  I had been “upgraded” to a Deluxe room, which is really just a normal room but on the top floor (her own words).  Can’t complain to much I guess.  With check in completed I was handed the Doubletree Cookie.  It was warm which was wierd as the staff had pulled it out of a draw (turns out the draws are warmers and they are baked in the morning and kept warm all day).  I was handed some parking tokens and I put my car away for the moment.

The room was not to bad, for a standard hotel room.  Clean, efficient and nothing to complain about.  Crabtree & Evelyn products in the bathroom and nothing at all to complain about really.  Pictures should do the talking but there was a distinct lack of outlets around the bedside (as expected),  I counted 1.  After a quick settle in the plan was to walk into town and just explore a little, get a coffee to keep me going (since I had been up since very early) and then possibly just chill out for a bit.  I got some directions at the front desk and off I went to the State Capitol and a few other places.

After some exploring and some chilling out I headed out for a dinner to a place that was close to the hotel that apparently served fantastic burgers and I was up for some goodness.  Dotty Dumplings Dowry apparently serves the best burgers in town and it was less than 2 blocks from my hotel.  Score!  I walked over and it was  nice quiet bar kinda atmosphere and when I walked in, was told that there would be a wait for a table, as soon as I said “Bar?” “You can go right over” was the reponse.  Love it!  You get the same menu and I can sit and enjoy it.  Funnily enough as I was sitting down one of the other people at the bar cleared some space for someone else and it turned out to be the owner!  Funny.  I was starting to crash out a bit by now so just took it easy and enjoyed my burger.  I had the Alumni Burger which was really just an awesome Cheeseburger.  Prices weren’t bad and it was a good simple, easy, tasty cheeseburger.. What’s not to like?

I had seen on the drive into town a really weird looking place that was meant to be an ice cream parlour so that is where I headed for dessert and it was a unique experience to say the least.  Ella’s Deli was a bit out of town (almost back out to the airport) and it had the most undescribeable eclectic decor inside.  On the outside it was 50s diner, meets carnival (including Carousel).  Famous for their Grilled Pound Cake sundae, that’s what I went with.  But it was pretty generic and nothing at all special.  BIG dissapointment.  Headed back to the hotel pretty unsatisfied with that part of the adventure, ended up crashing out half way through a video.  Sad sad end to the day.

Sunday 28th July 2013

I woke up pretty well rested and since I couldn’t sleep as long as I had wanted to as probably had to much energy, I hit the gym for a big workout.  9.2 miles on the bike, a mile run and that should do me right?  Well not really, some ab exercises thrown into the mix as well.  Right at that moment all I wanted was to burn off some of the crap from last night and expend some energy and damn sure that is what I did.  What was good for me though was the fact that I had breakfast at the hotel, so I could at least get some coffee into me prior to hitting the road.  Breakfast was in the hotel’s restaurant/sports bar and it was a pretty simple affair.  I wasn’t expecting much but as long as they had plenty of fresh fruit and coffee, I would be sorted.  I was not dissapointed as I was given the entire pot of coffee.

With breakfast out of the way and my route out of town planned I packed up my gear, into the car and checked out.  I mentioned that the cookies were great to reception as I was leaving and she handed me a couple more for the road.  AWESOME!  I settled in for a good drive out of town, I had about an hour and a half up to the hotel where I would drop off my stuff before another 20 minutes to get up to OshKosh from there.  Sadly it was on this drive that things didn’t go to plan.

About 10 Miles out of Madison I got a tire pressure warning.  I figured one of the tires must of been under inflated by the car rental office, so as soon as I found the nearest gas station I would pull in, get some air in the tire and keep on going.  Sadly no.  The nearest gas station was another 10 miles past where the warning came on, but after paying to put air into the tires (not free… wtf!) the warning wouldn’t go off.  I even tried inflating with the car running to see if it was just not enough air and the gauge on the pump was wrong.  Nope that wasn’t it either.  So I called up National as I didn’t want to drive all the way to OshKosh and find out that the problem got worse as I would then be without a car (nearest offices are Madison or Green Bay).  They told me I should start heading back to Madison to switch the car out.  So that’s what I did.

When I got back to Madison airport (only depot open on a Sunday), they told me I should of been instructed to fill the car first (even though I was swapping out a faulty car wtf!) so I had to redrive the 2 miles I had just driven in, back to the nearest Gas station.  #FAIL!  Filling up the car cost me a further $10 and when I got back I wanted to make sure I had a decent car.  Again they gave me another Equinox, but this one had 1/4 of the miles of the other one, and was more pimped out with Leather seats.  After transffering all my gear between the cars (and making the National staff come get the keys of the old vehicle as I wasn’t wasting any more of my morning) 2 hours after I set off for Osh originally, I was this time, really on the way.