madison road trip: day trip to minneapolis

It became apparent that nothing much was going to be happening this particular Saturday in Madison, so I sought out other plans. I couldn't help but notice that Minneapolis was within striking distance of Madison; much closer than the 10+ hours from Ann Arbor. I have a sister and a good friend in mpls, so I zoomed. The bright white grey in the second picture isn't because the shot was extremely over-exposed; that was I could actually see for a short period of time as a huge deluge attacked the expressway.

I made it to town in a reasonable amount of time, considering the weather and traffic. I spent a little bit of time at Jen's place we sought out Andy. As we sat around for a while until a mission was found: bike shopping. This was part of her plan all along, but such things are much easier with a car. So we wandered through a couple shops and ended up at a nice shop on University. Jen bought a nice specialized cross bike and I gave her a helmet and basket panniers for her shopping trips. She could easily carry 8 liters of coke in the panniers. I also bought a new Giro helmet for my noggin. I had spent the last couple weeks looking for a Cool Yellow Helmet but Ann Arbor just didn't have one. This bike store did, though. It put me back $150, but it was well worth the money. My last helmet served 8 years and it was ugly damned ugly. Hopefully this one will last at least as long. The helmet is much like a spaceship, but it attaches to my head.

I spent the night partying with Jen, Andy and his friend Chris. After dinner we wandered through back streets of Minneapolis to find a midnight showing of comedic hong kong kungfu. The movie was sponsored by some sort of asian community group and they had all sorts of Japanese goods for sale. I bought PokeySticks, a candy I haven't had since I was in Japan. They're little cookie sticks with strawberryLikeStrawberryQuik coating. Yummy. I don't remember the name of the film, but it was damned funny.