{"id":613,"date":"2012-11-25T20:28:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T00:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=613"},"modified":"2012-11-25T20:28:38","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T00:28:38","slug":"613","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=613","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’ve joined my folks for a post-Thanskgiving visit to their Wisconsin getaway place.\u00a0 It’s relaxing up here.\u00a0 Very quiet.<\/p>\n

To break up the solitude a bit, we drove down to Madison Saturday morning.\u00a0 The first stop was the Dane County Farmers’ Market which is the largest of its kind in the US.\u00a0 When the weather gets cold in mid-November, the market moves indoors from its regular set-up on the grounds of the state capitol into a large space at the Monona Terrace Convention Center a few blocks away.\u00a0 We arrived at about 9:45 AM.\u00a0 About fifty vendors were selling Wisconsin-grown\/made products in strict adherence with guidelines from the market’s elected oversight entity.\u00a0 This time of year limits the type of fruits and veggies available, but what we saw was still an impressive array of Wisconsin products.\u00a0 There were several cheesemakers on hand.\u00a0 One vendor sold fresh trout filets.<\/p>\n

The Luna Circle Farm in nearby Rio, WI had a colorful presentation of root veggies including “watermelon radishes.”<\/p>\n

Some producers could be heard telling customers that Wisconsin’s dry, hot summer was bad for their harvest.<\/p>\n

The gentleman working the Snug Haven Farm stand was in good spirits, however.\u00a0 He sold bags of beautiful-looking “frost-sweetened” spinach.\u00a0 Grown in hoop houses (a style of green house) in Belleville, WI, the plants are deliberately exposed to cold temps to improve texture and flavor.<\/p>\n

Music was performed on one end of the selling floor.\u00a0 When the market shifts to a senior center location later in January, breakfasts made with market products are served for eight bucks.<\/p>\n

I want to come back and see the market in its full glory on a Saturday morning in late summer at the Capitol grounds.<\/p>\n

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The Capitol building was open to the public all day Saturday as it is year-round, every day of the year.\u00a0 We went in about 10:30 AM and took a free tour that included access to the Governor’s conference room, the state supreme court and both chambers of the state legislature.\u00a0 The young woman who guided our group of about 40 people through the 55-minute tour threw a lot of good info at us but she was robotic and put too much emphasis on construction of the building.\u00a0 I’ve taken a lot of state capitol tours in my day and I always enjoy it when the guide sheds light on the current workings and business of what happens in the seat of state government.\u00a0 One need not get political to briefly describe key players in the three branches of state government and the current state of affairs.\u00a0 Here we were in a building that had recently been the site of historically important hostile clashes between a segment of the citizenry and the state’s chief executive and the tour guide made not a single mention of any of it.<\/p>\n

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We had lunch at Mickies Dairy Bar across the street from Camp Randall Stadium.\u00a0 Students from the University of Wisconsin packed the booths and counter seats.\u00a0 The milkshake here is fantastic.\u00a0 It’s thick and rich.\u00a0 Sandwiches are inexpensive and tasty.<\/p>\n

After lunch we headed over to the UW campus for an afternoon of women’s hockey at the newly-constructed La Bahn Arena.\u00a0 The new athletic facility adjoining the Kohl Center (the primary on-campus indoor arena) includes an ice rink with room for about 2400 fans.\u00a0 It’s a great place to see a hockey game.\u00a0 Built mostly with private donor dough, the $30-million annex serves as the practice rink for both the men’s and women’s team.\u00a0 It will be the regular home venue for the women’s team.\u00a0 The Lady Badgers have four national titles and are coached by Mark Johnson, one of the more prominent heroes on the 1980 US Olympic hockey squad that won gold at Lake Placid.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin beat St. Cloud St. 6-3.\u00a0 It was $5 to get in ($1 for seniors).\u00a0 The quality of hockey is high although the ban on body-checking in the women’s game takes some getting used to at first.\u00a0 The game is meant to include contact as a means of slowing the player with the puck but that’s not allowed at this level.\u00a0 The contact is so difficult for participants to refrain from, you see the occasional body-check.\u00a0 In this game, five checking penalties were called.\u00a0 Eleven other minor penalties were whistled for acts of aggression.\u00a0 So while the ban is enforced, it’s not fully observed.<\/p>\n

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Speed and skating skill is valued perhaps even more in the women’s game given the freedom of movement.\u00a0 The fastest skater in this game was Brianna Decker (pictured above).\u00a0 Just five feet four inches, Decker flies up and down the ice.\u00a0 She logs heavy ice time and won 21 of 33 faceoffs.<\/p>\n

After junior Natalie Berg scored her first career goal as a Badger (it ended up being the game winner), Decker asked the referee for the puck and tossed it to the Wisconsin bench for safe keeping.\u00a0 Decker scored two goals including a short-handed empty-netter with 1:41 to play in the game.\u00a0 Decker wears the C and will walk away from Wisconsin next summer as one of the best players in the program’s history.\u00a0 You’d hope she’s part of the US squad that plays for gold in Sochi fourteen months from now.<\/p>\n

Attendance was 1767.\u00a0 I loved how natural sunlight entered the arena from windows near the top of the building.\u00a0 It was nice to be at a hockey game again, especially not knowing when the guys who play for pay come back again.<\/p>\n

There’s no television up here at the cabin in Adams County, WI but we’ve been listening to lots of radio.\u00a0 I brought along a small satellite receiver and feed the signal through a clock radio in a room on the main floor.\u00a0 Relying on the radio call as the lone source of enjoying a big sporting event is right up my alley.\u00a0 For ND\/USC Saturday night, my Dad and I sat and listened to the Fightin’ Irish broadcast carried on the “Catholic Channel.”\u00a0 Play-by-play man Don Criqui’s form has fallen off considerably.\u00a0 He misses large chunks of action and often does little more than inform the listener where the ball is spotted after the play is over.\u00a0 When he occasionally gains focus, sets the scene and has full use of his voice, Criqui sounds like he did twenty years ago.\u00a0 It’s such an authoritative and kind-sounding delivery.\u00a0 But Criqui’s voice is cashed now.\u00a0 He crackles, chokes and gasps frequently without hitting the mute button in the booth.\u00a0 Criqui doesn’t get much help from his partner Allen Pinkett either.\u00a0 It’s an awful broadcast.\u00a0 ND’s loyalty to the two alums in the booth likely keeps them around as long as they want but Criqui would benefit from some self-reflection on his performance.\u00a0 Play the tapes.\u00a0 Make way for somebody who can process and describe a play in real time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve joined my folks for a post-Thanskgiving visit to their Wisconsin getaway place.\u00a0 It’s relaxing up here.\u00a0 Very quiet. To break up the solitude a bit, we drove down to Madison Saturday morning.\u00a0 The first stop was the Dane County … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-613","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":615,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}