Today, we went to the Wisconsin State Fair with some friends. It has been a few years since we had visited, in fact Zack may have never been. Kevin was owed a funnel cake after missing out at our local art festival. For those who don't know, a funnel cake is a fried pancake of squiggled dough covered in powdered sugar. Fried foods seem to be a standard for fairs, and looking at a list of offered items of "food on a stick"(yes, there is a State Fair web page for food on a stick) there was just about everything available. Even fried cream cheese with bacon on a stick. We didn't see that offering during our visit but we did see this...
We saw some animals, then stopped in at the Wisconsin Products Pavilion. This has always been my favorite place to get food. Local producers and organizations offer a variety of samplings. We all shared some apple cider donuts, washed down with chocolate malt milk. I had a stuffed baked potato with choose your own toppings. Then we stopped and bought some maple sugar cotton candy. The rest of the fair is pretty much food and product vendors. There is a whole building of as seen on TV products. I was thankful for the air conditioning in the building. Kevin got tired feet part way through the aisles and he and I took a break in the hallway where state 4-H projects were displayed.
On the way back to the some of the food vendors we spotted a celebrity...
Alex Debogorski from the History Channel's
Ice Road Truckers was at the fair meeting fans. The boys in the group all talked with Alex and got autographed pictures. Chad and Alex talked about the road conditions for semis in Wisconsin and how the ice can be more slippery here than on the Ice Road because of the temperature flucuation near the freezing point in Wisconsin.
Heading to eat, Kevin wanted spiral cut fried potatoes. He sprinkled BBQ seasoning on his.
Chad and I shared ribs and sour cream and chive fries.
Last stop for viewing was the rabbit and poultry barn that was closed in the morning.
Zack liked the baby rabbits in the cage with the mom. He didn't know that I showed rabbits at the State Fair when I was a kid. I'll have to show him the ribbons and pictures someday.
On the way home we grabbed a 6 pack of the famous State Fair Cream Puffs. Kevin snapped a picture of the "guarded" delivery trailer that transported the desserts to the satellite sales station. It went by quite often, so I'm sure a lot of cream puffs were sold today.
We dropped a couple off for my parents on the way home and enjoyed the rest later. I don't know why we thought we needed more fair food but they are quite good. Is it a conincidence that an amblance service is advertising on the box? I'm surprised one of the other sponsors wasn't a cardiac cath lab.
Frog Droppings!
Bear Poop!
The boys liked the ride we did last year so much that they were waiting to repeat it again this year. Sunday looked like a good day to tackle this feat. This time Chad and I headed in with the Jeep to downtown Madison and parked it in front of a restaurant that we have been waiting to try, Bradbury's. We biked back home on the tandem to pick up the boys. We had a slow start getting them moving, because of course they were not ready to go when Chad and I picked them up.
There was also a breeze the helped too. We took pictures at each sign again, and were especially excited that the missing Uranus sign was back in place after last year's disappearance. 
John Nolen Drive was closed Sunday and was eerily quiet. It was cool to coast across the road with no traffic. There was a bike event on the road, but not many riders when we were around. At the Sun there was a sun dial instead of the flower planting they had last year. The kids tried it out, before we moved on. 
The Sun is close to Monona Terrace, and Chad thought they had a bike elevator. Of course we had to look for it and take it! 
The tandem/trail a bike rig didn't fit so Chad took it apart quick so the doors could close. It was neat to have our own elevator for bikes, and it took us up several levels and we were able to shoot across the Capitol square to the restaurant.
It took us longer than we thought for the trip, but the restaurant serves until late afternoon. 
Chad had his meal picked out from their internet menu, the Blueberry and Lemon Curd crepes. I considered one of the savory crepes since I was pretty hungry after the 53 miles on bike. But I decided to go with the Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt crepes. A great choice. 
The kids had crepes with cinnamon sugar. Definetely a restaurant deserving of a repeat visit. Besides, they were out of the cold press coffee that I really wanted to try. Maybe next time.