August 14, 2009

Quite a day. Most of it was the Bike Pub Crawl. It started at 10 AM at my friend's house. We began with an homebrew apple drink that was made with lagering yeast, pretty good stuff. Biked first to Hoyt Park; stopped to have a complimentary can of Special Export, and then it was on to the Blue Moon pub on Old University Ave, and had a few glasses of beer there. There are a lot of people big into Bell's brewery, located in Kalamazoo, MI, and it is good stuff. We then rode onto the bike trail that parallels University and toured through the lakeshore path of Lake Mendota. I saluted my old dorm room from my freshman year as I went by it - 204 Botkin; the buildings at Tripp and Adams Hall look as beautiful as ever for their 80+ years. Went up State Street, which is still car-free, and ended up having lunch at the Argus. Some of the party went to a newer bar, The Bayou. We parked our bikes by the GEF-3 building, the building my wife used to work in during her fiscal bureau years, and a lot of those bureacrats drive bikes to work as it was little bit hard finding a bike space; many of us had to secure our bikes to other bikes.

I ate at the Argus, having a peanut-tahini salad ($6.75). I thought to keep it on the light side with all the beer being drunk during the ride. Had a Rolling Rock, club size at the Bayou ($1.35).

We then stopped at one of the bikers' houses on the north side of Lake Monona. Drank 4 Jello shots, pretty potent, and had some fun with squirt guns. Then onto the next house where we had mini-kegs of DAB and Bell's Oberon with some salty snacks (much needed). The temperature was climbing and it was getting a bit muggy, but we managed to weather it and made it to the Malt House on Milwaukee and Washington where I had an Apple Cider and then some absinthe. Milwaukee Road is named such as it was the road that Union Soldiers walked from Camp Randall to the port of Milwaukee at the onset of the Civil War. The Malt House has the same bar fixture that was used at the site when it was the Union tavern back in the 1860's. Last stop for me was at Dexter's on North and Milwaukee. Had more beers and a Blue Gill fish fry - the damn things are so small, it is like eating crab pincers or halibut cheeks, and just as sweet.

I rode home entirely using the bike lanes, which are separate from the roads and still had quite a bit of traffic, but perhaps it is a safe way to ride home when having a few barley pops. It was nice riding at night, seeing the Capitol all lit up and driving 'through' the Wright Convention Center (the bike lane curves into it at its base.) Arrived home at 9:30PM - no more drinks for the evening.