Hello everyone, it is Sunday night and it is in between Cold Case and Grey's Anatomy, so I'm wasting a little time. It was an absolutely awesome weekend! I didn't work on Friday and I went to Madison right after class. I went up there to spend time with the fam. Also, Iowa was playing Wisconsin so that was an option too, but we had way too much other stuff to do and we didn't get there. On Friday at about 1 p.m. my friend Ryan and I started our journey to the city of Madison, Wisconsin. We got up there around 4 and went out to eat with Ben and his girlfriend Jill. We ate at The Nitty Gritty. It is a bar/restaurant that had some pretty good food. I guess it is a fun place to go on your 21st birthday because you get free beer the whole night. Well none of use turned 21 that night so we just ended up eating. After we ate we headed down to a bike shop called Erik's. As always bike shops are extremely dangerous because I seem to always spending money when I go to one. Luckily, I refrained from buying anything and just had a good time talking to the guy that sold Ben his bike. After we went to the bike shop, we made a stop at always exciting REI. It is an outdoors store that I can never get enough of. I wish there was one near Iowa City because I think I would go there every weekend. Anyways, I bought two pairs of Smart Wool socks there, which turned out to be the only thing I bought all weekend. Whew, that was a close one! We went back to Ben's after that, watch some Chapelle Show episodes, and went to bed.

The next morning Ryan, Ben, and I woke up and had plans to go to a special place to eat, but we were denied for undisclosed reasons. We ended up going to a nice restaurant and stuffing ourselves. After breakfast we took Ryan to his grandma's house and went back to Ben's to get ready for the BIKE RIDE! The bike ride completely rocked my world. It made me love Madison even more than I did before, which makes me want to move there so badly! The roads were awesome, the hills were large, and the traffic was miniscule. There were so many routes that we could have taken too. I am in love!

This is a photo of Ben riding up Barlow Road. It was probably one of the steepest hills I've ever riden. Sorry I didn't take more photos, but I should be getting a few more from Ben to put up on my photo website, which is linked to the right.

After the bike ride, Ben, Jill, and I watched the Iowa game at his house. Iowa actually won. I didn't think they would pull it out because it was Wisconsin's coach's last home game of his career. I figured they would come out and maul us, but they didn't so I was happy. After the game we went over to Ryan's grandma's house and ate some pizza. After that was over, we went bowling and got some ice cream. Overall, it was a fantastic day.

They next morning I woke up and sat around the house and talked to Jane a little before I had to leave. I ended up leaving fairly early from Madison. On my way home I stopped to see Ben and Jill at work. I said goodbye to them and made my way back home. It was really a great weekend. It was a nice change of pace from all the studying I usually do. Anyways, it is getting close to Grey's Anatomy. That means I must be going. What a great show! If you don't watch it, you should tune in sometime and catch a peek.