Ready for our bike ride!
A family swing!
This looks interesting
Get me out!
MUCH better!
Future digger!
Where'd the water go?
Okay Dad--but don't get me TOO close!
And now it's gone...
Day one of our staycation had perfect weather for our bike ride around Lake Mendota. For Memorial day we had biked around Lake Monona, so we thought it would be a great idea to bike around the other lake. I also should mention that we were unable to bike around all of Lake Mendota since the County Road on the North side of the lake is not a safe road for biking. We did go about 17 miles though.
We started off with a hearty breakfast of yummy pancakes and then hit the road. Since we weren't ending at our starting point, we had to do an extra drop off of one of the vehicles and bikes and the car seats. It was quite the ordeal--but it all worked out. By the time we were starting our ride it was already 11ish.
The ride went very smoothly. The kids actually slept for a fair amount of it. We had used mapquest to help us plan our routes on some of the least busy streets. Our priority though was to always be next to the lake. On our bike ride, we discovered a very cool little beach (I will have to take the kids next year) as well as the Governor's mansion--which had security dudes on the outside with sunglasses on and all. It was really neat to see areas of the city we had never seen before.
We traveled through downtown--which made me nervous, but the traffic there is used to bikers so that went smoothly. We had planned to stop and picnic near the Hospital (about 2/3rds through our journey)--but could not find any tables to sit at--or playgrounds for the kids. I was sure there was more parks on the way so we kept going. We were all feeling a bit grumpy by this point though since it was well past 2 and we had yet to find a place. Eventually, we found a park that was less than a mile from our destination (ironic because we didn't know we were so close to our destination at the time). The pics above are from the park at our lunch break.
Our destination was the new splashpad the was built in the park only a few blocks from our first apartment. The kids (I should say--Ky) was excited for the opportunity to play in the water and enjoy the fun. Alaina was her timid self when it came to the water. It was fascinating, but she didn't want to get wet. Hopefully next summer she will be more adventurous (what a girl!).
After the splashpad, we went to Sonic. They just built one in Middleton and we had been wanting to try it out. I had been to one once before when I had traveled west for stormchasing, however this was a first for Rob and kids. We were a little disappointed with the service when we didn't get the bare necessities like napkins (especially when you have kids). The overall experience was okay. The ice cream was okay. I think the carhops were really the best part of the visit--watching them on their skates. But to the kids the experience was top notch --anything with ice cream is awesome.
After that we headed home and ate some good ribs on the grill. It was a good day! And we all slept very well!
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