Is there a better time to visit Wisconsin than in late February? Maybe so, but we had family to visit; Becky’s sister Sarah, her husband Alan, and their two adorable daughters (Elsie and Alice) live there.

Becky and I arrived in Madison, put on all of our clothes, and drove our upgraded-for-free rental car van to Verona. It was camouflage, like the snow hare; I presume it turns brown in the summertime.

We hit a bit of a snag at quarantine.

But soon found ourselves through the security line. We took the kids to the local library, which just so happens to have a castle with a vicious dragon living inside.

We couldn’t visit Wisconsin without eating lunch at a cheese shop. It was delicious, as expected. Surprisingly, they didn’t make us wear the hats while we ate.

Among Madison’s claims to fame is the National Mustard Museum and Gift Shop. We strolled through the history of mustard, found the Oregon shelf in the “Mustards Across America” display, and tasted at least two dozen varieties. We showed a level restraint I’m prepared to call “admirable”, and only shipped four jars home.

Since GitHub is such a distributed company, it turns out I have a coworker who lives in Madison, and another who happened to be in town visiting. We managed to meet up for some good beer. I may appear to be the only one smiling, but I assure you, good times were had.

The next day, we went to tour Alan’s company – Epic Systems – and their main campus in Verona. The place is crazy. All of these actually exist as part of the facility:

• A mario-themed meeting room, with pipes and flowers
• A D&D-themed building
• Heaven
• Hell
• A treehouse
• A working farm

Since we had Sarah’s entire family with us, as well as some fantastic window light, we fit in a portrait session. For the final result, check out their post on Becky’s professional blog; here’s a behind-the-scenes light-test shot to whet your appetite:

After all that, it was time to cool down for a while.

When dinnertime came around, we did our duty and ate our way through the city of Madison. Sarah had done her homework, and found us four amazing restaurants. We were definitely not left hungry. Here we are perusing the dessert menu at Bluephies:

Thanks for being great hosts, guys! You made us feel very welcome indeed.