August 17th - Day 1 (12:30 A.M.)

Madison, Wi.

Lightning flashes in the distant sky as three of Madison’s finest pursue a fugitive on the nearby freeway. After 11 hours of driving (and over 40 minutes stuck at the border due to a vehicle search) I have reached my first objective, Madison, Wisconsin. I could have had a bed in the local hostel but the bizarre street layout in combination with my thrifty nature (that prevented me from buying a seven dollar map) destined me to get lost. For two hours I traveled in four large circles around the entire city without any luck So now I sit here in a Cub Foods parking lot waiting for my sleeping medication to kick in. In this hot and muggy weather they are going to have to work overtime.

In the meantime, exploration wise this first day was a bust. I expected nothing from Menomonee and received nothing (although I do suspect that there are interesting steam tunnels at the U of W.) In Eau Claire, I was able to actually find things to explore but was turned away by alarms. One building in particular, a vacant power plant, was quite difficult to part with especially when I was able to enter the building and see its intact interior. Unfortunately it was also being used for storing new boats. I learned early on in my exploration life that boats in buildings mean two things – alarms and quick response times. A struggle ensued but in the end I decided that the building was far too hot for me to handle. It was a good decision too for just as I climbed down from my entry point a cruiser passed by.

The power plant I had to turn away in Eau Claire.

My only hope is that Milwaukee will have something to explore.

(Note: The picture of the Wisconsin Legislative building was taken the next day)