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Starkweather Beer Company

 When I moved back to Madison to attend law school in 1987, we moved to a crappy little apartment near the banks of Starkweather Creek on the unfashionable east side.  Today, the east side is booming, and one of the newer brewpubs is called Starkweather Beer Company. It was Saint Pat's Day.  While Guinness is a decent light-bodied stout, I opted for Starkweather's dry Irish Stout, named "Jamestown Jackdaw." Coming in at 5.9 ABV, it had a malty chewable backbone.  It's a new favorite stout for me.  Julia had Late Winter Haze, a New England IPA that didn't have as much fruitiness as she likes in a hazy.  It was still well-executed. We walked down the street to the Harmony Bar, where Julia enjoyed a complete corn beef and cabbage dinner.  I opted for the Reuben sandwich.  Mine was washed down with an Edmund Fitzgerald porter from Great Lakes Brewing.  Julia enjoyed her Chaos Pattern IPA from 3 Sheeps Brewing.  Both are great beers. Justin update:   After a long h

Inca Trail: Machu Picchu

 


Machu Picchu is one of the seven wonders of the world.  Visited by 1.5 million visitors each year, people from all over the world travel great distances by plane, train and then bus to be here.  Many are checking off bucket lists.  

During the week before hiking the Inca Trail, we talked to an older couple from Canada who had just returned from their hike.  We asked whether the journey to Machu Picchu had been worth it?  The guy laughed and said that the Inca Trail was amazing but not to fall in love with the idea that Machu Picchu was going to be some kind of climax to the hike.  

"It's amazing, don't get me wrong," he said.  "But it doesn't compare to the hike itself."  

We didn't really understand until we were standing at Machu Picchu.  In many ways, it wasn't different from the other ruins that we had seen:  just on a grander scale.  It did have a more colorful name.  Machu Picchu translates to "Old Penis." Most people in the U.S. also pronounce it wrong.  It's Ma-chu Pic-chu.

We were excited about the how it represented successfully finishing the hike.



We began touring the ruins at about 7:30 a.m.  The hikers had the entire place to themselves because people arriving by train/bus weren't allowed in until about 9 a.m.




We could have stayed there all day amongst the hordes of tourists. In truth, we were exhausted and didn't even last until 9 a.m.  As we left the control point, the first crowd of people from the early bus/train waited to get in.  We could hear their guides explaining that we had hiked the Inca Trail so had gained early entry.  There may have been a small measure of pride as our smelly bodies and grizzled faces shouldered through the crowd.  First stop was a real toilet.  Next stop was a beer. 


Comments

greg said…
It's the goin', not the getting there!

just returned from a week of wet and muddy hiking and find getting grungy and scraggly cuts down on social interactions. (As an added bonus the weather limited the number of other people out on the trails to pretty much zero. Win win!
John said…
That is a win win! Glad to hear you got out for a week. Muddy trails are my least favorite hiking, especially on downhills. There are times when the solitude is worth it!

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