Road Trip and Best 99
john barry
Because any stroller can be a double stroller. Especially when you're on vacation.
We took a little road trip last weekend to Madison, Wisconsin, land of ice cream and cheese. Sometimes all of the preparation, planning and transportation involved in traveling with small children makes it seem hardly worthwhile. This, fortunately, was not true of our mini-trip to Madison. We played it by ear and it was actually low stress and quite fun.
When Emmett fell asleep on the way to dinner we went with it and discovered that he could sleep, sitting upright on his dad’s lap, in a crowded, noisy dining room - no problem. When the kids all woke up at an ungodly hour, I got them in the car and headed out to Greenbush Bakery which, thankfully, opened at 6:00 a.m. We got there just as the doors were being unlocked and selected donuts with chocolate and sprinkles and an apple fritter the size of my head. They were amazing. We even made it home with one diaper to spare (I had been worried about not packing enough diapers, but when we got home and unloaded the trunk I realized we had an entire bulk box of them in the back. Go figure).
While we were there we went to the Dane County Farmer’s Market, UW and hit up a great pizza joint called Salvatore’s Tomato Pies. At UW, we stopped at Babcock Hall Dairy Store for ice cream. Babcock Hall Dairy store is located in the Dairy Plant on the west side of campus. Attached to the ice cream store is a viewing gallery where you can see the ice cream being made. Since 1951, UW has been making ice cream, cheese and other dairy products on campus. The agricultural sciences portion of the campus is pretty cool if you have any interest in that sort of thing. Huge greenhouses occupy much of the plant sciences building and they have a whole building dedicated to dairy cows in addition to the dairy plant.
Where the magic happens.
Of course hiding under this old desk was more fun than all of the fancy ice cream churners in the world.
Back in Ireland, another dairy story was unfolding. The Barry family store was basking in the glory of being named the best “99 in County Louth” as a result of a poll conducted by the Dundalk Democrat. A 99 (I should have included it in this post about Irish slang) is an ice cream cone, usually soft-serve, with a Cadbury flake stuck in the middle. Apparently, Barry’s edged out its closest competition by 2% for the win. It was a proud moment for the family as demonstrated via illustration below.
Congratulations Barry's! We're looking forward to getting one of those award-winning 99s next time we are in Ireland.