Monday morning, 6 am found the Fool in the studios of NBC 15 in Madison, being interviewed on their morning show. They said the interview would be about 2 minutes, but he says it felt like 10. (Not quite forever, but he was surprised that they kept him on so long.) He kept expecting them to wrap it up, but they kept him on the air. The mood of the interview stayed pretty serious, with lots of talk about how "inspirational" he was, but this was probably just due to the fact that the Fool was balancing out all the Timothy McVeigh execution coverage they were doing. The hostess DID skooch away from him right on cue when he tried out his poison ivy jokes, though.
As our friend walked through Madison, a couple of people yelled from their cars, "HEYYY!! Walking FOOOOOLLL! GO FOR IT!!" This boost him up and actually caused him to strut around town. His strutting slowed down to a stroll when he passed a really freaky drunk guy sitting in a yard near the campus, who slurred out, as the WF passed (to nobody on particular) "That guy was on TV."
The Fool had dinner with his old college buddy Matt in Madison, and Matt loaded him down with 7 (SEVEN!!) new mix tapes for the road. Matt treated the Fool to some very tasty Afghan food, and the Fool sacked out in a a HoJo's in the heart of Madison on Monday night.
The rest of the week has been REALLY rainy, with occasional lightning and thunder. That's meant a pretty crappy week, with several nights in motels. By Wednesday The Fool had reached Devil's Lake State Park, [Cool VR and aerial photos available! See what the Fool saw!] He really enjoyed the hike on the East side of the lake, along the cliff, with the nice cool breezes blowing up the bluff.
Thursday was a lousy day, as the sound on the WF's video camera started to crap out. He's not quite sure what he will do if it breaks entirely. He reached Baraboo, WI, on Thursday, and to entertain himself, tried out his fake Wisconsin accent at the local KFC. The woman behind the counter didn't seem to notice. One nice thing that happened in Baraboo was that he got a free Cow Pie¨ from Baraboo Candy!
Then things took a down turn when he crossed the street to buy some milk to go along with his Cow Pie¨... the clerk at the store REFUSED to take his Canadian quarter. In return for this shoddy treatment, The Fool littered in the parking lot. The Fool has also been a bit disappointed by "The Dairy State" (that would be Wisconsin) - he was expecting free-flowing fountains of milk at every turn, and a wheel of cheese on every lawn, but it hasn't been quite like that.Friday was rainy, and the Walking Fool holed up in a motel early in the afternoon to try and dry out and try to fix his camera, to no avail. On Saturday he got up and decided to spend the day hitting the tourist attractions of "The World Famous Wisconsin Dells!!!" This is a whole region of Wisconsin that i littered with dells. (What's a dell, you say? Well, The Fool asked the same question, and an old man answered, "Why, it's a valley, by definition.") So the Wisconsin Dells are a scenic area with lots of valleys, plus 8 gazillion motels, by the Fool's count. And each motel has its own water slide, and there is a motel named for every single animal that you could ever think of. (Flamingo? Got it. Polar Bear? Got it. Name an animal - they've got it.) One creepy thing that happened on Friday was The Fool kept pace for a good part of the day with a really odd looking bald hitchiking farmer character. The weird guy kept getting short rides, and the Fool kept taking side jaunts, and then he would just catch up to him again.
Other tourist stuff that The Fool experienced in The Dells included a roller coaster named "Zeus", which was heralded as 'the tallest coaster in the world!', but The Fool is calling them on that claim. He also visited "The Funhouse of the Future!", which is shaped like a big pyramid with a spaceship on top. He asked the ticket-seller what amazing technology funhouses in the future have which they've brought back to our time. All she could come up with was, "Well, it's got a time machine in there... but it only goes into the past... not the future." The big excitement was Robot World. The Fool was a bit nervous as he entered, and asked every single attendant the same question - "Is that robot going to attack me?" "No" was the answer every time, but Mark was still a bit wary. Robot World works like this: you enter through a door, a robot yanks the $10 entry fee out of your hand, and then a conveyor belt (powered by robots) just sends you right out the door.
A little known fact about Robot World is that the film "Heartbeeps," with Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as two robots who fall in love and run away, took place entirely within Robot World. (Actually that's a total lie. Sorry.)
Saturday night brought The Fool to the outskirts of the Dells, but the fun didn't end there. He was walking out on a back road in the middle of nowhere, with no lights, when all of a sudden he came upon two guys sitting in a golf cart at the side of the road. (Which totally scared the crap out of him.) He said "Hi", they said "Uh?!" and took off. Then just as he had relaxed from that encounter, he heard faint music, and saw shimmering lights up ahead. As he approached, he discovered a "biker jamboree" at the side of the road, with booze, bonfires, music, and a pro light system. The WF passed the biker jamboree without incident.
Shortly after that, he camped out in some nice pine woods. He started out with no tent, since it was a nice night, but as soon as he settled in and turned off his flashlight, the raccoons and possums started scurrying all over the place, and all he could think of was one running across his face. Then some animal made a huge freaky hissing noise in the trees, and The Fool had his tent up in record time.
Sunday was pretty rainy, and the Walking Fool ended up spending a decent amount of time waiting out the rain in a Subway restaurant. He's got a new blister on his pinky toe, but he's really looking forward to the next 2-3 days, as he will be hiking a trail that goes from Elroy to Sparta, which has NO CARS!!!! Nothing but hikers, and nature, and nice little camp sites, going through several small towns. The Fool wishes more of the country would build trails like this one. (The Fool also wishes everyone would buy a mug or t-shirt!)
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