16 Jul 2022 - Farmers Market, Mustard Museum, Campground Solar

 16 Jul

Early to bed, early to rise!  All the intel we gathered about the "Saturday on the Square" Dane County Farmer's Market, also known as the Madison Farmer's Market on the Square,  was the early bird gets the worm.  It is an extensive array of vegetables, flowers, meats, cheeses and other goods for sale on the square around the state capitol building.  It is a Saturday and Wednesday tradition that draws about 275 vendors.  According to their advertisement, all products for sale are "grown, raised and produced by the person behind the stand".  The market opens at 0615 hrs and as the vendors sell out, they leave.  Parking is also a challenge, especially for big ol' brown trucks, so early is the name of the game today.  SO, the alarm sounded at 0530 and we arrived right at 0615 hrs.  We nailed the parking thing, finding on-street parking just two blocks from the capitol.  

The Wisconsin State Capitol obscured by a little fog and drizzle this morning

All four sides of the Capitol were lined with vendors

Temps were cool so this is the first time in a while we wore jackets or sweatshirts.  There were not many here yet which does not bother me in the least.  Stopping at a couple vendors we were quickly briefed that we were traveling in the wrong direction!  What?!  Yep, Most everyone travels counter-clockwise and we were non-conformists at this point!  Seriously!

Many vendors selling beautiful flowers

Endless displays of vegetables

Pastries were "just baked" so since we left the RV before having breakfast, Doreen scored a cinnamon roll and I had a Danish with cheesecake and blueberry filling.  That was about 1500 calories but oh so good!!

We continued our stroll around looking over everything and deciding what we wanted.  There were also vendors selling yarn, baked goods and honey.

Law enforcement memorial

Vendor selling honey products!

We made one lap all the way around in the wrong direction and then reversed flow and bought some veggies.  Everything looked so good!

 We enjoyed the Farmer's Market and will continue to enjoy what we bought for quite a while!

Back at the campground we tuned into our grandson Daniel's 11 and under state baseball tournament game on the big screen and then watched his second game immediately following.  They lost the first one and won the second one, so they play at 0800 hrs Sunday morning again.  

After the games we had some lunch and took Liberty on a walk.  As we did I payed more attention to the solar system installed here at the campground.  I learned that the solar panels here provide power for not only the buildings but also the campground, so all of the campsites are powered from solar!  The pavilion building roof is entirely made of flex solar panels.

Pavilion roof

One of the flexible solar panels has slipped out of place

Part of the electronics that controls the energy the solar panels produce

Solar panels on the roof of other park buildings

Solar panels on the roof of the campground shower house

Unused electricity generated by the solar panels is fed back into the electrical grid and sold to the power company.  Vert efficient operation.

Later on we headed into town and visited the National Mustard Museum!  This is the home of the "world's largest mustard collection"!  Who would have known?!  So the story goes, the Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General is a huge Boston Red Sox fan.  So in 1986 he was wandering the aisles of a supermarket lamenting his team's World Series loss when he heard, "If you collect it, they will come!"  So he did and so they have!  In 1992 he left his Attorney General job and opened this very improbable museum!  Here they have over 6500 mustards from all 50 states and over 80 countries. 

Mustards from every state

Iowa's finest!

Mustard seeds

Extensive collection of French's mustard

A collection of Canadian mustards

We watched a video that explained a lot about mustard and then continued our tour which included mustard & medicine and a collection of antique mustard pots.

Medicinal mustard

Mustard pots

Upstairs they have a tasting bar and retail sales of about any kind of mustard you can imagine.  

After the sampling I bought a hot and fresh pretzel and chose the Nashville Hot mustard for dipping!  It was awesome!

We don't typically get t-shirts on our travels but if we did I would get this one!

Back at the campground this evening we tuned into two Chicago Cubs games, one scheduled and one rescheduled due to rain.  We finished up the evening walking the trail towards the lake.  Liberty was "on the scent" with all the wild critters running around here.  All together we walked about 12,000 steps today.

No big plans for tomorrow. I have a few maintenance things to do such as cleaning and lubricating out slideout seals.  I need to fuel the truck and make preparations for departure as Monday morning we head for Racine WI.