Great day

Quick, through the portal!
It was a most wonderful day to have off of work. We loaded up the bikes and headed to Madison about 8 in the morning. The first stop was breakfast, and Cathy had found the best possible place by typing "Madison breakfast" into Google. It's a retro styled place called the Blue Plate Diner.
Cathy enjoyed a pesto mushroom omelet, and I had the huevos rancheros. Black beans and eggs seem scary, but they turned out to be the perfect fuel for our endeavours. Our waitress had just the right amount of sass to match her surroundings, nothing forced or phony, and the waiter cleaning the adjoining booth rolled his eyes at her like the perfect foil.
After breakfast, we backtracked a short way to Cottage Grove and loaded up our bikes for a three-hour-tour, yes, a three-hour-tour. It was cool enough for us to keep our sweaters on but still nice for the time of year, a stiff wind in our face was making it more work than we liked on our first time out. Our leg out took about 2 hours, and we went a good bit further than we had planned. We made it all the way to Lake Mills, 15 miles from our start, that's already further than we rode the whole first week last year! A sub sandwich was shared, and with some cokes we gathered up our strength for the return journey. The way back was mercifully better, as our nice day became unseasonably wonderful, the wind was at our backs to push us the long way to the car. Cathy deserves a lot of credit for working out so hard all winter, last year she rode for 3 miles her first time out and today she did 30. I think it's going to be a great summer!