Rural

We snowmobiled on tracks though farms about thirty minutes out of Madison today. It was a great day out. We meet up with some super nice people; Carl and Donna who are friends of Fran a work mate from the US office. They lent us a snowmobile each, extra gear to keep warm and I got a special helmet (due to my special head size) with stars and stripes. I felt like Evil Knievel. They then took us along with two other friends on an awesome tour from about 12pm to 6ish through some amazing scenery with a couple stop overs at bars along the way.
The farmers in the area allow a network of tracks to be setup through their properties. One really great thing is that the hills around the farms are all covered in forest, not pine forest, but natural woodland. So yeah the tracks through these areas where quite beaut.

I think the hills are like this because the cattle are all in barns, which doesn't look that nice for the cattle. Well basically the cattle seem to get it about as bad as the pigs and chickens get it in NZ (so my conscientious omnivore thing is going to have to turn into vegetarianism I think).

It sort of seemed like classic rural America. Lots of people knew each other, everyone is friendly, I think nearly everyone had gone to church in the morning and I'm guessing they all vote republican. To be honest not the type of America I was expecting to like, But my preconceptions about the people were wrong. The strong community feel was impressive. and the people are all really nice. Yeah I know I'm saying that a lot.