I live in
Madison. I make music as often as I can. (“Have bass; will travel,” reads my imaginary
calling card.) Madison may appear to have a very active live music scene, but
it also enough supply of musicians to strain demand. Only the best are likely
to find steady work close to home. The aspirants and journeymen among us must
travel if we want to keep our calendars full.
So when I
got a call to play a graduation party at a home somewhere between Argyle and
Darlington I said, “Sure.” An online, satellite-assisted mapping service that
shall remain unnamed told me that the shortest possible route from my address
to the destination would take one and a half-ish hours. A slightly longer route
followed four lanes of cruise-controlled motoring down Hwy 151 for a good part
of the way, while the slightly quicker route was all byways and back roads. It
was a choice between scenery or seen-that, between boredom or adventure. The
weather helped me decide. A glorious, partially overcast day in late May. I went
for minimum miles and maximum meandering.
Wisconsin may
have no mountains to speak of, but it does have highs and lows and plenty of
geographic and geologic variety. The southwest corner of the state, into the
heart of which I was venturing, is a landscape of farms spread over and around
rolling hills and dales that deepen as streams pick up steam on their way
toward rivers that feed the Mississippi. The road system can feel antiquated as
it bumps and bends sharply around old properties, or climbs up or cuts through rocky
hilltops. And the naming of county roads can turn especially confusing when traversing
multiple counties.
But before
getting into the part of the state that geologists define as The Driftless Area,
I have to get out of the greater Madison area. Heading southwest from the
northeast side of town leaves no quick and easy solution to the obstacle of
urban Madison. With a mid-afternoon departure on a Saturday, rush hour traffic
was not an issue, so I chose to embrace downtown traffic and exit the city
following a crow’s flight path as closely as possible: Sherman to Gorham to
Randall to Monroe to Nakoma to Midvale to Verona Road, aka South 151. The
isthmus route. Through downtown, crossing State Street, through campus, passing
Camp Randall, and through the near west side.
Slipping
under the Beltline and on to Verona Road says goodbye to residential Madison and
hello to traffic and road construction and frontage road environment. Past PD/
McKee Road, highway 151 is freed of traffic lights until you hit Dubuque. The
four lanes of 151 loop underneath and around Verona in a fat U shape, and just
after it turns west again, and at the top of a long incline, I take the exit
for County road G.
Now I am
officially heading into the great Wisconsin southwest. G goes along the top of a
broad ridge toward the town of Mount Vernon. There the road jogs while joining
highway 92, then leaves, resuming a SW direction. So far, so good. We know that
we want to eventually get on to County A, but the Green County A, not the Dane
County A. Same name, different roads. G and A (Dane County) conjoin for a few miles and
then split, at which point we want to turn west on to a jog on A and/or JG, but
then a quick turn south on JG. At this point, the unnamed online, satellite-assisted
mapping service is unclear. (Some details must be beneath the attention or beyond
the abilities of the minions of the satellite overlords).
County JG
soon crosses the Green County line, at which point it becomes just J. Okay? We will
leave J to turn right onto A (not the Dane County A, obviously) and let it wind
us down to Hwy 78, where we will turn left (South) and soon enter Argyle where
we will cross the Pecatonica River.
That was
the plan, but not exactly what happened. It’s what I wanted to do, but it can’t
be what I did because I turned onto Hwy 78 somewhere north of Blanchardville,
right near the corners of Dane, Green, Layfayette, and Iowa counties.
Where did I
go wrong? At some point a kernel of doubt, a sinking feeling of something
having gone amiss took hold. The seemingly innocuous hills and dales, revealing
one rural glory after another, the road demanding attention with blind turns
into old cuts cut into weathered granite upheavals falling away and descending
into lanes lined with plantations of towering pines protecting a well-tended
farmstead, etc. etc.—all combined into tremors shaking confidence in my innate
sense of direction.
My vehicle
is equipped with one of those handy little compass indicators in the rear-view
mirror. I had been paying it no mind, but now I did. It said NW. Huh? Wasn’t I
supposed to going SW? I kept checking but the best the compass would give me was W. But it’s okay, I said. No need to panic. I followed my nose and found my way
to Hwy 78. It wasn’t until the next morning, pulling out my trusty Wisconsin
Gazetteer, that I was able retrace my missteps.
Not far
past the turn onto A (Green County) is an even fork in the road, and, yes, I
took the one less traveled. I took the right fork, but A was the left. Now I
was on the not-very-clearly-marked Badger Road, which quickly turned to the NW.
It was here that I sensed something was not right, but not so strongly as to
immediately turn around. Before long the wrong road ended at another poorly
marked intersection (York Center Road, we know now) where I determined that a
left was the only logical turn to take. (And what a lovely little valley it
took me down.) This road stopped at Hay Hollow Road. This time my directional
instincts told me to turn right, onto what road I knew not, but sticking with
it (it turns out to have been the cheerily named Sunnyside Road) and after
crossing a barely noticeable Sawmill Creek, I climbed out of the bottom lands
and eventually mounted a ridge where the much sought after Highway 78 was at last
found.
