Written 2011-07-04
- Start in Chicago. I handled this by booking it from Olathe, KS to Chicago, IL on a late Friday night to avoid traffic. This gave me an early start in Chicago.
![UBAR](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5196/5904112576_5395a15dbe.jpg)
- Visit Pumping Station One. Watch Sacha make guitar picks from and old motherboard after removing all the chips. Leave a note on how to control the cricut with open source software. Buy cologne from Sacha's company.
- Drive to Madison, WI.
- Have a sandwich and salad at the Green Owl Cafe. Top notch.
- Watch Rhythm and Booms:a fireworks, laserlight, and music show. FM radio transmits the music to crowds of people all over the city. By far the best firework show I've ever seen. I sat with well over a thousand people on a hillside watching the reflections in Lake Mendota.
![SANY0015](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5078/5904248984_eec3e2db03.jpg)
- Crash with Chris and Heather.
- Visit Sector67, Madison's HackerSpace
![View from the attic](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6056/5903714235_9dbb8d836e.jpg)
- Go sailing at Hoofer's with Chris, Heather, Will, and friends.
![SANY0064](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6005/5903721453_bf20c02637.jpg)
- Start driving to Davenport, stop in Dubuque.
- Find a perfectly good steam-powered dredge ship and river museum.
- Photograph a catfish and a sturgeon
![Catfish](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5035/5903750557_2cffbc91fe.jpg)
![IAMA: Sturgeon](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6029/5903555357_535c9a804c.jpg)
- Drive to Davenport, IA.
- Visit Quad-Cities Colab This is a hackerspace built next to a technical school. Photograph making a computer-controlled lighting setup. They used a vacuum former to build housings for the lights.
![Group Photo](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6012/5903849809_bee2c8b6d6.jpg)
- Drive to Des Moines, IA
- Realize that Ray doesn't live in Des Moines, he lives in Urbandale, IA. Photograph Des Moines Tron building instead.
![Tron Building](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6005/5903876911_46d22db16d.jpg)
- Crash at Ray's.
- Go see three of the five largest towers in Iowa (they're all more than 1/3 mile tall), and photograph two of them: WOI and KCCI. Tower Elkhart was in the distance.
![Iowa Antenna Adventure](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5320/5903887009_d9802644aa.jpg)
- Go see Ames, IA MakerSpace. Check on the space's brew and figure out how to calibrate 3 lens CRT projector.
![Ames MakerSpace](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6054/5904463468_5cd7a4b7c5.jpg)
- Find a bar Ray saw on T.V., which is closed, and instead eat at Mullet's.
- Pass by Rocket Transfer Station
![Rocket Transfer Warehouse](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6099/5904433134_6f0ac5cae8.jpg)
- Visit BeerCrazy, which was closed, but it looks awesome. Combination specialty beer store and brewshop. Ray gets ingredients here
![Beer Crazy](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6049/5903876203_d368f44ee4.jpg)
- Drive home to Olathe, KS
- Go blog about it.