We are staying with our friends Marcy and Randy Boyd in their home on the east side of Madison, and as usual I’m struck by the differences between the Midwest and California. Most prominent is the fact that there is so much land here; it doesn’t feel like everything is so crowded and pinched together.
An example: While Randy and Marcy were at work Friday morning, we took their dog for a walk. Randy said there was a dog park a few blocks from their house, so we walked there, expecting something like the dog parks in Sonoma County — basically, small exercise areas. This dog park was enormous, at least 25-30 acres, with a view from the highest part of the state capitol building and downtown. Surrounding the dog park on 3 sides was more open space — parks, basketball courts, playgrounds, and a wetland area. We later learned that this was the smallest dog park in the area. It puts to shame the biggest Sonoma County dog park that I’m aware of (the one in Healdsburg, which is just under two acres, I think).
And don’t get me started about highways. While we in Sonoma County crawl along waiting for an expansion of 101 that will bring it up to meet 1990 capacity, here beautifully maintained four-lane roads have replaced the dangerous, narrow, curving two-lane roads I used to drive on as a kid. I know this will be meaningless to my California readers (all 4 of them, on a good day), but it is now possible to go from Madison to Iowa City and then on to Burlington entirely on a freeway (excepting about 3/4 of a mile through downtown Dubuque). Maybe most of the difference is just that there is more land, so not as much reason to fight about how to use it. But it could also be something more negative, something that’s crept into the politics in my local area, a pinched, crabbed view of politics that is primarily concerned on making sure that no one gets anything more than they deserve, which, in the view of most of the crabbed pinched ones, is nothing at all. So while you can walk your dog in a beautiful open expanse in Madison (which I later learned was a former landfill site; oh my goodness that could never work here, just think of the possible chemicals and how they might affect the animals), my option is a grimy barren square of about 1/4 acre in Windsor. I don’t think all the difference is just the amount of land.
Categories: Politics, Travel -- General