The crew that made our move from the apartment possible! From left, Barb, Jim, Darren, Sue, Carrie and Tim. Behind them, Darren's monster trailer, pulled by Darren's monster pickup truck, into which all our belongings fit without the least bit of trouble. We're outta here!

The new abode was ready in nearly all respects, with a few small touch-ups needed here and there. Tim painted the kitchen cupboards for his Mom.

Most of hour household goods have been in storage for almost a year! The challenge: Make it all fit into our snug little home.

Moving our few possessions from the apartment was easy; stowing all the household goods we had held in storage was quite another problem altogether. Barb spent days trying to figure out how to arrange all the kitchen utensils, pots and pans, plates and flatware so that it would fit in the older, smaller kitchen layout of our home.

It's not a home without a cat or two underfoot ... or, in this case, on your seat.

The missus and I would like to express our kindest thanks for your congratulations and shared stories of home ownership.

We're just a little giddy about the prospect of owning our own home again. Maybe you can tell?

Barb watches happily as I sign away our paychecks for the next thirty years. We felt much less nervous about it this time around (we were homeowners in a previous life).

The sun rose on our last full day in Cottage Grove today. After the closing, we ate lunch on the kitchen floor of our very own house.

One of the oddest-looking buildings in Madison has got to be Best Western's "Inn On The Park," the hotel at the corner of Main and Carroll streets. If you're walking south along Carroll and look up, you'll see a rather boring-looking typical hotel building with no distinguishing features, other than the odd-sized picture window below the top floor.

Draw a little closer, though, and you see a different building ... it almost looks like two buildings: one slightly more interesting high-rise with wider, more visually interesting bay windows on the lake side, being swallowed by the blocky, boring chunk of a building, which has the appearance of having descended from space, possibly to transmogrify all our beautiful old architecture into Soviet-style block houses.

Look at that lovely scalloped corner, fighting to hold off the blockification crushing down on it. There was so much potential for this building until the architectural firm of Nickolai Ivanovich Sovietsky & Assoc. took over the design project and turned it into an experiment in nuveau concret.

Madison's renovated Museum of Contemporary Art opened last weekend. It seems to be most well-known for the glass prow-like corner that sticks out from the corner of Henry and State Streets. A glass stairway winds its way up the inside of the prow, where visitors can pause to watch the crowd on State Street, or just stand around in a group on a landing and chat.

The museum had some art, too, but the glass prow and the stairway was visually much more engaging. Make of that what you will.

As you walk up you can see each tread edge-on; they appear to be several layers of glass laminated for strength.

It's an intriguing idea and it was executed wonderfully, but if I hear one more person call them a "stairway to heaven" I'll puke.

From inside the prow a visitor can see three other triangle buildings: the one on the right is a Noodles restaurant, directly out front there's the world-famous Triangle Market, and just off to the left there's an Italian restaurant, Tutto Pasta Trattoria.

One last look back ...

A fetching view of Lake Mendota from the steps of the capital, looking up North Hamilton Street.

What's that bit of orange, caught in the tree to the right?

The tulips on the north lawn are yellow; those on the south lawn are red & pink. They've all blossomed this week, just in case you want to plan a trip to see them next year.

One last view of the capitol, the trees leafing out and lady Forward shining in the sun.

"That shall also content me."