Activities
What to do in Madison
Arriving before the conference begins? Look here for things to do.
Conference activities
Welcome Reception
There will be a welcome reception with hors d'oeuvres Sunday, July 22nd, from 7:00 - 9:00 PM in the Alumni Lounge of the Pyle Conference Center.
Conference Banquet
The LTD-9 conference banquet will be held Tuesday evening on a boat tour of the scenic gorges that form the Upper Dells of the Wisconsin River. All costs for this dinner and tour are included in the conference fee.
Note that the conference mailing is incorrect about the date of the banquet. The banquet will be Tuesday evening.
Optional Wednesday afternoon tours *
There is a choice of three tours of southern Wisconsin attractions, all starting at 2:00pm on Wednesday:
- Frank Lloyd Wright and William Shakespeare ($65)
- First, a tour of Taliesin, home of Frank Lloyd Wright and his still active Taliesin Fellowship architecture school. The tour is led by current students, who tell stories of what life was like there under Wright's tutelage. (There are also a few Wright buildings in Madison that you can visit.)
- Next, an outdoor performance of All's Well that Ends Well at American Players Theatre, home of a world-class professional Shakespeare troupe. There will be a catered picnic dinner before the performance.
- Wear sensible shoes and bring a sweater; it may be cool when the sun goes down. Cost includes transportation, Hillside tour of Taliesin, dinner, and admission to the play.
- Departure from the conference center, return to hotels about 11:30pm.
- Scenic
Devil's Lake in the Baraboo Hills. ($30)
Located about 30 miles north of Madison, this unique geological area was shaped most recently by the Wisconsin ice sheet during the last ice age, but still shows amazing details of conditions back to the Pre-Cambrian era.- A graduate geologist will lead this tour, and make ancient history more interesting than you ever thought it could be.
- On the way to Devil's Lake, we will stop for a tour of the International Crane Foundation, currently raising Whooping Cranes to establish a second migration route for the long-term safety of this highly-endangered bird (which at one point had only 10 surviving individuals). Cranes learn the new 2000-mile route following an ultralight aircraft dressed up as a fellow crane.
- On the way back, we will make a brief stop at Delaney's Scrapyard to see the largest and most fantastic roadside collection of scrap sculpture in existence. Return to Madison at about 7:45 pm.
- Cost includes all transportation and tours.
- Historic Yerkes
Observatory ($15)
- Yerkes is the home of the 40-inch Alvin Clark refractor - still the world's largest.
- See current work on adaptive optics and tour the beautiful grounds on the shore of Lake Geneva (about 70 miles southeast of Madison).
- After visiting the observatory, we will we will have about two hours on our own for dinner, shopping, and sightseeing in the resort town of Lake Geneva.
- Cost includes transportation and Yerkes tour.
*If a tour is cancelled due to low registration, your payment will be refunded and you will be given the opportunity to register for another tour. Please be sure to provide a current email address.