A Trip of Epic Proportions

I don't use the word "epic" much. In fact, it's on my list of "Words I Think are Silly." But in this post, you'll find me using the word "Epic" quite a bit. Stay tuned and you'll see why it's not necessarily a change of heart, I've just found something worthy of the title.

The trip to Oregon was over and I was fairly sick of travel. The deadline to submit my sleeps had expired and I was 50 hours behind-schedule. Months ago some of us men had plotted to go visit my friend Tyler in Madison on October 12th, but I was starting to check out my Excuse Options.

The week moved quickly enough, thanks to my return cutting Tuesday's workday in half. Friday sped right up and opened its glorious arms to embrace me. The trip to Madison was still on, and although several of my friends had successfully navigated their Excuse Option Menu and backed out of the trip, Jordan and I were going. I hadn't packed but hey, I've got all Friday evening, right? And then, at 4pm, my friend Nevin asked if I'd like to go drag racing with him and his awesome wife at the Cordova Racetrack in Illinois. They were leaving at 6pm and planning to return around 11pm.

Everybody knows that drag racing is more important than submitting overdue sleeps or packing luggage. I quickly told my Dad about the drag racing event, who immediately began to prepare to join. He informed Shaylon, who wasn't about to miss out on some Hot Rod action.

We all had a wonderful time in Cordova, a little town (population 700) just on the other side of the Mississippi. Small town, massive drag strip? Awesome. Friday evenings are open to the public, and anyone is welcome to test their ride's speed down the lane for qualification, tuning, practice, or just fun. The atmosphere is very casual. The vehicle must pass a rudimentary inspection and the driver has to pay $25. (Visitors just watching in the stands pay $8.) Helmets are required for drivers and riders if the vehicle is capable of hustling a quarter mile in less than 13 seconds, which several vehicles managed to do. (Note to all the ladies reading this blog post, that may not sound very impressive, but it's actually ear-blistering fast.) Dad got in on the action and peeled some rubber in his 5.7L Hemi 300C, which blasted a quarter mile in 14.9 seconds.

 Nevin's silver Subaru, pitted against Dad's 300C.

My roommate's brother Colton took his beautiful Toyota Supra that he's put hundreds of hours into. It's a monster, with a ridiculous amount of horsepower. This was Colton's first time at the track, and the first time is always the toughest. Colton's car ran extremely well, but he overshot the end of the track and came to a rest in the "Runaway Vehicle Gravel Pit". The pit is filled with 12" of smooth gravel that brings vehicles to a stop, safely and immediately. Colton and the car were unscathed, but there's no traction in the gravel pit. The duo were fished out of the pit quickly. 

We got home shortly past midnight, and I collapsed into a delicious sleep.

October 12th, 2013.
Saturday


9:30am:
Travel around Iowa City and Coralville with Dylan, invite kids to Church.

11:30am:
Return, begin packing for impending weekend trip to Madison.
Deliberate about what clothing to wear for 1.5 days.
Pack 4-days-worth in ensuing indecision.

12:15pm:
Search for Jordan at Korean Food Bazaar.
Meet traditionally-dressed Korean ladies, who properly bow in greeting.
Feel completely at loss for proper response to traditional bow greeting. Smile and say "thank you".
Find Jordan, who has purchased delicious Korean cuisine for dirt cheap.
Get offered some delicious cheap-as-dirt food.

12:30pm:
Transfer Jordan's things to my vehicle, leave Iowa City.
Try a bite of traditional kimchi, a potent cabbage concoction obviously set on "Tonsil Melt"
Surprise Jordan by saying that kimchi is delicious.
Jordan's response, "It's an acquired taste! Hardly anyone likes it the first time."


2:30pm:
Admire the beautiful cliffs while driving through Southern Wisconsin.


5:30pm:
Arrive at Epic on the outskirts of Madison.
Have definition of the word "epic" permanently altered forever.


"Aw man you gotta see this vid! It's totally epic in every way."  
-Some Bumbling Teenager, circa 2009.

"You're looking at a video of a vast medical software campus in Madison, Wisconsin?"  
-Shawn Graber, Time-Traveling Noob-Correcter. 

 Photo courtesy of thedailypage.com

Jordan and I met our friend Tyler in a parking ramp on the Epic Medical Software campus. But this was no ordinary parking ramp! Above this particular parking ramp are orderly rows of solar panels, providing nice shade for the cars. Thanks to multiple solar arrays and some wind turbines, Epic runs almost entirely on alternative energy means. Tyler asked us, "Would you like the short, 'only-the-essentials' tour, or the long tour?" We replied that we wanted to see EVERYTHING. I was just glad to get out of the car, and with good reason. I've been traveling quite a bit lately. Wisconsin is the 6th state I've visited this week. The others were Oregon, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois.

That blue feat of engineering to the right of the photo is the solar panels above the parking garage. That particular parking ramp is one of the only ones above-ground. There are several underground parking ramps on Epic's campus.

Every building on Epic's campus has a different theme. The building sections are categorized in alphabetical order. Once they ran out of letters, they categorized the newer buildings with ASCII characters. But instead of just calling it "D Building" or "Sector J", the themes are titled with diverse celestial bodies, like "Fomalhaut."

We moseyed through the Indiana Jones-themed hallway. Around the bend is a little altar with a tiny golden idol perched on it. When you try to remove the idol, hidden speakers blast out noises that sound ominously like a giant boulder rolling toward you.

This grassy corridor is on the outside of the Indiana Jones Hallway. Thanks to sky walks, underground parking lots, and hallways connecting every building, Tyler rarely goes outside. We traveled down this outdoor walkway and discovered AWESOME SWINGS. Tyler hadn't seen them before, so we decided to ride them.

Swinging on a dragon made from a recycled tire automatically makes you feel noble.

There are several campfire spots in this courtyard, to be used whenever an employee feels like burning wood outside, since each building has at least one working fireplace inside. 

 

Tyler took us to a meeting room disguised as a SWEET TREE HOUSE AWMERGERDNESS. But his handy-dandy electronic key card couldn't open the door. A group was setting things up for a meeting in the tree house and didn't want visitors (AKA Jordan and myself) stealing all the tasty snacks.

Rustic old tree house blended with sweet electronic-key-card technology. 

The red light means "No snacks for you."

Perhaps you've gathered this already: some of my favorite parts of Epic's campus are the bridges, tunnels, and hallways. You may not realize this, but I'm displaying phenomenal restraint with the photos I'm sharing. I have a lot of bridge, hallway, and tunnel photos.

With it being a Saturday, most of the buildings and offices were vacant and the lights were off. But the lights silently turned on as we walked through, thanks to energy-saving motion sensors.

One entire set of buildings has the theme "Farm". In one section, there's an entire Farmall tractor broken down into its components and then tacked to the wall.

In every hallway, side room, lobby, and stairwell there's art. Loads and loads of art. Tyler told us that Epic's policy on art is "Basically touch whatever you want." So we did.

Boys and girls, study diligently and someday you may get to work in 

an office shaped like a massive barn.

The meeting rooms have themes as well. The first photo is from the "Farm" building, so the theme is obvious. But the second photo is from a separate building. This breathtaking meeting room is equipped with a massive stone fireplace and located beside a giant pool equipped with a two-story waterfall. If I worked here, I would be totally distracted during the entire work briefing.

Want to play a little music? Help yourself to a Martin guitar, several Biblical-looking stringed instruments, or a grand piano, located near the Cafeteria's coffee shop.

We were trekking all over Epic, which required quite a bit of hiking. Along the way, Tyler gave us rest stops in some remarkable chairs.

Tyler let us sit in what he called the "Most comfortable chair at Epic."
We agreed. That chair is magnificent.

These chairs, which Tyler dubbed "The Cone of Silence", were also comfy.

 The swinging hammock chairs were exceedingly nice.

The massive thrones in the Dungeons & Dragons-themed office building had some intricately carved armrests. We suspect that they were hand-made.

I even got to meet some special characters and props during my visit.

Hanging out with Darth Vader near the Star Wars meeting rooms. 

Gollum and I, fishing for fishes. 

A sweet replica of Dr. Who's TARDIS.

All of the tour-guiding while keeping Jordan and I out of trouble sapped Tyler of his energy. After we toured the massive 14,000-seat auditorium (did I mention it's completely underground?), we were exhausted. Perhaps it was because the massive auditorium is still under construction and the five flights of escalators weren't in operation, so we walked down them. It definitely brought one of my favorite quotations of Mitch Hedberg to mind:

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."

Upon return up the flights of Temporary Stairs, we took a short break. 

"Gravity feels so good right now."

Other awesome sights were the giant steel tube slide, the spiral staircases, the refrigerators packed with juice, the closet-sized cupboards filled with packets of tea, the outdoor art...but this post is humongous enough as it is. 

We finished our tour of Epic, and it only took us 3 hours. We met up with Tyler's wonderful girlfriend Kelsey, who was kind enough to let us borrow Tyler for the day. 

Tyler, I told you there are consequences for frowning. One of those consequences 
is getting this photo pasted onto the internet.

We ate at a sweet pizzeria called the Glass Nickle Pizza Co, where I purchased a gluten-free pizza and a LITERAL POUND of fries. You should have seen the mountain of food. I forgot to take a picture, so you'll just have to imagine it. The pizza was a thin-crust Chicken Bacon Ranch, and it was tremendous. 

Sunday morning we went to The Vine, a wonderful church in Madison that was planted by Parkview Church here in Iowa City. The message was amazing, and I'm going to post a link to their sermon when it becomes available. The lesson was all about ministry outreach, and it really put a bug in my ear, in a good way. 

Tyler and a group of youth from the church went to lunch at Fuzzy's Tacos, which was pretty much the best. We had a wonderful time. I submitted a crayon drawing for a free kid's meal, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to win, despite the fact that I am exactly double the kid's menu 12-year-old limit. 

We toured the monstrous Madison Capitol building and discussed optimal sniper vantage points while on the outdoor balcony surrounding the Capitol's dome. Then we went to Brennan's in the afternoon, where we sampled fruits and cheeses. And then we bought some fruits and cheeses. We played some high-intensity rounds of Mao at Tyler's and then packed up to leave, thanking him and Kelsey for hosting us. 

Jordan's sister Hannah lives in Madison, since she and her husband were part of the church plant. We stopped at their place before returning to Iowa so Jordan could hang out with them for a bit. Hannah made us gluten-free peanut butter cookies, which we promptly devoured.

We got home shortly after midnight on Sunday/Monday morning, which was just enough time for me to conk out and rest before work on Monday began.

For those of you that are my friends on Facebook, I'll be posting these photos and far more, sometime in the future. You'll be able to yawn and say "Man, I already saw most of those photos."  because you bothered to read my blog. Thanks!

For those of you that are NOT my friends on Facebook, thank you for reading! How do you know about my blog? 

Here is my advice. Befriend Tyler, and then exploit that friendship for a tour of Epic. 

But don't tell him I said that.