Cupcakes, Camping and Caves

Another week and grad school is slowly beating my morale down. Although, I did better on my recent quizzes than I thought I would.
Luckily, this weekend Mark and I were able to have a nice getaway in southwest Wisconsin. A weekend of technology-less communing with nature and rucus RV-camping neighbors.
Although it was chilly, and rather windy, the weekend was pleasant and enjoyable. AND hiking yielded these views:

Yes, It was lovely :-) and might I say that the boyfriend gets major points for being a manly man. (and for carrying all my stuff in his tiny backpack)

After our woody adventure we decided we would hike to a nearby attraction that said it was just off of a major hiking trail. Not true. We had to hike all the way back to the car and drive. In hindsight, this was probably better.
We found ourselves at one of the more delightful Southwest Wisconsin tourist traps- Cave of the Mounds. View their website here. The cool thing is that this is a real cave in the side one of the Blue Mounds just outside of (West-ish) Madison. It's something you don't see in this part of the country. Here are some awesome pictures from that adventure as well.

the weird veiny thing on the top is cave bacon or ribbon stalactites

Cave dome where sulfuric acid bubbled up a long time ago

Cave coral and a small lake

Rock "waterfall" although it's really rough

Stalactite

Stalactites and Stalagmites

It goes really far back

A dome. I think there's some cave bacon in there too.

And last but not least for this post, as promised by the title, cupcakes. Last weekend I made those dark chocolate ones again and this time i put marshmallow and caramel on them... they very VERY messy, but very delicious. :-)