Snapshots from the Marquette
Music Festival

Some music festivals were just meant to be, like the one that you walk out your door to and land on without any more effort than closing your eyes and taking two steps.  The Marquette Music Festival has been going strong for over two decades and it brings in a very wide pool of talent and people.

From Gypsy dance music to migrant cowboy music and a six piece jazz orchestra that plays standards from the 40's and 50's I guess you could say that the whole point is variety and diversity.

People file down the Rutledge Bridge and around Riverside Drive or, for the folks who really know how to pick a seat, boat-in, anchor and bring out the paddle boards and tubes and listen from a shallow beach.  I was able to walk the kayak across the street and move in and out of the parked boats looking for a good place to float and listen to Boogat.

The next morning, before the music starts, the mad-town Marquette flotilla begins its slow paddle to Monona from the Tenney Locks on all sorts of seafaring craft.

As with most of our trips to Madison in the past several months, this one was fast and furious – usually a combination of construction check-up, heavy weed patrol, a brisk mow and the meeting of some pretty easy going neighbors.  This one just happened to include a little midwest Mardi Gras,

and an even briefer visit to Olbrich Gardens about two miles down Atwood on Monona.