Madison Mini-Half-Marathon Packet Pickup... With Mushrooms!

 Today was the Packet Pick-up for Cheryl's Half Marathon in Madison.  She has done this race several times now and we know what to expect...most of the time.  So most of our day has been spent traveling to Wisconsin and preping for the race.

They are predicting a hot day tomorrow, so we plan on Cheryl failing miserably.   Similar to last year,  the course is under construction and will be humid.  But Cheryl insists that this is the only race at this time. ( Not true,  there is a Watermelon 10K in Muscatine on the same day....)

We looked up her name on the massive banner they have.  Her name is on several of these banners... even on races she did not show up for.  (See last year's blog post.)   She also wanted to buy the half marahon race shir so she would have her name on that.   She loves her previous shirts so much,  she wears them all the time.

The expo was typical.   And having seen most of these things before,  we headed out for our Hotel room.

The cool thing about the location of this Country Inn is the close proximity to some bike trails.

Chicken fat bolete.

Wonder why they call it that???

  We walked these trails before and searched for Mushrooms,  finding a few here and there.  The BIG find in this day time of year was the Suillus americanus.  Also  known as the Chicken fat Bolete.   They are NOT Boletes, however.    But what family they live in is not really a concern.   Are the Edible?   The answer would be yes... If you clean and peal off all this gooy slime off the top and sides.

Veil still attached. 

Peeling back, reveals the clean
yellow pores on the underside. 

The ones we discovered were still fresh and the veil had not yet broken free from the cap.   After peeling back the membrane,  the pores on the underside were visible and so fresh.

Also note,  it is bruising brown where
I touched it. 

peel off outer skin to eat the flesh. 

  Instead of blue, these mushrooms bruise brown... another characteristic in ID-ing them. ( Special note:  They also stained MY FINGERS!   The brown stain  has finally faded after  several hours...)

Note the slate/purple gills and veil ring
around the stem.   It bruised yellow...
Possibly toxic, but not deadly. 

Unknown Meadow Mushroom. 

Other than that,  there was not much else to note.  Apparently, there had been flooding here in Wisconsin as well in the spring... and Now it is very dry.   We did not look too closely for any other species, choosing to head back to our room and ry to rest before the big race.

Tomorrow, if the internet, weather and everything else proves cooperative,  I will hopefully be able to post pictures  of the race and recap the events.   Wish us luck!