Things to Do in Portage

Knucklehead's Bowling & Indoor Amusement Park's 80,000-square-foot facility is bursting with a dozen family-friendly attractions. In the bowling alley, a light show illuminates pins and balls to the tune of festive music and a black light adds an eerie neon glow to cosmic bowling. You can also bowl under conventional lighting, of course, opting for automatic bumpers to prevent gutter balls and marshmallow pins to muffle noisy strikes. Elsewhere, go-karts zoom around a track, bumper cars collide, and visitors swing hand-over-hand through a weblike ropes course. A roller coaster zooms throughout the space, and the arcade whirs and flashes with video games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Madden, as well as traditional games that award prize tickets to their deftest handlers.

On the waters of Lake Wingra, Madison Log Rolling's seasoned lumberjacks and jills channel the pastimes of 19th-century loggers, who would spend downtime competing to see who could balance the longest atop logs that were ferrying downriver. In 2010, Olivia Judd and Shana Martin started their log-rolling requiem to preserve and share this regional sport with newcomers. Instructors demonstrate the art of softly skimming the feet across the surface of the log to stay balanced. Beginner classes allow students to practice log rolling while showing how the sport can improve one's balance, agility, mental fortitude, and ability to pull off a plaid flannel tuxedo. Madison Log Rolling offers log-rolling classes, boom-rolling classes, and events for team building and birthdays.

The echoes of hooves clopping against loose dirt carry across the green pastures of Madison Horse Connection, where equine aficionados bestow their vast knowledge of safe riding techniques upon pupils of all experience levels. Riders hone basic horsemanship and steed-steering skills with the ranch’s varied collection of horses and ponies, whose gentle personalities and built-in air bags make learning safe for first-timers and advanced riders. Veteran instructors can guide students through the ins and outs of various riding disciplines, such as western, hunt, jump, saddle-seat and showmanship. These instructors also lead day- and week-long horse camps all year round. When they aren’t carrying students through lessons, the facility’s horses stop in to make appearances at summer horse camps or pony parties for younger children.

Stationed on the shores of Lake Mendota, SkipperBud’s staff pairs clients with their choice of vessel before launching them into the lake’s placid waters. Up to 12 passengers can lounge on the Sylvan pontoon’s wraparound couches as the vessel cruises past the university campus and circles Governor’s Island. The more compact Sea Ray, meanwhile, kicks up waves as it races to the dock, water-skiers or hitchhiking mermen in tow.