Milwaukee, Day 2

This trip changed my mind some about Milwaukee. I think I had dismissed it as just an industrial town, but it has many lovely buildings and neighborhoods. A couple of things I do find strange – 1) There are "No U-turn" signs everywhere, and people willfully and constantly ignore them. 2) At four-way stops, there are stop signs on both sides of the post. Odd.

Anyway, we slept in until about 9 a.m. and weren't meeting Ken and Karen until 11:30 for lunch, so we decided to walk down to the Milwaukee Public Market, again about a mile away. On the way we passed a small park with an outdoor market of sorts, and eventually made our way down to the actual indoor market. It reminded me a lot of the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, except smaller and less ethnic/more yuppie. Basically a great place to go if you were having a party and wanted to pick up cheese and breads, wine and spices, that sort of thing. Josh had a chocolate croissant and I had a very chocolate-y raspberry brownie. Also a bottle of brambleberry Tazo that tasted exactly like pie.

We then headed over to Water Street Brewery to meet Ken and Karen. It was good to see them, and we figured it was at least a good 8 years since we had seen each other in real time. Odd how things pass you by. I had a raspberry wheat beer (too raspberry) and Josh had ? We both ordered the jambalaya, which was very good – especially as it had no seafood in it – and it came with yummy corn fritters. Ken also ordered the table a round of soft Bavarian pretzels.

Afterwards Ken and Karen dropped us off at Lakefront Brewery so we could do the tour, which was nice since it was about a mile and a half from the restaurant. We ended up being especially grateful since, when we got there, the tours were full for the day and we basically had to turn around and walk back again. We did stay for a beer, but it was $4 for a small glass, which seemed a bit much to me.

Headed back to the hotel and took a nap before heading over to Summerfest. On our walk over we saw three different wedding parties getting their pictures taken along the waterfront, which was kind of fun.

Summerfest was kind of a disappointment. Our initial plan was to go both Friday and Saturday nights, but we ended up going only Saturday. And, even then we only stayed two hours and didn't stay to see the band we had originally intended to see. The Summerfest grounds are long, situated along the lakefront, but they are not wide. There are several stages with music and lots of food and beer vendors, along with your random arts and crafts booths, Tshirt and sunglasses vendors, etc. We did ride the skyway tram and stopped to listen to a band for a bit, but I was tired and over it all pretty quickly. BNL didn't come on until 10 and I was ready to go before 7 – so we did.

I will say that Summerfest has a few things I would suggest to the Minnesota State Fair. 1) The restrooms are clearly marked and you can see the signs from a distance. 2) They had these funny little electric foot massager things that I think could make someone some serious cash. 3) They had tables everywhere so you could sit and eat, or rest your feet or wait for someone. The MN State Fair does not have much for seating unless it's in a beer garden, and I think it would be a nice addition. I have to say I did not notice ANY food on a stick, which is very weird when you come from Minnesota where almost all food comes on a stick.

Our next stop was Cuvee, a champagne bar (as opposed to a wine bar) that I had wanted to check out in the Third Ward but didn't think we'd have time for. We had a brief glimpse at the Third Ward when we went to the public market that morning, so I was glad to head back in that direction as it seemed awfully cute. And, it is – lots of turn of the century brick buildings and boutique-style shops. Cuvee was on the third floor of a building and as soon as we stepped off the elevator I got nervous – here we were again in shorts and Tshirts and everyone else was very dressed up. Turns out we had walked into a gathering wedding reception. Once I realized that wasn't the standard dress code, I felt more comfortable and we made our way inside.

We loved the vibe right away. Small, dark, brick, comfy round loungers with pillows, etc. They had about 8 champagnes by the glass, and Josh ordered a prosecco and I ordered three different ones in a 2-ounce flight size. They also had an extensive champagne cocktail list that seemed pretty creative; Josh had a ginger-based one and I had one called a "French Caribbean" with passion fruit, pineapple and cherry juice. Yum! Both were very refreshing! I actually ended up wearing half of mine, because Josh was telling a story and gestured with his left hand just as I was raising my glass to my lips – champagne cocktail everywhere. Beyond the beverages we ordered the cheese plate and a pizza. It was a good detour, and we have decided that Milwaukee has some pretty nifty places!

We decided to head back to our hotel after that; it was only about 9 o'clock but it was misting and I was tired. Got back to our hotel and considered stopping by the hotel lounge, but by the time we got to our room and dried off from the rain, I was ready to crawl into bed. ZZZZZZZ...

Milwaukee, Day 1

Josh and I had a really great trip to Milwaukee this past weekend. In fact, I think I'm still full ;)

We planned our trip primarily to attend Summerfest, which I had always heard was a good time. Plus, I was excited to see two bands that were playing Friday and Saturday nights – Keith Urban Friday night, and Barenaked Ladies Saturday night.

We both took the day off work so rolled into Milwaukee around 4 p.m. Dropped our stuff at the Astor Hotel and headed over to the Harley Davidson Museum. This was our first lesson of the weekend on how unreliable Mapquest can be, since it took us at least 4 miles out of our way in a circle before it landed us back not so very far from our hotel. Sigh.

But – the museum was pretty cool. Tickets are $16/person and then another $5 if you want the audio tour. But, things are pretty well signed if you don't want to go that route. Now, I'm not a big bikehead like Josh is or anything, but I found it pretty interesting. We spent a fast two hours there and didn't even get over to the archives area.

You enter on a top floor and the main room is various bikes from over the years (the company was formed in 1903 by two young guys in their early 20s). On the right is a bunch of memorabilia, advertisements, documents, etc. On the left are two rooms – the first is the engine room, where you can see how engines work and what parts make a bike go, and you can use these screens to listen to what various Harley motors sound like. The next room is more about racing and the formation of bike clubs. Down the hall is also a display of bike tanks with various paint/decoration.

Downstairs is more bikes through the ages, right through to Buell sport bikes, which I didn't even know were related to Harleys. They also had some replicas of "famous" bikes, as well as a two seater and one that had been blinged out with rhinestones. Pretty hideous! There was a smaller room with some research and development displays, and then a room as you are leaving with maybe eight different bikes that you could sit on and get a feel for. I'm a big fan of the tractor spring seats!

I thought it was really well done, museum-wise, and feel like I learned some interesting things.

After swinging through the HD store, we drove back to our hotel and parked the car for the rest of the weekend. We did a ton of walking since pretty much everything was within a mile or so. We walked over to Mimma's on Brady Street, a pretty little Italian restaurant that I had been to once years before but really loved. We walked in about 7 p.m. Friday night and it was absolutely dead in there – maybe one other table was full. We were thanked repeatedly for coming! I'm sure with the economy and all, plus it was Summerfest, that business has taken a hit, but it was pretty shocking.

Josh ordered a glass of wine and I ordered champagne, I ordered a caprese salad and Josh ordered some bruschetta. Neither were anything special, and I thought maybe that's why the place was so empty – that the quality of food had taken a nosedive over the years. However, then Josh got his ciopino and veal, and I got my chicken sausage rigatoni with cream sauce, both of which were out of this world delicious. I take back anything I might have said! Josh had a couple of glasses of barbera, and I ordered a glass of tasty valpolicella. For "dessert" we ordered a glass of moscato-flavored grappa. What were we thinking?! Thank goodness it came in a cordial glass since we could hardly choke it down between the two of us.

After Mimma's we hoofed it down Brady Street, which reminds me quite a lot of Uptown in Minneapolis. We ended up at Lake Michigan and walked the shoreline for quite a ways before we decided to turn back through downtown. We ended up at the Blu bar, located on the 23rd floor of the Pfister hotel. Fabulous view, good martinis and a really nice vibe overall. We managed to snap up a table by the widows and kicked back and enjoyed the night a little. They had a lounge singer who sang your typical Frank Sinatra/Etta James tunes, but she was pretty good. Turns out we were woefully underdressed in our tourist Tshirts and shorts since they were promoting a fishnets-and-fedoras night, but all in all, a nice addition to the evening!

As we were leaving, Josh asked a bartender for a business card because he likes to collect them from places he goes. Apparently the request startled the bartender, because as we were waiting for the elevator our server came running out to ask if everything was okay. We were confused, and I was thinking – man, didn't I tip her enough?! Apparently Josh's asking for a business card was equivalent to him saying "I'm calling the manager and you will all be fired tomorrow." Or something!

After that we headed back to the Astor, which is a quaint and quirky little hotel, but accidentally got sidetracked by the County Clare Irish pub across the street. We stopped for a pint and then headed home for bed!