Road Trip to Milwaukee!
After living in Evanston, IL (right outside of Chicago) with a couple of my college friends for the past month I decided I needed some time away from “The Windy City.” It’s been an interesting month since I’ve arrived in Evanston, and there have been many great memories and plenty of frustration as well. That’s life, though…
I skipped over Milwaukee, WI during my Great Lakes road trip which ended over a month ago because I was more excited in seeing my friends from college instead of walking around another U.S. town/city. I didn’t realize at that time I wasn’t going to be leaving Chicago for almost a month after arriving. So I had itchy feet and wanted to get out of Evanston, and Chicago, and see something new. And that’s how I ended up in Milwaukee for a day.
I’ve been to Madison a handful of times in my life: the first time was during my Reading Week break from Kenyon during my fall semester Senior year. It was my last year at Kenyon and I had never visited my sister at UW-Madison, where she was a Junior. I asked Ira if I could possibly crash at his place in case my sister couldn’t accommodate me and was shot down by Ira, so when I began the 500-plus mile road trip to Wisconsin I was making my sister’s decision for her. I don’t know how I managed to coordinate my road trip to Madison with a weekend trip with my sister’s boyfriend’s sister, who was also in Madison that weekend checking out the campus, but my sister was very upset with me when I told her I was half way to Madison and was looking forward to seeing her for the long weekend.
My point is…I’ve been to Madison three times and never stopped by Milwaukee which is only a few miles away…It was nice to re-hash those memories though
I’ll admit that I was slightly frustrated with the guys and their slight interest in visiting Milwaukee, but lack of initiative in actually wanting to see the city over the past month, so I decided to tell them I was taking off for the day and I’d be back later, which is exactly what I did. Listening to NPR and my iPod during the 82 mile trip felt so freeing in my mind. I don’t know if it’s the “freedom” of the road, or a “travel high” or something, but when I’m visiting a new city, town or anything I’m interested in seeing, I become euphoric. It’s like a runner’s high, without the sweat.
There was this hilarious show on NPR that kept me entertained for most of the trip, and after finding $3.84 gas (a steal), I arrived in Milwaukee without any real game plan other than figuring things out on the go. I walked around a street festival where there was some type of cook-off; stopped by a Nintendo Wii station where I “played” a workout game and was dubbed a “Bodybuilder” after asking the Wii woman to give me the hardest workout on the game. Apparently the hardest workout for Wii include lunges, led by a cyber-generated blond-haired man named Frans who leads you in exercise. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but followed Frans and then some numbers started showing on the screen.
“Wow,” the shortish Asian-woman who had enticed me to try Wii remarked after Hans left the screen. “That’s really impressive,” I turned to the screen to see what she was referring to. “I’ve never seen anyone get a score that high, especially on the lunges,” she looked at me with extreme confusion.
“You are a Bodybuilder,” the screen proclaimed with whistles and bells. I looked at myself to see if that was even remotely possible, decided the game was flawed, and then turned to the Asian woman, and saw that she was thinking along the same lines. I thanked her for her time and the complimentary socks, and waddled down towards Milwaukee’s Art Museum.
At first glance the Art Museum is quite an architectural accomplishment. If I had to describe it, I’d say it looks like the tale of a great white whale, and beyond the tail is Lake Michigan. Numerous tourists, including myself, were taking pictures of the Museum’s architecture before entering the museum itself. I paid the student price for the museum and spent the next couple hours meandering through the different galleries and halls, inspecting traditional and modern art and feeling the way I always feel in museums….some things make me go “Ooo,” others make me go “Ahhh,” and I usually breeze by the majority of the other pieces of art. I’ve been to hundreds of museums, maybe 1000 by now, but I still enjoy the experience.
My car was parked in a 2-hour space so I had my mind on the time throughout my tour of the museum and arrived at my car with two minutes left until I reached the two-hour limit, so I drove to North Old World 3rd Street, which was the most bizarre street name I’d ever heard, and walked up and down it checking out the different meal options. North Old World 3rd Street was the best place for a decent meal I had read, and I was excited about an African restaurant, but when I got to the end of the street I saw the restaurant had closed, so I had a chicken sandwich at some type of outdoors sports bar, while reading my book Everything Is Illuminated.
I hopped in my car and and decided to visit the Harley Davidson company and try to go on a free tour of the factory, but after plugging in the address to the factory into my GPS, I couldn’t locate it so I went to the actual plant a few miles away, and was frustrated to hear that I was supposed to be at the other mysterious Harley Davidson plant I originally couldn’t find. Instead of getting upset about my inability to find the correct Harley Davidson plant, I called the Miller Brewing company, and was told that I could join a free tour of their plant in 30 minutes, so I scurried over to Miller after my Harley Davidson debacle.
The last time I had toured any alcohol fermenting plant I was in Puerto Rico, touring Bacardi’s factory, and I really enjoyed the complimentary rum drinks offered at Bacardi. I’m not much of an alcohol consumer, but I dabble very infrequently, and appreciate the social aspects of drinking even though I don’t partake in the drinking aspect. I had to take a ferry to get to the Bacardi plant, so that was a bonus for Bacardi, plus I prefer rum over beer, another plus for Bacardi, but, in my mind, everything in Milwaukee revolves around Miller, so I was glad to be part of something local.
I joined a free tour with another 30 people, most of whom had enormous bellies, or were college-aged kids, and joined everyone in watching a 10 minute film to get our mindsets in “Miler Time.” Our horde was moved from the movie room through the factory where we saw where the beer is canned, bottled, and packaged, and then we were taken to a very impressive pub, which brought back memories of London. Everyone was served a pint, I befriended a guy and a girl, and then we were directed towards the beer garden where we were given two more pints of beer. By this point I was feeling a little woozy, and I walked it off a little by climbing to the top of the factory to see some more brewing machines and then was told there was a baseball game taking place that night.
I bought my brother a Miller beer pitcher, and fumbled my way to my car, but realized I wasn’t feeling any effects from a few beers and happily drove off to Miller Stadium for the Brewers game. Fortunately, the stadium wasn’t too far from the actual brewing company, and after manuevering my way into the parking lot, I unintentionally made the decision to watch the baseball game after paying a $10 parking fee. I gave the woman all the change I had, so scalping became impossible, but I did find a scalper who was willing to sell me a great seat for $40…2nd row behind home plate. I jogged towards the stadium, learned that there was no ATM access from outside the stadium, hustled back to the ticket scalper to write him a check, but he wasn’t around, and I also realized I couldn’t find my car. I assumed that I’d eventually remember where I parked it after the game was over and rushed back to the ticket vendor and bought a decent seat for $40.
The seat I purchased was surprisingly good, and the game itself was extremely enjoyable. It was the first baseball game I had watched all season, whether on television or in person, so basically, for some unknown reason, my interest in professional baseball has seriously waned. I noticed my complete lack of interest in the Yankees last Spring when I started dating Suz, but I thought that would only be for that season, but I have better things to do with my time instead of watch the Yankees every night for four hours. The Brewers were playing the Cincinnati Reds so that was exciting because I got to see Ken Griffey Jr. and Edison Volquez (one of the top pitchers in the game), as well as Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun. I find it somewhat weird that the last two baseball games I’ve watched have both been live baseball games and the Brewers have been in each game. Last summer, during my road trip I watched the Cubs play the Brewers at Wrigley Field.
I watched half of the game and the man seated next to me kept me company for most of the game. He was a Reds fan from Cincinnati, so we reminisced about Ohio (since I went to school at Kenyon), and talked about baseball, which was a ton of fun. I scanned the stadium after the midway point of the game, and approved of the new Brewers stadium, and even thought that their concession prices weren’t terribly overpriced (that’s Milwaukee for you), and enjoyed the fireworks after each home run.
I had tried to put off the terrifying reality that I wasn’t 100% sure where I had parked my car, but used my gut instincts to get me to the area of the parking lot where I thought I parked my car. Unfortunately, I’ve lost my automatic car locker and car alarm device so I had to use my keen eyesight to spot my black Toyota out at night, and after only 20 minutes of wandering I found it in perfect condition. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, called Joe/Ira to let them know I was heading back to Chicago, and felt as if I made one helluva trip of a day in Milwaukee.
Tags: Summer 2008 Road Trip
