Milwaukee

Tuesday-Friday, Aug 31-Sept 3, 2021 We spent two whole days in Milwaukee, and I feel that we did not optimize our visit. The actual reason we were there was to attend the wedding of our godson Natan and his wife, Ruby. That was a wonderful event, and made our stay successful. But we really did not see much of Milwaukee, and I think that was because I didn't plan well.

Our drive from Iowa was a long one. We had spent the night in a gorgeous site on the Mississippi River, and we ended up taking a morning walk to admire the river and sit on the boat dock for a while. So by the time we left, we were already "behind schedule," whatever that really means for us these days when we seem to start late EVERY day. In any case, we had to stick to the interstates in order to arrive before dark. The traffic and interchanges in Milwaukee were a bit daunting, but our RV "Park" appeared just as anticipated, right beside the Wisconsin Fairgrounds. Sadly, after the night before, it was a huge underwhelm. The park's map on line had been difficult to understand, and I'd finally picked a spot in the corner of the lot, realizing that the entire place was essentially going to be a parking lot anyway.

What I didn't anticipate was that the main area, clustered around the office and restrooms, would be cement, whereas the lot where I was directed via the website was across the street and was not paved. In fact, it was not even gravel--it was dirt. It was the kind of place where you would expect to park if you were going to a state fair, but would NOT enjoy if you were spending 3 nights there in your RV. I really hated the place on sight. But the office was closed by the time we arrived, and all I could do was take the envelope waiting for me, decipher the maps, and sadly go across the street to the dirt lot. There were a couple of other big RVs on our side of the lot, but they were not too close to our corner. At the other side of the lot there were about a half dozen or so RVs as well. So we weren't actually alone, but it felt all too urban and not very well protected. Luckily, as the days progressed, I stopped feeling nervous and simply felt annoyed at how dirty (meaning, the ground was hard urban dirt) it was.

We had no specific plans of anything to do in the city on Wednesday, so I started the day by doing the laundry. Joe started the day by re-attaching a loose tire monitor tube to the hub cap. The laundry room was immaculately clean, and there were a lot of machines, so I did 5 loads in less than 2.5 hours, which is quite good. I finished up by lunchtime, and Joe had been finished with his repair for a while, had walked Cassie, and was just hanging out waiting for me.
The problem was, we had no idea what we might want to do. We ended up choosing to go to a sculpture garden which was located a little north of the city, about a 20 minute drive. Again, we found the interstate spaghetti in Milwaukee to be intimidating and confusing, but we found the sculpture gardens without any trouble. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and we walked across the lawns enjoying the gardens and the scupture, including a very nice set-up by a local bonsai group. I have to say, though, we both felt a little tired and we stayed less than an hour before heading back home to rest.
At 5:30, we left again, this time to drive 25 minutes west to meet our friends Ann and Steve. When I knew we were going to be in Milwaukee with them only a couple of days after our 50th anniversary, I invited them and our other friends who were invited out for the wedding to have dinner with us to celebrate. In the end, only Ann and Steve were availble. We met them in the cute little town of Hartland at Zesti, a small place with sidewalk dining. The four of us had a wonderful meal together, and they were generous enough to treat us (I had planned to treat them, since it was my idea!) The food was great, and the evening temperature was lovely, although it actually got a little bit cool! We drove back to the RV at about 8:30, this time recognizing our exit and feeling less overwhelmed by the roads.

Thursday was the wedding, and we planned to get there by 3:30 (the ceremony was at 4), but I was determined to see one thing in Milwaukee, and that was the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. So we hustled, and got out at 10:00. We drove into downtown MKE (that's apparently the standard abbreviation for Milwaukee--maybe from the airlines? But I saw it everywhere) and I thought, this is where we should have come yesterday. There was a historic section we drove through, and it looked very appealing. The Bobblehead Museum was on the 2nd floor of an old building, and we went around the block twice trying to find it, because there was inadequate signage, but in the end, we were able to park on the street for free right in front of it.
This place was right up our alley! The Bobblehead Museum was started by two guys who had been collecting mostly sports bobbleheads, and later all kinds, for years. When the collection reached 3,000, they realized they needed another place for it, and the Bobblehead Museum was born. We loved it before we even got in, because the logo was so cute. Inside, there are shelves and shelves full of bobbleheads. The sports presence is very strong, of course--baseball revived the bobblehead poppularity in this century by starting to give bobbleheads of certain star players away at specially designated days. So there were LOTS of sports team bobbleheads.

But we were surprised to learn that bobbleheads have a history dating back centuries. There was a historical section explaining the fact that the Chinese made statues with moving heads several hundred years ago. There was also a section with historical "modern" bobbleheads, including one of the Beatles, which is one of the most sought-after bobblehead sets.
We browsed through the museum, delighting in the representation of politicians, cartoon characters, book characters, TV and music stars--basically every aspect of pop culture and sports had some bobblehead representation. There was a slight disappointment in that we were told DO NOT TOUCH THE BOBBLEHEADS. So there was this museum of dolls made with moving heads, but the heads were not moving. I took far too many photos, I think, but they were so much fun!

We spent about an hour enjoying the bobbleheads, and then we managed NOT to buy any from the store to take home with us. We still felt we had some time, so I decided we should really see Lake Michigan while we were in the city. We drove down to the lakefront, where there are lots of parks. Lots of the city's museums are also on the lakeshore, including the Museum of Art, which had very interesting architecture. We parked and got out and went to the beach briefly, but it was closed off. So we sat on a bench and just looked out toward Michigan, somewhere across the lake, and enjoyed the breeze and the lovely weather. We felt a bit guilty, because the news from home was of the hurricane the day before, and we knew we had water in our basement. But since we couldn't do anything about it, we just enjoyed what we had.

Then we went home, and after another brief rest, we got all dressed up and went to the wedding. It was in Hartland at a beautiful barn venue with gardens and trees an flowers, a big fire pit, and corn-hole bean bag games set up on the lawn, an innovation of the bride and groom. The ceremony was very moving, and all of us got a little teary listening to Natan and Ruby read their vows. They looked so happy together! Then came the reception, which was also very nice. The wedding was very small, and people who were not fully vaccinated were asked not to attend, so with the tables spread rather far apart, there was plenty of room and although we'd worn masks at the ceremony, they were mostly off afterwards. There was food, dancing, hugging, and just in general, we all had a wonderful time celebrating a wonderful, very much in love couple.
Then we went home to our dirt lot, where we went to sleep so we could make an early start in the morning. We had to drive clear across Wisconsin to Minneapolis, where we had reservations for the weekend. We managed to pull out at 10:00, our usual start time, and we drove 350 miles. It was overcast for much of the day, with rain showers occasionally. The only stop we made was for lunch and cheese. Joe had bemoaned that we were leaving Wisconsin and we hadn't bought ANY cheese, and that just seemed wrong. So we stopped at an exit near the Wisconsin Dells which had several billboards advertising CHEESE. We enjoyed browsing through all the offerings, in the end buying several types, including cheese curds, the state "specialty." Otherwise, it was just a looooong drive. We arrived at our campground at about 7pm, and this time, it's the kind of dirt we don't mind. Tucked into the trees, we are looking out at green lawns and it's cosy and cool to leave Cassie when we go out. So that was our stay in Wisconsin, and other than family (dinner and the wedding), and the bobblehead museum, we didn't really do very much. I think we will need to go back another time and plan it better.