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.

24 Hours in Santa Fe

"Auntie Gwen Goes to the Opera"

August 25, 2015

We woke up this morning ready to explore Santa Fe with our host/tour guide/chauffeur Alan. Our first destination was up in the hills where Alan and Sue have purchased land to build their dream retirement home. The house is not yet started, but Joe and I could imagine it through Alan’s descriptions—as well as appreciate the view from the top of their property. The vista was stunning! The air was crisp and there was not a sound to be heard except the breeze. It was absolutely glorious. We are hoping that the next time we return, the house will be finished and we can stay for longer than an hour.

The view from Alan and Sue's property

Our next stop was at the Shidoni Foundry and Sculpture Gardens. The foundry is open to the public at certain times, including on Saturdays when they do the pouring. The pieces in the sculpture garden were all for sale, and they were wonderful—diverse and interesting. I saw more than one which I would have liked to own—I kept telling Alan that he should consider buying this one or that one for his property. I did find one artist whose work I could have found room for in Highland Park—both at home and in front of Joe’s office. They were quirky and entertaining! But the entire park was great—we love sculpture gardens and this one did not disappoint.

Shidoni Sculpture Garden

By the time we left, we were all feeling a little faded from the heat, since we’d been outside for several hours. Alan headed for the center of Santa Fe again—this time, the street where his grandfather used to live! It is now in a very desirable part of town along the Santa Fe River, which is not large but was delightfully rushing along its rocky bed. We parked next to it and crossed it to Canyon Road to eat on the patio at El Farol, Santa Fe’s oldest restaurant. We all had cups of soup and selections from the tapas menu—my “flash fried” avocado with salsa and lime yogurt was fabulous! Joe had a tapas sampler,and Alan had a dish of olives and anchovies. We made a big mistake by not taking photos of the dishes before we attacked them, because they were each a small work of art. Plus totally delicious!

After lunch, we all agreed we were ready for a siesta. So we drove back to Alan’s and agreed to meet at 3pm for more adventure. Joe and I both fell asleep, but after we woke up, Joe told me that he was concerned about the RV’s systems. Although we’d gotten as level as possible, the refrigerator was having difficulty cooling our food. In addition, it was quite hot out, but because we had not stopped for gas on our way into town, and we were quite low, our generator couldn’t work. As a result, using a fan to cool off the RV was draining our battery. We realized that we were going to have to move to an RV park in order to hook up and restore our battery and let the refrigerator cool down appropriately.

We found an RV park about 15 minutes away from Alan’s apartment, so we called and they had room for us for tonight. We let Alan know what was going on; then we packed up and drove down to the RV park, filling the gas tank on the way. The people at the park were very nice—it has lots of amenities which of course we won’t use, but it’s nice to know they are there. We hooked up to the electricity and turned on the air conditioner for Cassie to wait for us, and Alan drove in 10 minutes later to pick us up so we could continue our sightseeing tour.

We were all noticing how hot it had gotten, so we escaped the heat by driving up into the mountains to the base of the ski resort. This drive took us through the forests, where eventually we left the pinon pines behind and began seeing ponderosas instead. We drove past Hyde Memorial State Park and state forest, and stopped to admire the Tesuque River (the sculpture garden was right near the same river, but thousands of feet lower down) as it tumbled over a small waterfall at the side of the road. We were at more than 9,000 feet when we turned around. There is a pull-out for a view of the valley and surrounding mountains, but it was a bit hazy today—Alan told us that he had read that smoke from the wildfires in the northwest has actually been blown south as far as Santa Fe, and the air is not as clear as it usually is. We all agreed it smelled "delicious, however,

Perfect for Joe's office!

and was cool and refreshing after the hot afternoon. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera, so I couldn’t take any photos of the waterfall.

We noticed as we drove down the mountain again that the temperature did go up, but by the time we reached the center of Santa Fe, it was cool enough to be comfortable. We decided it was time for dinner, but on the way to the restaurant we couldn’t resist going into the local “cheesemonger”, an establishment which Alan recommended to us and Joe jumped at the idea. After lots of tasting, we left with a bag of cheeses and an assortment of interesting crackers to go with it. Then we went to Il Piatto, an Italian restaurant near the center of town. The food there was wonderful—I had pumpkin ravioli, Joe had a wild mushroom gnocchi, and Alan had squid-ink noodles with seafood. We were seated next to an open door so the breeze came in, and it was just delightful.

After dinner, we strolled around a little bit, and hearing the music coming from the Plaza, we went to investigate. All summer there have been free concerts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and tonight was a sort of funk rock band. The music was eclectic, and the musicians even more so, with names like Helena Handbasket, Saxsquatch, and Sweat Stain. The Plaza was crowded with people of every age, many of whom were dancing to the music. I saw a woman who looked a little older than me, with white hair, dancing away, and nearby, an adorable little girl who must have been around 2 years old at the most, wearing a silver tutu, silver glitter boots (rain-boot style), and a pink and white hoodie. She was bopping to the music, as were most of us. Joe was drinking in the scene—he didn’t love the music, but the people-watching (which he loves) was excellent! The entire ambience of the place was just wonderful—everyone having a great time in the cool air. 

Joe and Debbie at lunch

After 30 minutes or so, we strolled back to the car, and Alan returned us to our RV. We passed so many interesting-looking shops and restaurants along the way, it was so tempting to just want to stay for a week at the least. I definitely want to come back—I told Alan that next time, there’s no question that Sue and I will have to spend an entire day just shopping! All those tempting shops with the fabulous clothing that I didn’t get to even walk into! I’m sure Joe was just as happy that we were there both nights after closing time.

As he dropped us off, Alan pointed out that it had been almost exactly 24 hours since we’d arrived in Santa Fe. We seem to have packed so much fun into that time! We were so happy to see him, and even though we missed having Sue there, we did have a great time. Alan's family has lived in Santa Fe for generations--so his roots are deep here and he had plenty of interesting things to tell us about the history of the area, as well as family anecdotes. We are most certainly hoping to come back soon! Meanwhile, I have GOT to decide where we are going tomorrow! It is very tempting to head back up into the mountains, but I *really* want my Arizona sticker for our state map! I guess we’ll see how we feel in the morning.

From Loveland With Love

Day 24: Sept. 19, 2011

Today just goes to prove, we have no idea where we will end up by the end of the day, even though I spend hours planning our route and itinerary. We went with serendipity today and what a great day!

We started out as planned, driving into downtown Cheyenne to the Union Pacific Railroad Depot, which is now restored as a museum and visitor’s center. I was interested in the Union Pacific Railroad because the company helped build the first transcontinental railroad, which followed the route of the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express, and… after the railroad, the Lincoln Highway and now, Interstate 80. We learned about all this last year when we went to the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument in Kearney, Nebraska. And the second reason I was interested is because of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, when Butch’s gang kept robbing the same train and Mr. Woodcock wouldn’t open the train doors because, “I work for Mr. E.H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad, and he ENTRUSTED me….”

When we got to the Depot, we had to decide exactly how and to what extent we were going to explore the city of Cheyenne itself. Cheyenne has no less than 3 museums which AAA gives a Gem rating to. But it was a beautiful sunny, not-too-hot day, and neither Joe nor I really felt like going to a museum (besides, how much cowboy, frontier and westerward expansion collections can two New Jersey kids be expected to take, anyway?) We decided to be relaxed and instead we got tickets to take a 90-minute trolley ride with a narration of the history of Cheyenne. The tickets included admission to the Cheyenne Depot Museum.
So after parking Mo and Roxy a couple of blocks away, we took a 90 minute trolley tour. Before it started, we had a little time to read some of the many historic markers in Depot Plaza, a park- like area with sculpture, seating, grass, and ambience. One thing that stood out was all the large painted cowboy boots--Cheyenne had a project like other cities, where they invited various artists to paint cowboy boots to tell a story. We always love that kind of thing--we’ve seen cows in Chicago, seagulls in Ocean City, MD, and some others of the same ilk. So I took photos of the cowboy boots whenever we saw them.

Our tour guide was really excellent--I think she was a frustrated actress, because she didn’t just narrate, she made a dramatic presentation of every story she told, even if it was just facts and figures. We saw all the historic buildings in downtown Cheyenne, and heard all kinds of fun stories. Cheyenne was a city which was founded and expanded in literally *months*, just before the railroad came to the town. It was wild and woolly and had the nickname “Hell on Wheels”, but so many wealthy folks from the east also came to the new town (to make even more money! Or because they were officers in the army, which guarded the town as a strategic position in the Wyoming Territory) that the city was quickly semi-civilized.

Many old buildings still remain and are being lovingly restored. And there is a lot of western influence everywhere--the city really trades on its image as home of the famous Frontier Days Rodeo. But the thing Joey and I noticed most was that although the city looked really nice downtown, there were so few people! So little traffic. NO congestion of any kind. It was really bizarre. I would have been comfortable driving Mo through the very center of town, right in front of the Capitol Building--there was just no significant traffic. This is what it’s like out here--so much room, and so few people compared to New Jersey, that everything looks “empty”.

After our tour, it was lunchtime, and then we went to the Depot Museum. I really enjoyed it--it was cool looking at all the old photographs of the city being built up, and the influence of the Union Pacific. This city literally was founded from scratch in 1867, so its growth is documented from the very beginning. I loved the quotes from the local newspaper, which started up almost immediately and chronicled everything of importance that occurred. The Depot itself is a historic landmark, and is really beautiful, in that old-wood, tiled and elegant way of public buildings from the beginning of the 20th century.

The trains are still very much present, although there are evidently no passenger trains anymore. But the tracks run right along next to I-80 (we saw a lot of trains while driving yesterday) and right through Cheyenne. We heard them all night from our campground, and probably almost a dozen went through while we were downtown. They say about 90 trains PER DAY (!!) go through Cheyenne.

By the time we finished with the museum, it was already 3pm, and we decided we needed to get going. So we found our way to I-25 South, and drove 7 miles until we crossed the state line into Colorado. We stopped at the visitor center in Fort Collins, because I wanted to see if there was anything fun we could do east of Denver--almost everything touristy in Colorado is based around the Rocky Mountains, which by the way showed up immediately in the distance and got closer and closer as we drove.

I have to say, when the people staffing the visitor center can’t think of ANYTHING to tell you to see in the eastern part of their state, it’s kind of discouraging. So I discussed how to bypass Denver and went back to Mo. Little did I know that serendipity had stepped in--Joe had picked up one brochure, for Loveland, Colorado. It seems that Loveland bills itself as a “work of art”--the entire city is full of public sculpture, including several parks and sculpture gardens. Loveland was only about 16 miles south of us, so we decided we would stop there and see some of the sculptures.
We used the brochure’s map and our GPS, and found Benson Sculpture Garden. It was in a residential neighborhood, a large grassy park with no vehicle entrance point. We simply parked by the curb, leashed Roxy, and started walking through the park. It was about 5pm, a lovely time for a stroll, and the sculptures were fantastic. The shadows made it hard to get good photos of many of them--which is probably lucky for this blog, since uploading photos is so hard!

When we found a plaque describing the place, we learned that the property had originally been a homestead which the Benson family had given to the city, to be kept as a wildlife and wetlands area. Indeed, the center of the park was a large pond, surrounded by cattails and other plants, and all of the grassy areas in the center were “natural”, not mowed or otherwise altered. Some of the statues made obvious use of the natural landscape.

But the entire perimeter was lush lawn, and many sculptures were set into the grass. As Joe said, we HAD to walk on the grass to look at them and read their titles and the artists’ names.
So we had the most delightful evening stroll for an hour or so, passing other families with children and dogs, and just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. There are over 100 scultpures in this park alone--there are other parks and places all over Loveland with sculptures. It seems to be a “lovely” place to live!

Now it was 6:30pm, and time to really think about dinner, and where to spend the night. And once again, Loveland was just perfect--there is a state park right at the edge of the city! No wifi, of course, but electric hookups, hot showers, and a lake next to our campsite. With a fantastic sunset just as we arrived. So that is where we are tonight, and when we woke up, we had no idea of spending ANY time here whatsoever. Just goes to show you. Joe’s angel of inspiration was directing us today.

Enchanted Highways

Aug. 23, 2010

Another wonderful day! This morning, we woke up at 7 am to find that the 90+ degree weather from yesterday had become downright cool! In fact I dressed in long pants and Joe wore a sweatshirt, and my feet were cold in sandals. We left our campground a little before 9 am for our drive to South Dakota. If we had gone the fastest possible way, it would be about a 4 hour drive, but we took a longer way in order to drive on the “Enchanted Highway”.
The Enchanted Highway begins with the Flying Geese sculpture we saw a few days ago on our way to Medora . The highway goes due south from there, with seven or eight other huge metal sculptures by the same artist along the way. So that’s the direction we took. We were charmed by the folk-art quality of the sculpture, which were not just huge but whimsical and with small special touches (fx, the Grasshopper was surrounded by smaller grasshoppers and large waving stalks ofwheat, and the parking lot border matched the wheat; the Fisherman’s Dream was surrounded by a border of waves, etc.) We stopped at each one to take photos, and at a few of them, we let Roxy out to run around at the same time.



The Highway was Enchanted in another way, too—we were the only ones on it! Well, not entirely; but I don’t suppose that we saw more than a few dozen cars on the entire length of highway. At one stop, I stood in the middle of the road and took photos in both directions, crossing back and forth repeatedly. Joe used the chance to clean off Mo’s windshield. During the entire time, not a single car or truck passed in either direction—it was at least a 10 minute stop. It would have been simple to see anyone coming—the road was as straight as an arrow, with only a gentle up-and-down over the hills. When we DID see a vehicle, it was always a pickup truck or a larger transport truck—we didn’t see any “regular” cars and not another RV or anyone else who appeared “touristy”. Once, Joe missed the driveway for the turnout at the sculpture; he simply stopped Mo and backed up on the roadway. There was no one coming in either direction.
We reached the end of the highway in Regent, ND, a small town with one street. There was a gift shop, a co-op grocery, a post office, a gas station, an American Legion hall, a small billboard announcing that Regent was the hometown of one of ND’s US Senators, and that was pretty much it. We drove right through but a half-mile later I said to Joe, “I think it was a mistake not to get gas there; I don’t know when we’ll see another gas station.” So we went back and got gas. We also went into the gift store, took photos of the last metal sculpture (which, unlike the others, was not quite so monumental and we’d missed it somehow), and mailed a postcard in the little post office. The cutest thing we saw was a metal evergreen tree (another sculpture, of course)--there were *real* birds nesting in it!

It turned out to be a very good thing we’d gotten gas, because it was many many miles later before we passed another town of any size. Some places which are on the map literally don’t exist, or all they have is one building (seriously; we ate lunch in Reva, South Dakota—there was one building called “The Store”, which had a post office drop, a small convenience store selection of groceries, and a couple of booths to sit and eat your purchased sandwich at. And that was it for the entire town.) That corner of the world—southwest ND and northwest SD—is very very sparsely populated, and again, we just didn’t see many cars for hours.
What we DID see was absolutely beautiful farmland in North Dakota—thousands of acres of wheat fields, interspersed with sunflower fields. The gently rolling countryside stretched literally to the horizon, and was gorgeous. The day was beautiful—sunny, with fluffy clouds—and our eyes just drank it all in for hours. This is why we love travelling this way; there is simply no way to comprehend how huge and how beautiful our country is without driving through these miles of “nothing”. It is really something.