Admit it: you’ve wanted to go to Milwaukee for a vacation all your life. Yet, despite all the planning and scheming, you’ve not been able to. Well, we made the dream a reality.
CVH wanted to go to the state fair. There is an Illinois state fair in Springfield, but then we saw that the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee was closer and there were more things to do in Milwaukee.
So we caught the Amtrak to Milwaukee.
The train dropped us off downtown, a short walk from our hotel. It was a lovely hotel, in a restored pre-civil war building. Our room had twelve-foot ceilings, distressed wood floors, and was very nice.
There are a lot of these old, impressive buildings in Milwaukee.
A surprising number of downtown buildings have large clocks.
The most amazing thing is that all the clocks work! No excuse for being late in Milwaukee.
Our hotel was also a block from Milwaukee Public Market, a food mall full of wonderful restaurants, bakeries, and toothsome delights.
We walked down to the lakefront, and CVH claims the ducks in Milwaukee are extra large.
The Milwaukee Art Museum is on the lake, and it sports a dramatic Calatrava-designed entry building.
The large “wings” open and close. We got to watch them close:
The next day we went to the State Fair. The Milwaukee bus #18 takes you from downtown right to the State Fair gate.
At the fair, we saw good looking dairy cows.
And young cows:
There was a substantial dairy display.
There was steer judging.
Of course, we also saw goats and sheep and chickens.
We tried a lot of fair food, including the 1st place contest winner, a pretzel-wrapped brat with jalapeños.
We were informed that it’s pronounced “brought”, not “brat”.
We visited the maple producers booth, and the honey producers booth.
The Case tractor people had a contest to test your farming knowledge. There were questions such as “The corn head cross auger pitch allows for better (pick one):”. Somehow CVH got the right answer to her question about rice, and won a hat. I think it makes me look like a real farmer:
After the fair, we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and saw,among other things, their exhibit of Jules Chéret posters.
Friday we went shopping along Brady Street. We bought some cat toys at Pets on Brady, went to Glorioso’s Italian Market and the Peter Sciorino Bakery, and I even got a haircut at Classic’s Barbershop.
Everyone should have a vacation in Milwaukee.
