Yes the title is correct, Milwaukee proudly celebrates Bastille Days every year right in the downtown. We decided to put on our best berets and biked downtown to take in the French festival. This year it was complete with not only the usual metal replica of "La Tour Eiffel" but also a blow up version (which I must admit there was a part of me really wanted one for the back yard - don't ask me why, I don't have a clue). We listened to a few of the bands and really enjoyed a choir of French students singing but we mostly went for the food. We both enjoyed some festival food for lunch although the choices of authentic French food were very limited. You would thinkg there would be copious sellers of Croque Monsieurs, but most of the offerings were the standard festival fare. We were somewhat good and resisted any dessert - mostly because the line for beignets was way too long.
Before hitting the Bastille Days, we biked over to Veteran Park to watch the dragon boat races. Several local, corporate teams competed throughout the day in dragon boats. Unfortunately, Northwestern Mutual didn't have a team entered so we just cheered on all the boats. Much like the Bastille Days, not sure why Milwaukee has dragon boat races. I'm thinking it mostly our winters are so long that we look for every opportunity to get people outside eating brats and drinking alcoholic beverages. Trust me, if you knew the number of festivals that happen in Milwaukee over the summer you would agree that we are really successful at creating opportunities to drink.
Friday night we biked over to Estabrook park to enjoy our favorite outdoor beer garden with some friends from volleyball. Fortunately this time, the pretzels were available so we each enjoyed one while chatting and downing a stein of Hofbrau house brew. The weather was perfect with temperatures in the mid-70's and low humidity (unlike this week where the temps are in the high 80's and the humidity even higher) and the conversation lively so we stayed until it was almost too dark to get home. Again, I was proud of us as we passed by a Culvers and didn't stop for a frozen custard - although we both wanted to.
As you might have noticed there have been very few garden postings this year. Short message is that our garden is really struggling. The cool temperatures so far this year and the limited sunlight our garden beds get has resulted in poor results so far. We are concerned that our success last year was due entirely to the unusually warm temperatures we experienced. Either way, we did manage to harvest some peas yesterday, our first harvest this year since our lettuce was a bust, and are looking forward to enjoying them for dinner tonight along with some steak and potatoes.
Yes the title is correct, Milwaukee proudly celebrates Bastille Days every year right in the downtown. We decided to put on our best berets and biked downtown to take in the French festival. This year it was complete with not only the usual metal replica of "La Tour Eiffel" but also a blow up version (which I must admit there was a part of me really wanted one for the back yard - don't ask me why, I don't have a clue). We listened to a few of the bands and really enjoyed a choir of French students singing but we mostly went for the food. We both enjoyed some festival food for lunch although the choices of authentic French food were very limited. You would thinkg there would be copious sellers of Croque Monsieurs, but most of the offerings were the standard festival fare. We were somewhat good and resisted any dessert - mostly because the line for beignets was way too long.
Before hitting the Bastille Days, we biked over to Veteran Park to watch the dragon boat races. Several local, corporate teams competed throughout the day in dragon boats. Unfortunately, Northwestern Mutual didn't have a team entered so we just cheered on all the boats. Much like the Bastille Days, not sure why Milwaukee has dragon boat races. I'm thinking it mostly our winters are so long that we look for every opportunity to get people outside eating brats and drinking alcoholic beverages. Trust me, if you knew the number of festivals that happen in Milwaukee over the summer you would agree that we are really successful at creating opportunities to drink.
Friday night we biked over to Estabrook park to enjoy our favorite outdoor beer garden with some friends from volleyball. Fortunately this time, the pretzels were available so we each enjoyed one while chatting and downing a stein of Hofbrau house brew. The weather was perfect with temperatures in the mid-70's and low humidity (unlike this week where the temps are in the high 80's and the humidity even higher) and the conversation lively so we stayed until it was almost too dark to get home. Again, I was proud of us as we passed by a Culvers and didn't stop for a frozen custard - although we both wanted to.
As you might have noticed there have been very few garden postings this year. Short message is that our garden is really struggling. The cool temperatures so far this year and the limited sunlight our garden beds get has resulted in poor results so far. We are concerned that our success last year was due entirely to the unusually warm temperatures we experienced. Either way, we did manage to harvest some peas yesterday, our first harvest this year since our lettuce was a bust, and are looking forward to enjoying them for dinner tonight along with some steak and potatoes.
Great looking peas!
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