Beer and the Brewers

Part of our motivation in selecting last Friday for our biking adventure was that Kathy and John were joining us in Milwaukee for a Brewer's game on Sunday.  Therefore, we could get a ride back to Milwaukee with Kathy.  On the way back into town we stopped to see six Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes on the south side of town - called the Burnham block project.  These were Frank's attempt at providing well designed homes at a lower price point, they were termed the American System, than many of the mansion sized houses he designed.  A non-profit group has purchased five of the six homes and is in the process of restoring them as they have fallen into some disrepair since their construction around 1916.  Was a great tour as we had a very knowledgeable docent and was a fun way to spend an hour and learn a little something in the process.

Then it was off to our favorite beer garden in town, Estabrook, to enjoy a pretzel and beer all the while enjoying the sun and comfortable temperatures.  We were joined by Jo and Kathy's first cousin-once removed who lives in town and we had recently met at the Notre Dame wedding.  It was really nice way to enjoy the afternoon and recover from our calorie deficit from our bike ride (OK, we didn't really have a calorie deficit after all the pizza, but it sounds good).

Sunday we headed to one of our favorite cafes for a cinnamon roll (see the above calorie deficit comment) before heading over to the baseball game.  Unfortunately, while we were in tune with the weather gods this weekend, the baseball gods were ignoring us as the Brewer's lost.  Still we were outside, eating good stadium food, watching a sporting event - seemed like a great way to spend the day.

Our Biking Adventure

The Start in Milwaukee

For several years Jo and I have talked about biking from Milwaukee to Madison, but always managed to talk ourselves out of it due to time constraints and the daunting thought of making the 84 mile trek.  We started that conversation again this summer and this time decided it was just time to give it a try.  After completing a few 40 mile rides over the summer we selected last Friday as our day to head over to Madison.  We started bright and early, as in before sunrise, to try and avoid as much car traffic as possible as we have to get through downtown Milwaukee before we hit the first of our bike trails.  The weather gods were shining on us as we had nice cool temperatures along with partly cloudy skies to keep the sun off of us. 

Almost there in Cottage Grove

We really enjoyed seeing a slice of Wisconsin as we pedaled our way over to Madison.  The fields were high with corn and we discovered that a lot of this part of Wisconsin is covered with marshes and or swamps (when does a marsh become a swamp?) - news to us.  We made a couple of stops along the way to refuel and rest the legs and had only one unplanned stop as Jo suffered a flat tire (although to be fair she has been having problems all year with flat front tires - I think this was number 4 or 5 - initially I blamed her, but we were pretty sure after flat number three that there is something wrong with her front tire).  Fortunately being the good planners we are we had several spare inner tubes and carbon dioxide inflators (which are just too much fun to play with) along and in no time we were back on track.

Made it Madison

One of the challenges is that about 40 miles of the bike path is covered with fine gravel and packed earth.  This slowed us down a bit as we found we were typically off one gear from what we would have expected.  While we saw lots of birds, including one red tail hawk that watched us come and go (we think it was waiting for us to collapse to enjoy a nice afternoon meal) the only interesting animals in the mammal domain were a muskrat and a black squirrel (we aren't counting the numerous chipmunks that have severe death wishes as they always seemed to want to wait until the last minute and then dash right in front of our tires). 

We were both getting pretty tired with about 10 miles to go - Jo's knees and my quads - and probably should have stopped for a longer break but we pushed through and got to Madison.  Kathy helped provide a key portage for us as we neared Madison as there is a small stretch on a busy highway that we didn't feel safe tackling.  We celebrated that evening with Kathy and a robust amount of pizza.  We really enjoyed the trip and have already started talking about making the reverse trek and possibly attempting doing it both ways over a weekend.  Endorphins do funny things to your brain....

At More Wildlife

Jo and I enjoy an evening walk several times during the week.  It is a great time for us to discuss each other's days along with solving the problems of the world as we get in a little bit of exercise.  As we now live downtown Milwaukee our walks are even more urban than in the past.  We are walking past high rises, apartment buildings, and the lake front.  As we were out this last week we noticed a fairly sleek and interesting colored "dog" running along the opposite sidewalk by itself.  This is unusual since most people keep their dogs leashed in the city - keeps them from biting random strangers I suppose.  Then as the "dog" got closer we realized it actually was a coyote.  Understand we were in downtown Milwaukee, although along the Milwaukee river front, it is a fairly densely packed urban area.  Certainly not what we expected to see there - maybe on my trip to New Mexico.  It was pretty healthy looking so food must be good and didn't seem particularly worried about us - or really even that interested in us.  Oh the fun things you can see and do in Milwaukee.  Come for the beer and cheese, stay for the wildlife sightings.

This last weekend after enjoying, and I use the term enjoying loosely, a 40 mile bike ride to Cedarburg and back we hit the Milwaukee Lobster Fest.  We were hoping to score some New England style lobster rolls - which for the uninitiated consist of nothing more than the correct bun (looks like a hot dog bun but a bit thicker), hot lobster, and hot butter poured over everything.  Unfortunately, while the menu online touted New England style rolls they weren't to be.  They did have something close that we allowed to fill in - hot buttered and toasted bun with a smear of mayo and cold lobster.  Still tasty but not what we were hoping for.  Still it hit the spot after the long ride.   

The long ride is in preparation for our attempt to ride our bikes from Milwaukee to Madison via the Glacial Drumlin trail.  More on that later - assuming I survive!

Pretty Cool Wildlife

I spent a week with my folks in New Mexico and got treated to a visit from their local bobcat.  It came right up to the kitchen window to check me out and I managed to snap a few photos before it bounded up on the roof of their house.  Needless to say, Dad wasn't too happy with it using the roof of their house as transit point.  Gorgeous cat and certainly one of the highlights of the trip along with my birthday of Mexican food and sopapillas.  Got home just in time to be picked up my Jo at Midway airport as we headed to a wedding at Notre Dame University.  On our way to Notre Dame we stopped at the Indiana Dunes part of which was just made a national park.  We had a fun afternoon hiking through the dunes, filling our shoes with sand, and as part of my theme for the week, catching some wildlife watching me.  We did point out the raccoon ransacking the trash to a park ranger who said - oh yeah, they love to do that and we can't get funding for raccoon proof trash cans.  Then promptly went back to packing her car. 

This was our first visit to Notre Dame and it certainly is a lovely campus.  Seemed very peaceful and serene - which of course, A) you would expect somewhat as it wasn't in session and B) it is Notre Dame which I think has to be serene and peaceful.  Anyway, it was a nice wedding and Jo got to catch up with a lot of her Quincy relatives.

The WI State Fair

A couple of weeks ago it was time for Jo to get some cow petting in.  As any regular reader of this blog knows, Jo gets a bit twitchy if she goes an entire year without petting some farm animal - with cows being her favorite.  So we saddled up our bikes and headed over to the WI State Fair.  We watched the usual cow judging, which we fully admit that even after eight years, or so, of watching them judge cows we still can't pick the winners out of the line up.  But we always like to see the kids handling their cows and the occasional cow that decides to handle their kid.  Also got to see some goat judging this year in which we remain as mystified as to what qualities a good versus great goat has - much like in the cows.  Thank goodness there is someone out there studying how to judge all these farm animals.  We took in the exhibit barn, because we love to see all the things people are trying to sell - although I miss the ginsu knife demonstrations of my childhood.  And the 4H barn of crafted goods was always an interesting stop as there are some seriously talented youngsters out there creating amazing works of art.  We opted out of taking any rides - the scientist in me just isn't convinced that all those whirly rides set up just for this two week period are actually securely anchored sufficiently (even though there hasn't been an accident in all of our time here) and actually didn't partake of too much of the fair food this year.  We even skipped our usual bacon wrapped tater tots - mostly a combination of expanding waistlines and our tummies not feeling 100% that day.

Later that day we headed over to Madison to make sure our condo was still standing and to enjoy some theater on Saturday.  We did check out our community garden plot that we share with Jo's sister, Kathy - who I should point out has been diligently caring for this year.  We were able to harvest some cucumbers, green beans, and onions for Jo to enjoy the following week as I did some traveling.  

Air Shows Galore

I had to wait until today to post this week, since I wanted to start the August collection of posts and stop adding to my July numbers.  We had a lovely week that included as you might tell from the title seeing some air shows.  Milwaukee had their annual air show (at least it is annual if they can find the funding which is always an annual challenge).  While we weren't in town for the "official" air show portion we did get to watch the fighter jets practicing over the skies of downtown on Thursday and Friday.  As we are now on the 14th story of a building the views of the jets screaming around the sky are quite remarkable.  To add to our viewing opportunities, we were enjoying an outdoor lunch at the Comet Cafe (always worth a stop if you are hungry and on Farwell) with John and Linda and two of their daughters, plus one newly added grandson, when what should go rocketing by overhead - more jets practicing.  Made for an interesting lunch as we constantly twisted our necks around trying to locate them in between having our ear drums blown out from the jet engines.  Oh by the way, there aren't any pictures of the jets flying around because I have found from experience that it is tough to get a really good shot as they whiz by at 600 mph.

After our lunch we hopped in the car with John and Linda to enjoy a long weekend at their lake house which is close to Oshkosh where every year they hold the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) air show.  Once again we didn't actually attend any of the events at the EAA, but we did get to enjoy a few hours of watching the planes looping in the air while out on the lake.  We had a fun time out on their boat and jet skis (although I did manage to knock off one of the mirrors on one of their jet skis due to my poor steering skills when in tight quarters with them - don't let me helm your boat in other words!) and did take the plunge in the lake for the first time to cool off a bit.  Fortunately, we were able to find a place that was relatively algae free as Lake Winnebago tends to get a fairly robust growth of algae - which apparently every year from what the locals have said.

We also found some time on Saturday to attend the Cedar Grove Dutch festival.  John has Dutch roots (his parents emigrated from there) and so it was a must go.  We snacked on festival food, which included the Dutch treat, olie bollen.  Basically a doughnut fried in oil - how can that be bad.  They were especially good as the base under ice cream later that night.  My favorite part of the Dutch festival is the washing of the streets before the clog dancers and parade occurs.  Just imagine hundreds of young kids out scrubbing about six blocks of downtown Cedar Grove.  Really fun to watch.

We also crossed another supper club off of John and Linda's list which while the steak were great, the steamed brussel sprouts left everyone wishing they had ordered the cheesy potatoes.  As always, John and Linda were great hosts and we had a really relaxing weekend.