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09/03/05 - 09/04/05 - Milwaukee, WI (Photos) Ferrying over to Milwaukee for Labor Day weekend with Caroline's sister & parents |
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Nothing's gonna turn us back now... Straight ahead we're on the track now! Ahem, where were we. Ah yes, Milwaukee... City of the Brewers (baseball) in the land of the brewers (Miller, Pabst, Blatz, Schlitz, Old Mil, The Beast, etc), home of Marquette University and UWM, in addition to Lenny, Squiggy, and the big Ragoo. Milwaukee seems to have had a lot of hype over the past couple of years ("it's like a mini-Chicago! Only cheaper!"), so we had to check it out for ourselves, seeing how we're staying directly across Lake Michigan from the town.
The new high speed ferry gets you from Muskegon, MI to Milwaukee, WI in about 2.5 hours for a paltry $91 round trip (huh?!), with about an hour and a half in the middle there when you can't see land in any direction. Upon arrival, we spent our first day wandering down the riverwalk, by the lakefront, and throughout downtown. The one thing that seemed to stand out the most was that there was nobody around, downtown felt quite deserted. It was Saturday, but it was also Labor Day weekend. It's a nice downtown to stay in (we stayed at the 18-story Hyatt) and walk through, with several theatres, museums and stadiums/arenas within walking distance, a few historic homes, many-a-new "loft-style" apartment, and a sprinkling of restaurants. A bit over-hyped, in our opinion, but after we got over that and cleared our expectations we decided that there were parts of the city that would be good places to live, you just have to know where to look. One highlight of the trip was Saturday's family dinner at cab-driver favorite Butch's Clock Steak House, where the tender filets melted in your mouth. A can't miss for the carnivorous connoisseur (Kris, Tod, Mark, John, etc., you know who you are).
On Sunday, a trip on the "trolley" loop helped us learn the lay of the land, where we discovered that downtown is empty because the locals seem to be having their coffee in places like Brady Street. We did venture to the west side, past Marquette (where we heard all sorts of budding physicists talking about the U's brilliant new Professor "K") over to the Pabst Mansion, retirement home of "the Captain", as he and others called himself. After countless historic home tours throughout the country, we decided that old man Pabst's place is in about the best shape and with the most original contents of any we'd seen. The excruciatingly long 1.5 hour tour dragged a bit, but if you go at Christmas you can do the self-guided tour. A pleasant late lunch on the patio of riverfront restaurant John Hawke's capped our visit to Brew City, USA, where we (Scott) topped off with a couple of the local "Miller Lite" beers before taking the evening ferry back to the mitten state. |
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