Hello Wisconsin!!!
We just finished a week in Wisconsin. A first for Terri and only my second visit. We had two destinations on our 14-day adventure… The Milwaukee Irish Festival, and then a trip to Hudson on the west side of the state to visit our good friends Randy and Bonnie Conom.
We kicked off the weekend with a great dinner at Buckley’s Restaurant and Bar in downtown Milwaukee. It was a great night catching up with Tim, Michelle, and the Jenkins family friend John Sweeney and his wife Barb. John was Tim’s childhood friend from the Sunset in San Francisco and the Sweeneys and Jenkins shared many childhood memories.
The Irish Fest over-delivered. Milwaukee has one of the best festival sites in the nation. The Henry W. Maier Festival Park on Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan waterfront, delivers several excellent events each year (non-COVID). Besides last weekend’s Irish Festival, the site will host next month’s Summerfest. We spent Friday and Saturday walking the festival grounds and taking in some of the best in Irish music.
Friday night’s festival headliner was Gaelic Storm, a band we’ve seen a couple of times before. They’re high energy and encourage crowd participation. It was so great to see a live music audience interact with the band and have the band respond with great energy at high volume. The “Storm” were preceded by some great, intimate, acoustic acts, mixed in with some Jameson and Frozen Custard. We walked from stage to stage taking in as much as we could in between beers, sandwiches, roasted corn, and more Jameson.
Saturday’s headliner for us was Molly Tuttle. Ms. Tuttle has become one of the best in a new generation of bluegrass guitar pickers, along with Billy Strings. However, living in Nashville has allowed her to absorb influences from a broad array of styles turning her into a shining new singer songwriter. During COVID last year she recorded a album of covers and her show highlighted the Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow” and the Dead’s “Standing on the Moon”.
We skipped the Irish Fest on Sunday and opted for the Discovery World Museum. I wanted to see the Les Paul exhibit. Les Paul grew up in nearby Waukesha and Discovery World has an exhibit of some of his finest guitars and tons of his history. He was a remarkable musician, but almost more importantly, an inventor. After a BBQ at Danny’s, one of John Sweeney’s sons, we headed back to the Wisconsin State Fair RV Park for our last night in Milwaukee.
The next day, Monday the 23rd, we headed west out of Milwaukee on I-94/I-90/I-94 toward the opposite side of the state and our friends in Hudson. Hudson is just across the St. Croix River from Minnesota and Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Conom’s have just finished their new home on family land in Hudson. It’s a stunning property and a home with the warmth of friendship.
We caught up on old times and the Judith Drive neighborhood, then ventured out on Tuesday for the Mall of America. If you like to shop, this is the place. Then again, if you like amusement parks with roller coasters, this is the place. What other mall has a theme park in the atrium. It was built on the site of the old Metropolitan Stadium that the Twins played in.
Bonnie and Randy took us to some great lunch spots in Hudson and Stillwater MN and gave us a driving tour of downtown Minneapolis. Our short stay was a great introduction to western Wisconsin and the Twin Cities. We’ll definitely go back some day.
On Thursday the 26th it was time to head home on a five day/four night drive, which I’ll write about in the next blog.
Our trip through Wisconsin taught us some things about the state that you may not know. First off, the interstate I-90/I-94 that cuts diagonally across the state from Milwaukee to Madison, Eu Clair and then Hudson, is possibly the best stretch of interstate we’ve traveled so far. Wisconsin rest stops are some of the best too. But here’s a short list of other learnings.
The interstate oddly has “Crash Investigation Sites” called out at certain exists. We really don’t know what these are for.
The county roads are notated with letters instead of numbers. It’s a bit confusing when you see CR-O and think it’s route zero.
Wisconsinites love their fireworks. Fireworks stores seemed to be everywhere.
Adult “Superstores” were advertised several times along the drive. There was even an Adult store next to a Fireworks store with a big sign that simply read “CHEESE”. You can get cheese with your fire crackers and XXX movies.
One thing is for certain. Wisconsin, we will be back.
