Milwaukee/Chicago August 2024

Wednesday

• Flew to Milwaukee with a layover in Denver. We thought they'd lost our baggage, but we were simply at the wrong baggage claim.
• Checked into the hotel--Courtyard Mke Downtown; they gave our second adjoining bedroom away so we had the kids in the same room. The pullout beds are so tiny! So we made a second kid bed on the floor with cushions.
• Walked along the river to Lakefront Brewing. It is SUCH a pretty walk, with old buildings and TONS of flowers everywhere. How do these flowers get watered?? The kids of course complained about the walk. It was pretty hot and humid, to be fair.
• Lakefront Brewing was having a trivia night. We sat inside in the a/c. The fish fry and fried cheese curds were phenomenal. Probably the best we tried out there. Decent beer too. Love this place!

Thursday

• Breakfast at Toast  (not the same as Toast out here). Loved the whole hippie vibe and the food was delicious. Really cute area. 
• Parked in the historic third ward district and walked around, including in the Milwaukee Public Market. Again, so many pretty flowers everywhere! I'd like to come back to the public market; we didn't get anything since we were full from breakfast. Cliff got an app where you hold your phone up to buildings, and it shows you the historic signage. It drizzled a bit, but we had our rain ponchos.
• Wisconsin Cheese Mart. I wanted to buy so much cheese. I just didn't think it'd last through our driving to Madison and Chicago etc.
• Stopped at Riverside park for the kids to play. I suspect there's a lot more to this park that we didn't see--we only saw a tiny part of it. This is an Olmsted designed park?!
• We drove through a big park trying to decide on a lunch spot. We eventually settled on Milwaukee Brat House in Shorewood. Delicious brats and giant pretzel. I tried a WI style old fashioned "sweet", which I didn't really need to have again but did later on the trip. When in Rome...
• Got frozen custard from Kopp's in Glendale. I didn't love the flavor I got, but of course frozen custard is delicious.
• Explored the Mitchell Park botanical domes.
• Walked to Cathedral Square Park for the weekly jazz in the park concert. Such a cool scene; cheap beer and wine and food right there.
• Dinner at this huge food hall connected to our hotel--Third Street Market Hall. Lots of options; a problem we ran into is we stayed on CA time, so we were eating "late", and some places closed at 8 (6p our time obvs). Ryan loved the video game area; Ada loved her plain ramen noodles. Got pizza for Ryan, empanadas for us. Cliff and I got beer from the pay per ounce taps. Blue Moon custard? and desserts from Dairyland or the place next to it.
• Watched the lightning from our hotel room.

Friday

• Breakfast on our way out at Red Rooster. It was decent but wouldn't rush back or would try other things.
• Old World Wisconsin. Walked some, tram some (nice breeze). Loved that they served beer right at the first place we stopped; I didn't even care how early it was (esp. for those of us on west coast time). This was a neat, pretty place, and I think the kids liked it. We watched them doing old fashioned demonstrations of shoe making and the blacksmith in particular held their attention for awhile. We also watched people play baseball on an old fashioned field. There was another Ada!
• We got ice cream there before heading out.
• Ft Atkinson for lunch--Paddy Coughlin's pub. Fish tacos 
• Lots of corn (and Trump signs) on our way to Madison
• Hotel 25ish min from concert venue. Left after giving the kids some screen time.
• Ryan barfed right as we were leaving for the concert... We decided to go anyway. He had woken up with a bad cough (still that croupy sound!) so I'm sure it's related. He did okay at the concert and ate a bit. It was sooo hot. Even in shade you sweat so easily. 
• Concert was good but I felty crampy and dehydrated.
• https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=t6Fm2-8L4eM6PfC1&v=pKWoobBjikQ&feature=youtu.be
• Primus is sooo good live even when you don't know the songs. It's a bummer our hotel (Hyatt Madison Verona) was 20+ minutes from the concert venue otherwise I would've stayed for the whole thing, but Cliff was waiting in the car with the kids.

Saturday

• Looked at some Frank Lloyd Wright buildings back in Madison--the Unitarian Meeting House and the Herbert & Catherine Jacobs house.
• Madison Farmer's market at the capitol. It was soooo hot and crowded! Really pretty, huge market though. Listened to some progressive grannies sing, got some apple cider, some blueberry cheesecake, went in the capitol building, got an empanada.
• We drove all the way to New Glarus brewing only to discover that they absurdly aren't open on weekends! We ended up at a multifunctional little public venue called New Glarus Fest Haus. The little town was having something called Fire Fest; firefighters were giving families rides on both old fashioned and modern fire trucks. The bartender told us there was an adult firehose fight too. I had another old fashioned since the beer selection was meager--only New Glarus they had was Spotted Cow, which I'd already had a bunch of times.
• Started our drive to Chicago! Lots of corn again. And possibly soybeans?
• Stopped for lunch at Pig Minds Brewing in Machesney Park near Rockford. Vegan food and good beer.
• Hotel. Omni. Had to move from first room cuz strong weed smell.
• Down time/screen time for the kids.
• Walked to Lou Malnati's on Cedar/State. Pizza was good but I was annoyed with how difficult to eat🙈/cut with fork and knife.
• So crowded here in Chicago (I know duh) and loud traffic just like any big city I guess.
• Wandered back to hotel after stopping at cookie place--Chip City.

Sunday

• We shared breakfast at Do-Rite donuts & fried chicken. 
• Cliff drove to Kasama while I took the kids to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. Despite not loving Starbucks, I couldn't pass this up. I got the espresso martini trio, which was quite delicious. I wish I'd tried some other specialty coffee bevs, but lines were pretty long. The rooftop here was neat to see, and not many people knew about it.
• Cliff met up with us, and we walked down closer to the river. We sat and ate the delicious Kasama pastry (ube huckleberry) and breakfast sandwich. Saw a car rear-end a bus.
• Headed toward Navy Pier. Stopped at the fountain for awhile, where Ryan had a grand old time getting soaked. It was soooo hot and humid.
• Did the ferris wheel. The line actually wasn't too long. Was it worth the money? Eh. The views were spectacular (and a/c delightful) but man it's pricey.
• Ubered to near the bean. I grabbed a less than ideal "Chicago dog" and devoured it only because I was hungry. I'm withholding judgment on this style until I have a more reputable one not from a stand near a tourist attraction. The bean was so cool but we hardly spent any time because it was SO hot and SO crowded. Oh, did I mention that freaking Lollapalooza was happening while we were there? I wish we could have explored more of this whole park area, but alas...
• Cooled our feet in the awesome water feature with the big screens showing people's faces/spouting water every few minutes.
• Cliff took the kids to the illusion museum, which they loved, and I rushed around the Chicago Art Museum. SO MUCH famous art; so little time. I really can't believe how many famous works are in there. Truly right up there with a european art museum.
• We all met back up at Starbucks before heading toward the river cruise tour, where I downed a chai tea from a nearby stand. I was worried I'd feel yucky with motion sickness because of how dehydrated/gross I felt, but I was fine. The river cruise was worth every penny, and our self-proclaimed architecture nerd was a great tour guide.
• Very disappointing deep dish from Giordano's near our hotel after a stupid Taco Bell experience to try to appease the kids. Way worse pizza than Lou's.

Monday

• Walked to breakfast at Wildberry. It was just okay. Very popular place.
• Packed up; I headed to L.A. Burdick!! Delicious passion fruit cake, spicy hot chocolate, and hazelnut cake.
• Free Lincoln Park Zoo. Great zoo. Hard to enjoy because it was SO HOT. And the parking situation is not great. The kids liked it though. Well. Ryan was happy UNTIL he saw a carousel that we said no to.
• Lunch on our way out of the city at Al's on Clark St near Wrigley Field. My first Italian beef--delicious! So much flavor. Drove several places to find Chicago souvenirs for the kids, but nothing.
• Drove back to Milwaukee. It felt like coming "home". I loved Chicago and want to go back, but Milwaukee feels more breathable and slower paced. With similar history and artsiness. Grabbed a cortado from Vendetta. Wish I could've sat in here--amazing ambiance.
• Cliff picked out an arts hotel!!--Saint Kate. They gave us champagne on arrival. I walked around and looked at allll the art on every floor. There was also a bossa nova jazz guy playing live. And record players in every room.
• Drove to Lakefront Brewing for dinner. Those cheese curds!! Like most nights, we watched the Olympics back at our hotel.

Tuesday

• We were originally supposed to stay another night in Chicago and drive to Milwaukee for our flight; thank God Cliff got us that MKE hotel, because we would've had to wake up SOOO much earlier to make our flight. As it was, we still had to jet outta there right when we woke up.
• The flight went okay, but my and Ryan's screens didn't work. Boooo.

For next time:

• Need to do a *Friday* fish fry complete with polka.
• Must try a WI cream puff.
• More architecture stuff, like Burnham Block in MKE.
• MKE art museum.
• The "El" train in Chicago.
• See Google Keep for more suggestions from friends, etc.