Hello Everyone,
Greetings from the Windy City! I pulled into Chicago yesterday and had such a fabulous day that I decided I’d stick around one more day. It’s been a really great week out here on the road. I spent the first part of the week hanging out with my family in West Bend, catching up on a lot of years’ worth of stories. Leaving there, I hit up the Lake Michigan shoreline for a night and then headed back to Milwaukee before starting south towards Chicago. The cooler weather continues to be a joyful presence in my daily life and I have been very appreciative that my fridge can keep up better now, allowing me to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies. It hasn’t been too busy a week, but let me catch you up on where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to.
After I finished up this post last week, I headed back to my cousin’s house and we all piled into one car and headed down to Milwaukee for the Brewers’ baseball game. I remember a lot of Brewers games from my childhood, some at the old County Stadium there in Milwaukee, but many of which we listened to on the radio with Bob Ueker doing the play-by-play. I’ve been to their new stadium, American Family Field, a couple of times before and it’s a really nice baseball stadium. We had nice seats along the right field line and even though the Brewers lost, I really enjoyed being there.
I spent most of Thursday just hanging around in West Bend. I wanted to go to the history museum there, but it didn’t look like it had been open in a while. I ended up just wandering around downtown and enjoying the nice weather, reading my book and relaxing. In the afternoon, I met up with my uncle at the Saloon Royale on Main Street. Every Thursday through the summer, downtown West Bend hosts Music on Main with live bands and food trucks. The bar I met my uncle at is close enough to hear the music but far enough to avoid the crowds – plus the beer is cheaper. He comes every Thursday to sit outside with his friends and chat and enjoy a few cold ones and it was a lot of fun to be there with them for the night. After my uncle left, some of his friends invited me to go down the street to the Brazen Head Pub for their Thursday night chicken wing special. They definitely brought out some massive wings and you could choose from a half-dozen sauces which change from week to week. A dozen wings was more than enough dinner for me, and I cruised back to my cousin’s house to let their dogs out as they had headed up to Green Bay to see a concert that night.
I met up with my uncle again on Friday and we headed back to downtown West Bend to visit the Wisconsin Art Museum. This is a great museum and all of the artists featured had some association with the state – some had been born there while others moved there later in life. There were two tremendous paintings from Carl von Marr who was born in Wisconsin before moving to Europe to pursue his art there. I also really enjoyed the colorful paintings of Tom Uttech who was a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. There was a stained glass window by Frank Lloyd Wright and a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe as well for some more recognizable names. It wasn’t as big as it appeared from the outside, but it was a good museum to see. Leaving the museum, we stopped for lunch at Titletown Brewery at the end of Main Street and then headed back to my uncle’s place. We spent the next three hours or so going through an old box of photos he had set aside for me. We labeled what we could and he helped me trace our genealogy back as far as the photos allowed. It was exhausting, but really good as he’s the only one left who knows those stories and I walked away with a whole different understanding of where we came from. My cousins came over in the evening and we all went out for a Friday night fish fry, another wonderful Wisconsin tradition. I had perch and potato pancakes and washed it down with a couple of brandy old fashioneds. It was a really good family day there in West Bend.
On Saturday my uncle wanted to take me out to the Shalom Wildlife Sanctuary out in the country. We made our way out there early to beat some of the crowds and it was a beautiful day to spend outside. My uncle doesn’t get around as well as he used to, so we rented a golf cart to explore in as it is a pretty big facility. There were a lot of animals out there from badgers and coyotes to tigers and bears. Most of them had pretty sizeable enclosures to move around in which was good. We were wandering around Shalom for a solid three hours and I was really glad I went. Afterwards we went for lunch at the Random Lake Pizzeria in the town of Random Lake. This is a terrific place as the owner had a great personality and obviously really enjoys running his restaurant. They served up some Milwaukee-style pizza which has a really thin, crispy crust and while the pizza is round it is cut into square pieces. After lunch we headed down the road to the Cedar Valley Cheese Store which is just a wonderful place full of meats and cheeses and any number of Wisconsin delicacies. I was glad we went after lunch instead of before as I was able to restrain myself from buying everything in sight.
From there we headed back to West Bend and I said my goodbyes to everybody and got on the road. It certainly was a wonderful week of connecting with that side of my family and I really hope to be back sooner rather than later. I decided a night by Lake Michigan was in order, so I headed east to the little lakeside town of Port Washington. Port Washington is a cute, old, maritime town with a quaint and walkable downtown area and some lovely beaches as well. I drove up on the hill to get some nice views out over the lake and then wandered around town for a while. I stopped into a couple of places for a beer, but was pretty tired from my week in West Bend so I called it an early night.
Sunday morning was absolutely beautiful out, and I took a nice long walk around town before heading down the road. I went up to the old 1860 lighthouse on the hill and strolled along the waterfront as well. When I finally took off, I headed south to the gym for a good workout and then continued on to Milwaukee. On the way, I decided to stop at a place called Kopp’s for a frozen custard as that was one of the places my dad used to take us when I was a kid. Purely by coincidence, my cousins were there when I walked in so we had a nice bonus visit over our custard. They recommended the beer garden at Estabrook Park on a Sunday afternoon so I dropped in there for a cold one and some live music. I had a nice afternoon nap in the park and then wandered over to Foundation, Milwaukee’s storied tiki bar, for a cocktail. It’s a small place, but it’s been a while since I got my tiki on and I enjoyed being there. From there I wandered up the road to The Uptowner, the oldest continuously operated bar in the city. It was originally built by Joseph Schlitz as a “tied house” which meant that it was owned by the brewery, but was leased out to an operator who served Schlitz beer to the community. There were once 54 Schlitz tied houses in Milwaukee and many of those buildings are still standing if you look for them. There was a cool blues band playing at The Uptowner, so I stayed for a beer before making my way back downtown. I had a great parking spot which I had used last week over by Schlitz Park and from there I could walk into the heart of the city. I went for a nice long wander and stopped in for a couple of beers before calling it a night.
I had a lazy Monday morning but finally made it to the gym and then headed over to the library for a bit. In the afternoon I went over to have a look at the Juneau Avenue Harley-Davidson plant. William Harley and Arthur Davidson lived on the same street in West Milwaukee growing up. One night in 1901, they went to a Vaudeville show and were fascinated when one of the performers cruised across the stage on a three-wheeled contraption powered by a one-cylinder engine. They went home and started tinkering and attached a small engine to a bicycle. It worked, but wasn’t as fun as they had imagined it would be – they were going to need a bigger engine and a bigger frame to mount it on. By 1903, they had a pretty good working model, but Davidson’s father was tired of all of the noise coming from his basement. He made them move outside, so they built a 10’x15’ wooden shed and Harley-Davidson Motor Company was born. By 1910, their motorcycles had become a real hit and they needed a bigger facility, so they built the plant there on Juneau Avenue, a stone’s throw from where they had grown up. It’s still there today. In 2019, Harley-Davidson’s five millionth motorcycle rolled out of the factory in York, Pennsylvania, a real accomplishment in my opinion. It’s one of Milwaukee’s and one of America’s most iconic and recognizable brands and it was cool to see where it all started. Interestingly enough, it’s also right across the street from the Miller Brewing Company, another pretty famous Milwaukee brand.
After wandering around there for a while, I decided it was time to move on. I stopped for a custard at Gilley’s, Wisconsin’s oldest custard stand and another of my dad’s favorites, and then hit the road south. I didn’t go too far, just down to Racine in the southeast corner of the state. I made a quick stop at Horlick Field, the onetime home of the Racine Belles of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League made famous by the movie A League of Their Own. The Racine Belles won the first league championship game, held in 1943, and would win it again in 1946. Today the stadium is home to Racine Raiders, a semi-professional football team. I was happy to find it still standing. By that time the sun was on its way down, so I just headed downtown, found a place to park and got some shuteye.
Yesterday I hit the gym and then made a beeline for Chicago. I found a nice, shaded parking spot in the Graceland West neighborhood and then caught the train into town. It’s only $5 for an all-day pass for any Chicago Transit Authority bus or train, which is an incredible deal. I stopped for a delicious Chicago hotdog at Byron’s near the Sheridan station and then made my way down to Chinatown. From there it was only a ten minute walk over to what was once Record Row, home of the infamous Chess Records label and recording studio. I’ve wanted to get to Chess for a long time and I was really glad to finally make it there. Chess was once owned by Leonard and Phillip Chess, two Polish immigrants who had bought out Aristocrat Records in 1950. They recorded some of the most famous blues artists of all time including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter. Chuck Berry recorded Johnny B. Goode at Chess Records. Bo Diddly, Etta James, Buddy Guy – the list goes on from there. When the Rolling Stones came to the U.S. in 1964, they knew they wanted to record at Chess because it was the label all of their top influences were on. It’s a pretty cool story and the tour I took was excellent. Our guide knew so many great stories from her years running the place and even got a call from Chuck Berry’s grandson while we were together.
From there I went out and walked around Chinatown for a bit. Then I headed back to the city center and went for a hot Chicago beef sandwich from Al’s. My favorite way to get one is to have it dipped in the au jus, which makes the bread wet but if it’s done right the sandwich still holds together. Just down the street from Al’s, hidden in an alleyway, is Three Dots and a Dash, Chicago’s legendary tiki bar. This was the last must-see tiki bar in the country for me and one that I’ve been trying to get to for years. Three Dots is much more subdued than many of the other tiki bars around the country, but not in a bad way. They are still serving their cocktails in signature tiki mugs, which I appreciate as part of the fun. It was the middle of the day, so I only had two and both were really excellent.
From there I wandered out into Millennium Park to see Buckingham Fountain and Cloud Gate (aka “The Bean”). Then I stopped at the corner of Adams and Michigan to see the old starting point of Route 66, America’s most iconic and storied road. Opened a century ago, Route 66 traveled 2,448 miles through nine states on its way to the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California. It carried migrants west during the Dust Bowl era, a story told by John Steinbeck in his book The Grapes of Wrath. After WWII, returning GIs packed up their families and headed west on vacation, being beckoned into hotels and diners by glowing neon signs. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and the building of the interstates made roads like Route 66 obsolete. It was officially decommissioned in 1985. You can still travel much of the road today, but now it is Historic Route 66. I’ve driven many sections of Route 66 over the years and been to its endpoint on the Santa Monica Pier many times, but I had never been to its start-point. That was another check off of my list yesterday. From there I wandered along the river for a bit and then came back to Wrigleyville for a couple of beers, but I was pretty tired from a long day of walking and slept really well last night.
This morning I found a parking lot with a grocery store and a Planet Fitness and I thought that was a great find. I bought a few things at the store and had some breakfast and then went to the gym. I was quite pleased with that until I walked out and found someone trying to tow my van away. It was a good thing I got there when I did. They said they had paged it out in the grocery store and I just shrugged my shoulders and pointed to the gym. They put my van down, but to a healthy barrage of choice words I don’t use very often. I was really mad, especially since I had patronized not one, but both of the businesses the lot was for. I did go back to the gym to tell them and the lady seemed concerned as she was parked in the lot, too. Welcome back to the big city, eh?
I’ve calmed down a bit now and won’t let it ruin my day. I’m going to finish off this post and then head back into Chicago for the afternoon. I accomplished the main things I wanted to do yesterday, so today may be a more relaxed jaunt around town. Tomorrow I will start pushing towards home. I’m going to take the northern route as far as I can to try and stay with the cooler weather and then I’ll probably push south through Ohio to Pittsburgh. I do hope to spend my last night before going home where I spent my first night of this journey 9 years ago – in Harpers Ferry W.V. This may be the last run I have with my Shadow Catcher before finding her a new home, and I like it when things go full circle. We’ll see how things go, but in all likelihood, I’ll be writing to you from home next week. I’m looking forward to it. Have a wonderful week out there, and I’ll see you in September. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike
