2018 Great Lakes Trip – Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee Fairgrounds RV Park,
Milwaukee, WI
We next headed due north to
Milwaukee Wisconsin. Our dear friends Diana and Tom had really enjoyed it there
and advised us not to miss it, especially with the German heritage influence.
We camped at an RV Park in one of the suburbs of the city at the Wisconsin
State Fairgrounds. This RV park was nothing more than a parking lot setup, but
we did have water and electric. It was suitable for our needs because we would
spend most of our time in the city.
We decided to drive around the city
and get our bearings. We took our bicycles down to the Lake Michigan water
front and rode our bikes along the paved trail. From there we saw beautiful
views of the city skyline and were amazed at what a modern city this is. There
are several green space parks along the waterfront, marinas and beaches. The
weather was perfect and we really enjoyed our time on the lakefront. We also
stopped at a great beach side cafe and had a nice lunch.
The next day we drove to the
north side of the city and checked out an area called North Point. We visited an
historic lighthouse there and walked through a beautiful park. After that we
headed down into the city to a tour of the Miller Brewery. We found out that
Miller owns almost all the former American beer brands, including Kurt's
favorite, Icehouse. The Miller Company was ultimately bought out by Molson from
Canada. We were able to tour the brewery and check out the process and at the
end we sampled several of the beers at a nice outdoor beer garden. Many of the
buildings were original historic buildings that are still used for production
and others were more for touring.
While in the city we found out
about the traveling beer gardens, so of course we had to try those out. The
traveling beer gardens were organized by the local craft breweries and the
county. Beautiful, green County Parks were used as the event locations and
local breweries would set up to sell their beer. There were food trucks and on
certain nights live music. Each brewery would be at each location for a week.
So on one evening we went to a traveling beer garden in McCarty Park and then a
couple of nights later we went to another beer garden in Grant Park. This was
so much fun as the beer gardens are set up with community tables where you
would sit with other people, have some brews and meet friendly people. Thanks
to the Germans for this tradition.
One evening we went downtown to
the Lakeshore Brewery which was one of the biggest craft breweries in the city.
They also have a wonderful restaurant. We did the brewery tour, which was quite
unique, with a really funny young man who narrated the whole process from start
to finish, including some historical background on the brewery. During this
tour we drank beer at the beginning and throughout the tour, then we were ready
to sit down for dinner. We were there for the traditional Friday night fish fry,
which turned out to be excellent food. We also sat outside after dinner on the
Riverwalk and had our final sample beers. It was a really fun evening and we
enjoyed the tour.
We spent another day again down
on the Lakeshore riding our bicycles from one end to the other. On the southern
end we rode through Lakeshore State Park. From there we again saw the beautiful
skyline and got up close with the Milwaukee Art Museum, which is a very unique
architectural design. This modern designed building has winged shape flaps that
open and close at certain times of the day to shade the building. We never got
to see the wings move, but I am including a video here at this link to show you
how it looks. https://youtu.be/eGQJPkQL0fU?t=61
The beaches along the Lakeshore
were packed as it was a gorgeous weather for the weekend and it was very hot in
the city. Being on the lakeside with the winds coming over the cold water was like a huge air conditioner blowing. It
was a really fun day and we truly enjoyed the city again.
On our last day there we had
planned to go back into the city, but there was a major electrical outage
throughout the Milwaukee area. We couldn't leave our dogs unattended in
the camper without AC. This time we were stuck at the camper without AC in the
extreme heat wave that had moved across the whole state. The temperature was
around 95 degrees with a heat index over 100. The power actually came back on
after 3 hours and then a couple of hours later and went off again so it was a
pretty miserable day our last day there.
I have to say I'm not really a
beer drinker, but I did drink more beer there in the few days than I have in
probably a year. Despite the power outage we really did enjoy Milwaukee,
the wonderful atmosphere and the friendly people. We truly enjoyed our
time in Milwaukee.
Our tour of Wisconsin continues!
