Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Here in the beer capital of America and I'm drinking water???? What's wrong with this picture. Today's pictures are all from the magnificent Art Museum. The architecture alone is worth the trip!

1. Approaching the museum along with 15,000 others in a charity walk/run

2. Incredibly beautiful grounds

3. The beatiful Burke Brise Soleil sun screen

4. The sun screen closed

5. Judi and Lee watching the sun screen move

It was hard to get up this morning after a late night out on Door County. But onward and upward we go! Actually I-94 south to Milwaukee is how we go. The freeway heads due south from Green Bay to Milwaukee along Lake Michigan. Actually I can't attest to the veracity of that since Lee drove, Judi navigated, and I sat in the back sleeping. I'm not sure we could even see Lake Michigan from the freeway for when I awoke we were approaching Milwaukee at a crawl and Judi was listening to the radio and trying to take notes on the I-94 closure and detour.

It seemed like a very slow moving parking lot and we yearned for the old days in South Dakota! But we took a chance and got off the freeway and found ourselves headed in the direction of the Milwaukee Art Museum. We were feeling pretty smug until we began to encounter barricades set up at many intersections. We were getting close to the Museum and could see the giant sun screen off in the distance, and finally asked one of Milwaukee's finest how we could get to our destination and what was going on???? Seems we were encountering 15,000 runners, joggers, and walkers in "Al's Run for a Cure", not to be confused with Al Johnson of the roof grazing goats! So now what do we do? The Gotta Go Girls looked pitiful and the police officer asked, "Wanta park here?" We said sure, so he stopped traffic while Lee made a U turn, took down a couple of barricades and directed us to a parking spot at the curb. Even though it was a 2 hour space he said just come back an run the car back and forth a bit and we'd be fine!

And then we walked against the tide of Al's people and made our way to the entrance to the Museum in time to stand on the pedestrian bridge and see the sun screen close and then open. It was beautiful with Lake Michigan in the background and a clear blue sky. Breathtaking might be the word.

Surprise, surprise, we found the restaurant and had a wonderful lunch in very civilized surroundings of linen napkins and a wine list! We don't mess around. After lunch we agreed to meet in a couple of hours and we were off. The exhibits were fabulous and one of my favorites was the chair gallery. We could actually try out replicas of very famous chairs byFrank Lloyd Wright, Eames, etc. It is a first rate museum and we were weary after about 3 hours.

Found our car safe and sound with no parking ticket, thank you, Mr. Policeman. Drove out to the airport area where we checked into another Holiday Inn Express. The plan was to go back into town and have dinnner at an old German restaurant but I crashed, Judi dozed off for a bit and then she an Lee headed out for a quick bite nearby. I chose to stay in, hit our snack bag and just relax a bit. We are all headed for bed with plans to drive around the downtown area of Milwaukee in the morning and then on to Chicago. Windy City, here we come!

Love, the Gotta Go Girls