Day 41: I’m moving to Wisconsin

Hey y’all it’s Dustin! Since we only bikes 12 miles today we had a lot of time for shenanigans, especially considering we are in Milwaukee! This morning we slept in a bit and Liz had bought us some pastries to try and suggested a bakery a short walk away for breakfast. The pastries were amazing - and so was the bakery - We all got sandwiches on fresh baked bread, and I tried a London fog for the first time (earl grey tea latte with foam) and it was pretty good! Julia thinks it tasted like dirty water though so who know. I also grabbed an order of monkey bread because I had it all the time in college and it was one of my favorites! I’d tell you how it stacked up but as I sit here at 11:11pm I still haven’t eaten it - I guess there is always tomorrow morning. 

As we were eating Leo and Pat were already on their way to the place we are staying tonight, we got started shortly after in an attempt to meet them there about the same time, but two miles in we got a text saying they got there and we still had 10 miles left so that plan went pretty poorly… so we took our time and rode through some parts of Milwaukee and then got to the waterfront where we are staying about an hour later, just as Leo and Pat were heading out. 

We stayed for a bit and had lunch and chatted with who we were staying with for a bit. It’s always so interesting to me how people are so generous to us bikers and how random the connections we are utilizing are. Like tonight we are staying with some random guy’s (pat) cousin's husband’s parents (I think… it was pretty confusing when he told me the first, second, and third times). Anyway - they are amazing, retired teachers who fed us a great lunch and drove us into downtown Milwaukee. 

We did a lot today so I’ll go through it pretty quick. First we went through an annual milwaukee celebration called bastille days - inspired by of course the French - where they had a whole park and roads blocked off for a bunch of shops and food stands and musicians to play - so we got a beer and enjoyed the music for a bit. Brian tried his first beignet because we forced him to - although it wasn’t a traditional one so I guess it doesn’t really count. After that we walked about and I went into Saint John’s cathedral and it was huge! And beautiful! 

After that we made our way back down to the waterfront where we spent a couple hours in the milwaukee art museum where we got to see a number of cool pieces:

After walking through the museum for a couple hours I began to feel like I was going to fall over and perish - from hunger - so we left the museum and walked down to this cool place called Safehouse. It was a spy themed restaurant and bar that you need to give a password to enter. Unfortunately we didn’t know the password, so instead they gave us a test to see if we were indeed friendly spies. The test included giving three karate poses while yelling hiiiiyaaa really loudly (inside the bar everyone can see this via cctv) so after we passed the test and the wall opened for us to enter the bar we got a brief applause for our exuberant and expertly conducted karate form. Everyone hide your wooden boards because I will break them. So we got the cheese curds of course because we are in americas dairy land and also I got some Mac and cheese while the others got burgers. I also got a milwaukee style old fashion which apparently uses brandy instead of bourbon - but they then asked me if I wanted it sweet or sour - and I was pretty darn confused because I’ve always thought that there was only bourbon, vermouth, a sugar cube, and maybe some bitters in an old fashion - but hey who am I to tell the locals how to make the official drink of milwaukee? 

After eating we tried to use the bathroom but the door only had a brick wall behind it:

So we looked around and found the real bathroom to use that. After that we headed out and walked down to the public market where I think I actually spent my entire life’s savings… I got wine at a wine bar (a Syrah/Pinot noir blend which is really odd but it kinda worked), a Bloody Mary with a lobster tail and oysters at an oyster bar, and then sprang for some chocolate in the shape of the state of Wisconsin for dessert!

After the market we again went to the bathroom and this time it was actually a bathroom. After that we walked along the river for a bit where I may have taken the best picture of Julia she’s ever had:

When then walked by bastille day again where it had become a REAL rager of a party compared to earlier in the day - so we stayed a bit longer - got another milwaukee style old fashion and danced the night away to some live music (a pretty high energy cover band called big spoon and a swing jazz band called extra crispy brass band). Pat and Leo also met up with us later in the night to get the band back together and enjoy the music.

All in all, today was a pretty amazing and successful ‘rest day’. We had a great time for a last day in Wisconsin and honestly this has been my absolute favorite state on the trip so far - so much so that I could see even moving here - and if you know how die hard I am about New Hampshire (hard not too since I talk about it every three seconds and every other thing I say is how New Hampshire doesn’t have sales tax or income tax) - you might actually think I suffered some kind of head trauma to be saying nonsense like that. Are we sure I didn’t fall of my bike? 🤷🏼‍♂️ but I’m all seriousness - Wisconsin has been an amazing time and I’m sad that we’ll be leaving tomorrow - but that just means we are that much closer to getting back home. Tomorrow we’ll take the ferry into Michigan and we’ll be off to the races again. Come back tomorrow to learn about what we did on our two and a half hour boat ride!

P.S. please enjoy this picture of me trying to do a one armed hand stand because I was feeling myself after those few drinks:

Peace!