Milwaukee is probably the biggest surprise for me so far on the trip – it’s a great city! I think Paul and I were both surprised by how clean and vibrant the downtown is, with lots of restaurants and museums. It’s got killer views of the lake and great parks. It also has a river running through it, and they’ve developed a beautiful river walk along the banks. In downtown it’s lined mainly by office buildings, shops and cafes, but as you get closer to the lake (the river presumably flows into the lake; more on that in a sec) it’s mainly condos, including a fair number of loft conversions. The river winds through the city, and the combination of the river walk lined with the café umbrellas and the Bavarian flavor of many of the older buildings gives the city a European flair. No, really. That’s why we were both surprised.
I finally put the running shoes on this morning and tried to explore the river walk. However, it doesn’t appear to be complete all the way to the lake yet. Despite changing sides a few times I finally came to a dead end and then just ran through the city to the lake.
The main reason I wanted to visit Milwaukee is to see the relatively new Milwaukee Art Museum building, which was designed by a Spaniard named Calatrava. It’s amazing! When closed up it looks like a ship pointing towards the lake. It has a bunch of arms along the main roof that open, and when they do the building looks like a bird. Unfortunately it only “flies” once a day at noon, so we missed that. Oh, and the museum is closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go in, but we looked in the windows and it seemed to be pretty cool.
The older architecture points to the city’s German roots, with lots of clock towers and castle-like shapes. There only appears to be one klunker on the skyline, a post-modern monstrosity that is off to the side and doesn’t really destroy any views of the city. We also drove by the new Miller Stadium, where the Brewers play baseball. The thing is all roof, which I guess makes sense if you’re a baseball fan in Milwaukee. However, it’s not much to look at. It is an engineering marvel, and a building that only an engineer could love (we have some churches like that in Arlington). We also drove out to the suburbs last night to see a great Frank Lloyd Wright building – the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. It’s a beautiful spaceship of a building, and we were able to drive all around it. It looks a little drab right (see what I did there?) now, but is getting a coat of paint. And of course it was closed.
Paul can tell you about food – we ate very well here yesterday. As per usual, I was stuffed like a pig again last night. We’re wrapping up the architecture leg of the road trip, and will soon be heading into the wild, wild west. One more day in civilization, with lots of driving today. However, the weather looks great again. But first, Mass in another beautiful cathedral!
Monday’s Stats
Miles: 145
Average MPG: 33.5
Rosary intention: The families that have/will be hosting us on the trip
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