Milwaukee

‘Give us any chance we’ll take it

Give us any rule we’ll break it

We’re gonna make our dreams come true

Doing it our way’

I hope you have the Laverne and Shirley theme song now firmly fixed in your head.

Those of us who are old enough to remember the show now do. 😜

I’ve been singing it for 24 hours.

I don’t associate Milwaukee with Happy Days.

I associate it with Laverne and Shirley.

As it is we found Fonz, aka Henry Winkler, right there on the river, MoD had to remind me this was Happy Days country; Laverne and Shirley were a spin-off show, Happy Days being infinitely more popular.

But the singing monster inside me sings what it wants.

Looks just like the Fonz. The bronze one. Not MoD

We like Milwaukee, the few hours we spent there before heading off to Green Lake.

We have of course, decided to come back after the wedding. Spend a few days here.

Go to the Harley Davidson museum.

Milwaukee is where that all started. In 1903 to be ‘pacific’.

That’s my inner Kath & Kim coming out.

Milwaukee is also home of Briggs & Stratton.

Well Wauwatosa, to be precise. Just down the road.

Where our bride grew up.

Home to some of the larger brewers.

Pabst was just up the road from our hotel.

Summerfest, one of the worlds most famous music festivals is in Milwaukee.

Did you know there was some thought of renaming Milwaukee to Juneau, after its co-founder Solomon Juneau?

That would never do.

We needed to leave town around midday so this a.m. we had a leisurely wake up at 7am, (no jet lag from these two puppies) a pretty decent breakfast at the hotel – yes there was actually fresh REAL fruit – then headed out for a walk around town.

It was already 22 degrees. Loving myself silly.

Our hotel was fairly close to the city centre so we wandered around to get a feel for the city. Well MoD did. I was looking for a latte.

We were staying in the Third Ward Brewery District but decided to head away from that, towards Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, and from there headed towards the river and the theatre district.

Along the river is where we found the great Henry Winkler, looking very much like he did when he played Arthur Herbert Fonzerelli . The Bronz Fonz was created by American Artist Gerald P Sawyer. From my memory of Happy Days and 1984, the Fonz is pretty lifelike and actually pretty much the right height.

Well in my 5 foot 2 inch world.

Once we took those mandatory Fonz pics, we headed towards Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes.

Right on the shore they have built the Milwaukee Art Museum in the shape of a boat. It’s pretty cool. Alas we were too early and it wasn’t open as yet.

The only people who seemed to be around were those disturbed individuals who love to run. And construction workers.

Cars were few and far between, certainly no traffic jams at 9.30 in the morning.

Desperately in search of coffee and with the shops seemingly hidden, I was starting to think this place had a Houston underground.

We found the ‘world’ famous Public Market and strolled through that. They were just setting up. To be fair we have been a little spoilt in Christchurch with the Riverside Market.

Eventually we found a couple of young business type gentlemen who suggested we go to the iconic Pfister Hotel, where a Starbucks was conveniently tucked into the cafe, however they said if we went there we HAD to look up. For good reason.

The Pfister Hotel is an iconic Milwaukee institution built in the 1890’s. Completed in 1893 it was designated in 1972 as a landmark of the city in recognition of its architectural and historical significance to the community. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places.

MoD remembered he had been there once before to a construction party. Apparently the ‘boys’ were a little wild by the end of the night. Not MoD of course, and not quite the establishment for that shenanigans.

We did ask the barista, who made a pretty acceptable singleshotsoylatte, why there was no one around and she told us that week days were quiet around these parts, but weekends buzzed.

We will miss the buzz but I’m thinking with 200+ at the wedding we will have our own little buzz going on.

After coffee we headed back to the river, which is really a pretty little spot, and found a cute party boat which naturally I had to hop in for a pic.

Almost time to head out so we took a slight detour heading up past our hotel to the brewery section.

My feet were killing me by this time (10km on the clock) but it was worth it to see the beautiful Pabst brewery building.

I actually thought it was a church or a rather large old school.

There were a lot of German immigrants in Milwaukee and its beer history began in 1841 when one immigrant, Reuthlisberger, opened a brewery at Walker’s Point. The city became renowned as the beer capital of the world.

Pabst was started by Jacob Best in 1848 and was taken over by his son some time later. His son-in-law bought into the business and in 1889 changed it to his own name. Pabst at one point was the second largest brewery in the United States. By the 1930’s they were also making cheese but Kraft bought that side of the business out.

We may go for a little tour when we come back.

This a.m. it was too early for a tour, too early for beer.

Not that you would ever find me drinking that stuff 🤮