Trader Family Road Trip – Day 6: Mil-WALK-ee

Waking up on Tuesday morning I had a plan in my head for the day. We had a list of things to see and some of them had time constraints. Here was the schedule:

Wake up, pack, eat breakfast and check out of the hotel by 10:30.
Drive to downtown and find the Fonz statue on the River Walk
Locate the ladybug building and take a pic
Head to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see the Burke Brise Soliel (BBS) open and close at noon
Eat lunch in a nearby cafe
Find the statue of Gambrinus and take a pic
Go to the Jelly Belly factory and do the tour (around 1)
Hit the road to Madison (by 2)

Busy, but doable, right? Well, sure if everything lined up. And of course, it didn’t.

We got off to a late start and didn’t leave the hotel until around 11 a.m. The breakfast there (Courtyard by Marriott) was FAB.U.LOUS! The only thing that would have made it better is if it had been continental. But alas it was not. Still, very yummy and the wait staff was top-notch. It cost $30 for the 3 of us, which was a little pricey, but not the most expensive breakie I’ve ever had on vacation. That honor goes to our hotel breakfast in NYC a few years ago. They had a buffet and we thought, great, that’ll be easy. When the bill came for $75 (for 2 of us), I peed all over myself! You better believe we went back for 3rds and 4ths to get our money’s worth. I even stuffed fruit in my purse. Lesson learned I guess!

Anywho, we got downtown around 11:30 and parked. That gave us 15 min. to find the Fonz, take pics, and find the ladybug building. We found Fonzie first:

“Like oh my God, Fonzie is so dreamie!” I love how I’m standing on my tip toes and then slouching over. I look like a giant…or a ragdoll!

“Eeeyyyy” CJ looks really thrilled here. I think he was trying not to look drunk and then ended up looking bored.

“Um, who’s this guy? Can we go now?” She didn’t quite get it but that’s ok. Someday she’ll look back at this picture and be thankful we brought her here! Or maybe not. Whatevs.

After that we started to walk in search of the ladybug building until we realized it was 11:45 and we had to get to the museum, park and be at the BBS building in 15 minutes! Eek! So we raced back to the car and sped away. We actually got to the BBS like 5 minutes early and had time to walk a bit. I had told CJ in the car that the only other time I was in Milwaukee was with a college friend who brought me home for Thanksgiving. As we were walking to the museum I saw 3 people walking toward us. I swear to you it was that college friend with her mom and hubbie. But in my head I was thinking it couldn’t be because she lives down south now. I almost shouted out to her but stopped myself because I didn’t want to look like an idiot. Now I wish I would have said something as I’m 99% sure it was her. (Sara – if that was you – doh!)

Anyway, at noon on the dot, the roof of the BBS started to close. It slowly lowered its wings down, down, down.

Here’s what it looks like fully opened:

Here’s the halfway point as it’s closing:

And here’s when it’s all the way closed:

It then opened back up again. The whole process took about 15 minutes. It was pretty cool. They play music during it too which was a nice surprise.

We were starving by that point and set out to find a place for lunch. Now, you’d think that in downtown Milwaukee, right off the lake, there would be a ton of restaurants. You would be wrong. We walked. And walked. And walked. For 90 MINUTES! There was nothing! No vendors, no fast food, no nothing. Just apartments and parks. Finally we said screw it and went back to the car. Turns out there is a cafe inside the science museum that is next door to the art museum. We ate in there. It was about 1:45 by now, I had blisters all over my feet, we were all hungry and tired and hot and therefore cranky. But dammit we had more to see!

We opted to forgo anything that involved walking so we drove to Jelly Belly as their tour was all done on a train.

The tour was a bit disappointing. You basically rode around the warehouse and watched videos on how they make the candy. We didn’t get to go in the factory itself, which is what I had hoped for. Still, it was free and we got Jelly Belly samples at the end so, all in all, not too bad!

We were tempted to head to Madison from there but it looked like Gambrinus might be on the way so we went in search of that. Turns out he is in the beer garden of a bar that was closed. But that didn’t stop us from sneaking a pic through the gate!

And of course we had to get one of CJ posing with him, er sort of.

I particularly like that CJ’s wearing an X-Men shirt. Looks like Wolverine could use a beer!

After that it was straight on to Madison, with a stop for dinner. After the lunch fiasco, we weren’t about to take chances on that one!

We got to Madison around 7 which gave us time to get Isabella to bed, soak in the hot tub and watch a movie. We got a suite complete with kitchenette and sitting area, which Munchkin thought was so cool. She had fun jumping on the bed (we only allow that on vacation… ;)), running around and pretending to talk on the phone.