A Few Afternoon Stops in Wisconsin

From Minnesota, we headed farther east to Wisconsin for stops in both Madison and Milwaukee.

Madison
It was about five hours to Madison, so we ate lunch on the road and got there in the mid-afternoon. From Google maps, it looks like Madison is going to be really cool because it's right next to the University of Wisconsin and also in-between two lakes: Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. Apparently they like the letter M here. But, it was a little less cool in real life than in our imaginations. It looks like a city that is up and coming and trying to revive their downtown. There were some neat streets and attractions, and they made good use of the land bordering the lakes, but it didn't have the fun feel of say Chapel Hill, another college town (but of course we're biased since our alma mater is there!).

coolest area we saw near the campus

We walked to both waterfronts, to the capitol building, and through downtown and part of the campus's outskirts. The waterfronts are quite different - one has a paved viewing area right near municipal buildings, and the other borders a big grassy park.

If you remember from the news, this capitol's steps are where the Wisconsin protests about state employees' rights and unions happened.

Milwaukee
After an afternoon in Madison, we headed east to Milwaukee. We hit some traffic and ended up getting to our hotel, just on the outskirts of the city, around 7pm. We decided to save our explorations for the next day and just got a quick dinner at the mall's food court across the road.

It was a pretty low-key night and a welcome respite from the constant going and doing. We just took it easy, and we got up early to use the fitness center. At the beginning of our trip, we were diligent about running every other day... but by Milwaukee, it had been a full month since we'd run. Tom went to the weight room, and I thought I'd just do an "easy" three-mile run on the treadmill. I felt great while running, but for the next few days, I was literally more sore than I'd been after running the NYC marathon in November. It was quite the reality check that I'd lost a lot of running endurance! Walking around Milwaukee (and later Chicago) was not easy with my sore legs. Tom kept laughing at me because I looked funny hobbling around, but the best part was that his abs were sore from the weight room, so then he'd be in pain from laughing at me. Priceless.

So we drove into downtown Milwaukee around lunchtime and ate at a sub shop called Capriotti's. It got great reviews on Yelp and was full of business people on lunch breaks, so we knew it would satisfy. The subs were gigantic and delicious! In one apparently thorough poll, one of Capriotti's subs, the Bobbie, was voted the best sandwich in America.

After lunch, we walked along the city's riverwalk which is full of artwork and landmarks.

We also started noticing the big German impact on the city through it's architecture, food, and libations. There is a famous sausage factory here - Usinger's - and there are great beer halls and breweries with a variety German beers (and barmaids wearing lederhosen!). We passed on the sausage, but we stopped at The Old German Beer Hall for some Hofbrau Munchen beer.

From here, we walked across the city to its border at Lake Michigan. It's a pretty cool city with unique architecture, and they've used the lakefront for memorials and museums while also preserving a large portion of it as a park. We walked around here for a bit and then decided to try and beat rush hour traffic out of the city.

 Up next: Chicago!