Mother's Day: Urban Hike--the Garden Again

We hiked at the Garden again, for Mother's Day. Paul's sister Mary was in town and Pete joined us.  Here are the Reeds in front of one of the Chinese Lantern installations. Artisans were at work on Mother's Day.

 I'm not really a fan of the Lantern Festival, but this display constructed of cups and saucers greet you at the entrance to the garden.

 These sheep, however, are here year round.

Feeding the carp. Fun for the Reeds and their Mom even when they are upwards of 45.

The Reeds go through the Victorian Maze, then brunch at Rooster on Grand.

Urban Hike: Last day in Milwaukee, Sunday, May 3, 2015

 We returned to the Lakefront to visit the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has been built to look like a giant cruise ship. Most of the artwork is packed up and stored away right now as the two other buildings are being renovated in the next year.

A vineyard downtown.

Inside the building.

That Chihuly. What a racket. Still, I enjoy looking at them.

 The Special Exhibit was "Inspiring Beauty:  50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair", which highlighted the work of Eunice W. Johnson.

 The Museum of Decorative Arts is on the Milwaukee Museum Mile. It's housed in a mansion that once belonged to the family of AO Smith, who got their start in business with a bicycle parts shop that eventually morphed into a billion dollar global water technology corporation.  The family donated the mansion to the city in 1976. It's just one of the houses on the Museum Mile that stretches down to the shores of Lake Michigan below.

We ended our last day with tapas, wood-fired pizza, and semifreddo at Wolf Peach, which sits atop a hill in Walker's Point. This was the view from our table.

Urban Hike: The River Walk, Milwaukee

 Basing my opinion solely on old Laverne and Shirley reruns, I thought Milwaukee was going to be a dank, industrial beer town. More depressing than St. Louis because of cold weather. I didn't envision the progressive, aesthetically pleasing, artistically developed city we found.  The Riverwalk through the Third Ward was yet another walkable, bikable route that takes one past shops and restaurants, many who have quaint balconies overlooking The Milwaukee River.

Urban Hikes: Milwaukee (Sunday, May 3, 2015) Around the Ambassador Hotel

Learning to use the zoom. This guy was walking across North 25th Street around 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning.

 Paul made the call. Let's stay until Monday, taking a long weekend after the Replacements Show at the Eagle Ballroom. He also recalled that Jeffrey Dahmer was the Milwaukee Cannibal. Turns out, after some compulsive I-phone use, that Dahmer's dwelling was located only blocks from where we stayed--and he purportedly committed one of the murders at the Ambassador in 1987.

 With our coffees in hand, Paul and I walked to the site where the Oxford Apartments once stood at 924 S. 25th Street on Sunday morning. The building containing Dahmer's "house of horrors" was torn down just a few years after his arrest. Now there's just a vacant lot on a corner. Internet articles claim that victims' families do not want any memorials constructed and that the city forbids any kind of development other than a parking lot on the site where the building once stood.

 Of course, we were cautioned by the front desk clerk not to walk to far in the neighborhood around The Ambassador. Inwardly, we scoffed. It resembles Carondelet, where we live in St. Louis, so we felt pretty at home. We were approached by a few panhandlers and Paul gave them change. Just like in Carondelet, spectacular houses such as the ones above stand next to the boarded up shells of old dwellings. A man was painting his home on this street, and pictured below are the details on a giant house across the street-- "a German mansion" according to the next store neighbor, who was hanging out smoking in his front yard-- that belongs to "a dentist and an art dealer."

Still haven't figured out the light functions on my new camera, but couldn't resist talking a photo of this porch and solitary daffodil in bloom.

Why we came: The Replacements, right at the Eagle Ballroom across the street from the Ambassador.

The venue, across the street from the Ambassador Hotel.  The top floor houses the Eagle Ballroom, the biggest venue in the building.  The archways are open so that concert goers look outside while enjoying a drink from the bar just outside the ballroom's door.

Picture of the Ambassador in the hotel lobby--as it stood in 1937.  It was built in 1928 and later restored.

Art Deco elevator door in the lobby, reminscient of Gatsby.

Kind of a cool shot after the show. I saw another concert goer taking it first with his phone.

Urban Hikes: Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Saturday, May 2, 2015)

Milwaukee is an awesomely walkable city.  We arrived Friday evening, had a few drinks at the hotel bar, Envoy and then after perusing Yelp, walked around the corner to Conway's, a fun but divey bar. Saturday morning found us walking the Lakefront Trail with Starbucks coffee and scones we purchased in the hotel coffee shop.  We attribute the 70 degree temperatures this weekend to, for once, good fortune. What's really refreshing, however, is that the temperature drops ten to twenty degrees when you walk close to the lake.

 Paul, holding our coffees.  The lakefront was crowded with people finishing a Breast Cancer Benefit Walk, tourists and native "Milwaukeens".  Truly, this city is a mini-Chicago.

 Car Wreck on a pole outside the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Vietnam War Memorial on the Lakefront

   Bikes on Brady Street. You just put 3 dollars in the box and there's your transportation for a few hours!  We lunched at Thai-namyte and peeked in the shops.

Quick Cardio at Rockwood Reservation, Sunday, April 26

Spent the day working in Pat's yard and cleaning my own house, so there wasn't time for a long hike. In search of some quick cardio before dinner, I drove to Rockwood Reservation and took the trail up the hill behind the visitor center, which is a long incline that includes wooden stairs as well. Then hiked the Trail Among the Trees.

Easter: The Botanical Garden

Easter 2015 turned out to be warm and sunny. Before breakfasting with family and friends at the 9th Street Abbey, Paul, Pat and I did an hour or so walk at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Shaw.
At first Pat wasn't too interested in the idea of the first come, first serve wheelchair, but  that soon changed after she was able to look around.

The Turkish Garden addition, new circa 2011