Welcome to Wisconsin.
This wasn't the first announcement for Mr. Schnagglemeister I heard while I was walking through General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. Before that, there was a rambling announcement that he should meet his party on the second floor outside the hardware store. I realized later the über-Wisconsin announcer said the Harley store.
My long-weekend in Wisconsin was full of Wisconsin goodness, but being vegan that means no dairy. But it does mean lots of beer. And The Fonz. LJ, my Packer Friend, and I did a quick two-day tour of Milwaukee before heading to Green Bay for the Packers-Bears game. Which was awesome, by the way.
When LJ came to see me last year so we could attend the Packers-Seahawks game in Seattle, she was supposed to bring me some sort of housewarming present from her and JC, but she forgot it. I got it this time. What was it? Holy Toast: The Miracle Bread Stamper. And a temporary Jesus tattoo that says "King of Kings." I slapped that bubble-gum machine tattoo on as fast as I could. Almost a week later it is still there. Believe me, there is part of me that is afraid something might happen to me and I will be identified by a King of Kings tattoo...... which means no one would know it was me.
Day one: Beer. Sprecher Beer. We did the Sprecher tour. I'd never done a brewery tour and was looking forward to it. While in library school, friends and I would often drink Sprecher Amber in the Rathskellar (in Memorial Union) after class. I also like their root beer a lot. The tour was kind of boring, though. But... why go on a brewery tour? The beer samples. Sprecher gives you a tasting glass and you get four samples. Given that their beers run from 8% - 10%+ alcohol content, I was cool with that. I tried the Pub Ale, the IPA, the Amber, and the Oktoberfest. I liked the IPA the best. The Oktoberfest was smoother than I had thought it would be, but was good. LJ got some wussy beer that I thought tasted like water.
Creepy foxes at the Sprecher Brewery. Weird.
Tasty beerWe stocked up on Sprecher soda and beer before heading out to make dinner. And watch America's Next Top Model.
I have one thing to say about ANTM: "I was born with a bloody eyeball. When I was younger my nickname was bloody eyeball." Awesome.
Day two: vegan breakfast, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Comedy Sportz.
The vegan breakfast was decent. I had the vegan biscuits and gravy with a tofu scramble. I had planned on getting vegan pancakes but changed my mind. I wish I'd gone with the pancakes. The vegan mushroom gravy was good. The biscuit was dry and the tofu scramble was odd. I can't put my finger on it, but something was odd. But they did have vegan red velvet cupcakes.
Oh, but I had this amazing drink for breakfast: a Sconnie-mosa ("sconnie" being a nickname for someone from Wisconsin). Cranberry wine, champagne, and orange juice. As I told LJ, the more I drank of it, the better it got. Plus, I was drinking it from a straw and I hadn't eaten yet. So my next comment was, "Nothing like getting drunk before breakfast." Let me say it again: Welcome to Wisconsin.
I did think of Sweet Pickles when I saw they had offered a Bloody Mary with a Miller chaser. Mom told me about these when I described Sweet Pickles' disgusting Beery Mary. Gross.
We hit the Milwaukee Art Museum and I was impressed. The building itself is nice and their folk art collection was amazing. I went through the museum chronologically and LJ said she had never seen anyone do that before. I couldn't understand why.
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Can someone tell me who did this?.jpg)
Or this?
Or this? Or any of them (except Finster?) Excuse the quality, my iPhone took better quality than my camera sans flash.
This looks like the Stephan Family Christmas.
Howard Finster. Love him.I lean towards 20th-century art, usually in the '40-60s time period. I am sure my art history friends could give a better explanation than that... I'll let them do that if they want.
Then we went in search of the Bronze Fonz. And found it. You know what? The Fonz is short.
AaaayyyyyThis was followed by some improv at Comedy Sportz where I not only had several (three? four?) Spotted Cows, but I found vegan Morningstar burgers. I also didn't know that Milwaukee was the home of the original Comedy Sportz.
Mmmmm.... Spotted CowIt was a good overview of Milwaukee. I'd never really spent much time there and it is a nice and some up-and-coming areas.
The next day was the reason I was there: Packer football. It was awesome in so many ways, but I will go into that later.
2 comments:
Who knew Wisconsin was such fun?!?!
A.) I suspect that, by definition, a tofu scramble is always going to be odd.
B.) I love drinking alcohol through straws and without eating!
C.) Don't knock the Beery Mary... it's like a boozy salad in a glass! But no Miller.
D.) The painting of slices of pie has got to be by Wayne Thibaud (whose work is awesome). Check him out!
I like tofu scrambles, but this one had an odd spice in it, but I couldn't place it.
There were a lot of other paintings I liked at the art museum. We spent several hours wandering through the collection and I was impressed. They also had the Infinity Room. A room of a bunch of little lights that went on for, you know, infinity.
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