Our road trip to Milwaukee began at 8:30am on Friday morning... (even though the plan was to leave at 7am).
It was an easy drive, a pretty drive, and a drive with many of Wisconsin's finest rest stops!
In all, it took us WAY less time then Google Maps said it would take - I think it was quoted at 6 hours and 12 minutes or something - so I rounded up to 7 hours because I figured in P&P breaks (poop and pee, for reference) along with some traffic and other crap you never expect. We made it to Milwaukee in 5.5 hours, we only stopped at Rest Stops rather than exiting and using a gas station for P&P. Wisconsin has some of the cleanest rest stops I've ever seen, probably some of the only rest stops I've ever seen too, so take that with a grain of salt.
Alright, so off the bat, I assumed Milwaukee was going to be ghetto and dirty - like Detroit. The route we took in neither confirmed or denied this thought, so we'd have to wait and see. Turns out we were pretty wrong.
We arrived at our hotel, got settled in, and then left right away to find some grub. When Steve and I travel we never (EVER) eat at chain restaurants, especially ones that we'd be able to have in the greater Twin Cities area. So we walked to this placed called
Cubanitas and ordered A cuban to share along with guac (served with plantain chips - YUM!!) and some ceviche. All the food was amazing! Steve got a beer and I had a Mojito, yum :)
We then walked across the street to
Charro -
Central and South American Cuisine. We wanted margaritas and they came through for us in that department! The bar tender was pretty amazing, offering up lots of tips and chit-chat about Milwaukee as well as just making general small talk. We ended up with 2 margaritas each at Charro's. Here are a few pictures of inside the place - it was pretty swanky!
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| The bar |
We also sat and admired a Lamborghini while we sipped our second margaritas:
All this eating and drinking was just to kill time before making our way to
Miller Park to catch a Brewers game. They played the Phillies and pretty much got smoked. Miller Park is a nice ballpark, but FAR from Target Field. They don't really have any standing room to view the game, which Target Field offers everywhere. In fairness, the view from the seats is pretty killer. It's a nice park, and I'm glad I can say I've been there! We didn't stay the whole game as I was anxious to meet up with
Krysten and just to see more of Milwaukee.
We had the cabby drop us off at this bar called AJ Bombers - which was a pretty neat bar. A peanut bar, fully equip with shells on the floor and tracks that have bombs attached to them, they fill up a bomb with peanuts and send it down the track to your table - where it hits the target above the table and drops all the nuts into a dog food dish. Pretty awesome.
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| The track heading over to our table |
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| The bullseye it hits and drops the nuts |
Krysten is there with her friend Izzy - I'm drunk by this point (thanks to the pre-bar cocktails and beer at the game)... but I order a beer anyways. I didn't care for it (I'm not much for exploring beer, I know what I like and stick to it) so I give my beer to Steve and get a bloody mary instead. Then comes the shots of tequila, you know, because we're there celebrating Krysten's birthday... duh!
I tell you all of this because of the picture you're about to see.. I took it from Krysten's blog... and I guess I'm going to use the excuse that I was drunk, therefore my mouth just hangs open. I don't know. It's not flattering (though I was screaming something awesome, I'm sure) and a good representation of who I am.
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| Close your mouth whore! |
Seriously... I don't know what else to say. I'm obviously in a gang.
It was
clearly time to call it a night.
Saturday comes and it's time to get pumped for
Six Flags!! Get up, shower, eat a small breakfast and hit the road. Just under an hour later and we're there! We spent 5 hours riding roller coasters! There was one coasters that was closed and one that was in complete darkness, so majority didn't want to chance any food coming back up; we passed on that one - much to the chagrin of Krysten, who really wanted to give it her all!
The rides were AMAZING - so much fun, so fast, so scary (wooden coasters are pretty rickety), so PERFECTLY what I had hoped for. The staff at Six Flags was amazing too - they really get into their jobs :)
This is us at the beginning of the day:
After 6 Flags, we stopped up the road at
The Shanty - which is a restaurant I found on
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives (Food Network). It was pretty delish - especially since we had all been walking around going on rides all day, food was necessary!
Then the drive back was... tiresome. I was exhausted. I wanted sleep.
The plan was to go get cleaned up and take some time to do whatever we wanted (sleep, drink coffee, relax, etc.). Steve and I went cheese shopping (pre-shower) and I'm now in the process of planning a wonderful date night at home fully equip with wine tasting and cheese eating. We then met up with Krysten, Izzy, and 2 of Izzy's friends in the hotel lobby bar called
xyz. It's like just after 9pm at this point and one martini in, we decide to bar hop a bit. In retrospect I probably should have eaten something other than fish at The Shanty because it simply wasn't substantial enough to hold me over for the entire night. So at one of the bars Steve and I ordered a trio dip which came with tortilla chips, guac, salsa, and queso dips. That proved to also not be enough... so by the time we hit 3 bars and I had 3 drinks, I was about ready to crash. I felt drunk, though I mostly likely was just over-tired, and all I really wanted to do was sleep. Lucky for me, everyone else was ready to call the night as well.
Steve and I crashed hard.
The plan was to be on the road no later than 9am, and we had to make a stop for breakfast. We didn't set an alarm so when I woke up and seen that the time was 8:10am, I knew there was no way we'd be on the road by 9a. No big deal, this is normal for us.
We packed up our stuff and made our way to
The Comet Cafe (another from
Triple D). Having watched the video of them making the meatloaf I opted for the
Meat and Eggs breakfast item. Eggs any way and a slice of meatloaf (seriously, watch the video and see how they make meatloaf). I'm so glad I did because it was amazing! Meatloaf for breakfast is odd to me, but what the hell - you only live once!
Once on the road - at 10:45am - we were STUFFED - and stuffed for the rest of the drive home too! The trip home was nothing special, another 5+ hour drive, excited to walk in the door to our home and see our kitty!
We were both exhausted all day on Sunday...
That's about it... it was a great trip and both Steve and I are anxious to get back to Milwaukee and spend some more daylight hours there!
(special thanks to Izzy for showing us a great time and to Krysten for making the journey as well and letting us chill with you guys!)
Have a Six Flags Day!
