Every year I take my wife on a trip back to Wisconsin, where I grew up from 1964-1976, and where I moved back to from 1990-2004. I lived all over the north side of of the Milwaukee metro area, plus Green Bay and Onalaska (a suburb of La Crosse).
Our more recent trips back home have been in August, so I could spectate the IMSA weekend at Road America. We have been back in June, though the most recent June visit was in 2015 for the ash scattering of several deceased relatives. ⚱️
This year, I decided I needed to visit Wisconsin more often. But as much as I like the state’s clean, safe & friendly small towns, that was not enough to get me to flush a pile of Benjamins for the pleasure. I had to have a reason. As in August, that reason was racing, this time the SCCA June Sprints, also at Road America. (I don’t know if it was the June Sprints, but the only other amateur sports car weekend I’ve been to was to visit a co-driver from my very first kart race.) 🏎
We always fly in to, and out of, Wisconsin on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are tourist days, Thursday is hike day, and Friday through Sunday is race days.
Bottom Left: From a distance, Grabner’s Untitled seems to vibrate.
Right: St. Francis Assisi (c. 1630/1634) by Francisco de Zubarán. One of my earliest memories is getting my picture taken in this spot 50 years ago.
Tuesday (6/11): We drove an hour south from Plymouth back down to Milwaukee. Not sure how to get into downtown from I-43, since Mayor ‘Choo-Choo’ John Norquist tore down the Park East Freeway in 2002, I exited on North Ave., driving east through some less than salubrious neighborhoods to Prospect Ave., then on to the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hadn’t been to the museum since the late 60s, when I was but a wee stick figure-drawing tyke. Now, I am middle-aged and still drawing stick figures. 😏
My ‘art’ does not even qualify for the original, brutal, grey Soviet-style building, which is still part of the Milwaukee Art Museum. But the Quadracci Pavilion and Burke Brise Soleil, designed by Santiago Calatrava, and completed in 2001, is simply stunning. Especially from the inside. (The Burke Brise Soleil is a giant gull-like mechanical wing that opens & closes several times a day; see the video below.)
We spent a couple of hours in the museum, and still didn’t get to half of it. I don’t remember all the artists, but the most famous I remember was a Basquiat, though I am sure it was not one of his pieces that cost eight figures. My favorites are in the collage above. 🎨
Afterwards, we planned to have lunch at my favorite Greek cafe, Mykonos, but it closed last December. Instead, we stopped at Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Glendale. We ate outdoors while I bored my wife about how Port Washington Rd. had changed since the 60s.
Wednesday (6/12): I went for a walk along Sumac Rd. Tuesday morning, catching a window of sun in what was an otherwise rainy week in Sheboygan County. Today it was drizzling, but I went out anyway, hoping the rain would clear. Instead, the closer I got to Blueberry Lane, the heavier the rain got. Cripes, I hope tomorrow’s hike on the Ice Age Trail’s Point Beach Segment is not rained out! 🌧
After I warmed back up, we had another delicious breakfast at our B&B, the Inn on Hillwind. Eventually we decided to drive to Beaver Dam so my wife could make hajj to Nancy’s Notions, a sewing & quilting store in Beaver Dam.
Never trust a GPS. I use them all the time, but never trust them. On the way to Beaver Dam, rather than head southwest on WI-144 and WI-28 like I intended, the GPS instead had us going sideways along county highways so minor they had three letters towards frickin’ Fond du Lac. Crappy Garmin 62S cost us at least an hour.
While my wife shopped her heart out at Nancy’s Notions, I did the good husband thing, spending my time patiently tweeting. 😁
The Weekend (6/13-15): Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it was off to Road America, where it was cloudy, cold & rainy all weekend. It was so chilly on Friday and Saturday, that we left early.
I didn’t mind leaving early so much on Friday, as that gave us time to visit with my cousin Philip at the family cabin on Cedar Lake, just east of Kiel. I used to love visiting Cedar Lake when I was a kid. That’s also where my lifelong love affair with beer began. At age 6. (Wisconsin was a different place in the old days.) After a couple of hours of reminiscing, we headed out to Sheboygan VFW Post 9156 for a Wisconsin tradition: The Friday night fish fry! 🐟🤗
One of the reasons I wanted to visit Road America twice a year is that they have spectator karting and I could get some laps in between races. The SCCA is not as heavily spectated as IMSA, let alone IndyCar, and it’s no fun racing alone, or in the rain on slicks, so I skipped the karting. 😕
The big boys racing? Great action in the races with more cars in fewer classes, as the cars tended to stay together longer, like the Spec Miata’s in Group 2, or where there was Detroit Muscle involved, like the GTs in Group 4. 👍
Santiago Calatrava’s Burke Brise Soleil
Milwaukee Art Museum, Brise Soleil from Preston McMurry on Vimeo.
