An excursion to Milwaukee..

I told you that we went to Milwaukee for 4th of July weekend. The trip was pretty much a success far as the fireworks photos were concerned :-D. As for the rest of it, you'll just have to read and find out :-D.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is about 8 hours drive away for us. We found out that the 4th of July fireworks was about an hour long, so we thought it might be worth it. So yeah here's the road map :).




We left Lexington on 2nd July Friday evening at around 4:30PM. The plan for that day was to drive to Lafayette Indiana (Point B) and halt for the night. We were thinking that we were making good time and were about an hours drive away to Indianapolis when the inevitable happened. The traffic stopped suddenly and we got stuck at the freeway for more than an hour! Later we found out that a truck caught fire on the freeway and hence all the traffic had to be stopped. We even got to see the burnt truck (this snap was taken on my iPhone)..




I was glad that we weren't anywhere near it when the incident happened. Once the traffic started moving, we had dinner and got to out motel at night.

The next day, early morning we headed out and started driving north. We still had about 4 hours driving to do and yeah, we had to pass through Chicago to get to Milwaukee. It was good to say Hello to the Sears tower yet again :-D.




It was noon when we reached Milwaukee. After resting in the hotel for a while, in the evening we went to check out Veteran's park where the fireworks were being held (on July 3rd night). They were having a Kite festival there, but there were huge crowds and no parking at all, so we simply drove through.




We stopped at a small park which had a kids' park and steps down to a small beach. Milwaukee has lake Michigan right next to the city and it was a great view :).




Snugli loved first playing in the park and then playing in the beach..




The weather was so good that we were about to regret not getting swimsuits (we were being careful after the California trip ;-) :-D), when we found out that the lake water was collllllllllllld! Plus it had lots of rotten algae floating around :-p. Anyways, we did have a good time before finally climbing back..




Then we went for some dinner (was really tough getting out of all the traffic) and went to a small park called Bayview park to watch the fireworks. This time I wanted to shoot the fireworks from a little faraway. But it actually turned to be a little more further than I thought it'd be :-D. Well, I got a couple of wonderful shots, so it was all in all a good try :).




The fireworks themselves weren't as good as the Louisville ones. Here are the US flag colours..







This one feels something like a fountain :).




The full effects:




Love the multi-level reflections on this one..




We were pretty outside the crowded region, so didn't face too much traffic while getting back to the hotel room for the night..

Next day morning, our idea was to get to the Harley-Davidson museum.




Harley-Davidson was actually founded in Milwaukee almost a 100 years ago! The museum is a dedication to all the motorcycles that H-D ever built. It has more than 450 bikes + 100s of 1000s of accessories!




From postal motorcycles to racing ones, from world war ones to bejeweled ones, the place had them all :). We marveled at the different ones - some were really amazing. They even had an area where we could climb on bikes and get the feel :-D. It was mostly fun, but after a certain time, it kinda got a bit monotonous :-D. Too much of a good thing, perhaps :).

We soon got out of there and went to another beach area called the Lake shore park.




Again the water was cold and had algae, but it was still enjoyable :).




Snugli didn't want to get out of the water :).




We literally had to drag her out. We next had lunch and went to the Summerfest happening there.




Summerfest is a festival for summer (duh :-p). It was a hugggggggggggge area and had various concerts going on. Basically it was a place for crowds to gather and have fun. Snugli and Sri had a good time riding on a ropeway (I stayed back because we had the stroller with us and couldn't leave it anywhere :-p).




It was extremely hot and humid. I had to wait quite a bit before they got back and man, it was pretty bad. We went to a children area where Snugli had a lot of fun :).




She wasn't really getting tired, but we were ;-). And we had to get back to Lafayette again for the night. So after a bit of tussle, we got back on the road.

While we were driving from Indiana to Wisconsin, we had noticed many many wind energy harvesting fields. And when we got back, I insisted on stopping for a view :). It was amazing to see man made stuff and nature so much in harmony :).




It was beautiful :).




I had a good time taking snaps from various angles I could think of (while the dear hubby and daughter fidgeted :-D).




Anyways, that was it for the day. The next day, since it was a holiday too, we lazed around and left Indiana only by 11 PM. By the time we got back home (thanks to a lunch stop and some shopping in Louisville Indian store), it was evening :). And so another long weekend was gone.

Just can't wait to get away again, sigh..