High Life

*What follows is a scatterbrained, quite awful recap of the days in Milwaukee.

Crowded airport. Very rainy. Kate and I sit by a window overlooking the Midway traffic zooming under the skywalk. A group of businessmen sat down next to us and all three of them got their laptops out. There screens meet in a neat little triangle in the middle of the table.

One of them tried to crack a joke as they all sat down. “It’s times like this that people always want to debrief. Well in my family we keep our briefs on.”

His friends didn’t laugh, but he did the only thing he could do and laughed at his own joke.

We got in Tuesday morning and it took a while to get a rental car. We wanted a Dodge Charger and we were told we would get something similar. The Chargers were gone. All that was left in the same price range were minivans and a Grand Marquis. We went with the Dodge Caravan…the old standby. I noticed that on the Thrifty keychain the color of our car was written out as being "Glod" and our car was a "Gearavan". For a moment that was funny to see and then incredibly depressing. The Chicago traffic was typical from the point we left Midway. It was stop and go all the way on Cicero until we got to Interstate 55. After that the traffic wasn’t horrendous for a while. We hoped to stop at Silo for lunch, but we stopped at an oasis to eat at Panda Express because we didn’t really have the time for Silo if we wanted to make our 1 pm appointment at Spring Brook.

The humidity was shocking at first, but even after three days I feel like I have gotten more used to it. Tuesday was definitely the hottest of the three days. It was around 88 degrees. Wednesday was slightly cooler and it has rained a lot today since we got down to Chicago.

The rest of Tuesday we spent some time familiarizing each other with Milwaukee’s layout. Milwaukee’s foliage is dense. There are thick forests up to the highway’s edge. I couldn't see past the walls of trees. Because the trees are so thick and tall you can’t see what is right over the hill. So when we stopped by Spring Brook I felt like it was out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t until we drove north that I realized we were only 20 minutes away from downtown Milwaukee. So, the city is relatively compact, but it maintains the feeling of small town living…maybe. It is hard to describe.

We went to Mayfair (a mall) and picked up PF Chang’s for dinner with Lori, Cory, and Sam. We went to bed early that night because we had been up since 3 am Colorado time and we only had 4 hours of sleep to begin with.

We saw a lot of places on Wednesday. There is no point in listing all of them because they were all essentially boring. We got to ride on some golf carts. Vending machines come with some apartment complexes. Pink kitchen cabinets are ugly. One of the places had its own private entrance from the Grand Avenue Mall downtown. We will never live in the Juneau Village Towers. They had great views, but the building was rotting it was so old. It was ugly, plain, and small. Yankee Hill is for the richer and I am fine with that. If I were also a pharmacist Yankee Hill would be fun for a bit, but we would also need a little more space. Another time perhaps. I am very happy with the Spring Brook apartment. We have the rest of our lives to do some downtown living and I am confident we will have the opportunity. It is just a bit of a stretch at this point especially with parking spots at $115 a month.

I was impressed with downtown Milwaukee. It is pretty clean. It looks like there are a lot of fun things to do. It exceeded my expectations. Actually, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I just wanted everyone that told me Milwaukee was such a bore, ugly, and crappy to be wrong. They are wrong. Even after spending two days there I can tell there is plenty to do. We are only 70 miles from downtown Chicago too. If there is nothing to do in this area, there is just nothing to do.

Our apartment is gorgeous. I feel very blessed and fortunate to be able to live in such a place with Kate as a newly married couple. The place is brand new. The kitchen has granite countertops and the kitchen sink is mounted under the countertop. There are all new black appliances. There is a den, a big bathroom, balconies, good closet space, and a new washer and dryer. There is a pool, hot tub, and fitness center at the clubhouse. It is close to stuff and it has great access to the freeways. And most of all, I am excited to make a home there with Kate. I know we can do great things with the space. And I am ready to live there with Kate, to start filling that place with memories.

We hit up The Silo today. It was delicious. We also drove into downtown and down Lake Shore Drive. We got off at Michigan Avenue and gawked at some ghastly expensive apartment and condo towers. The sights were awesome, the traffic was not. We were in it for hours and finally made it here only to discover that our plane may be delayed due to poor weather in Denver. We accomplished a lot this week. I am proud of us for going out on our own, doing all this traveling, and making a big decision that we feel good about.

*I am quickly running out of names of Milwaukee beers for blog titles.