We had a pretty short drive to our next stop on Thursday afternoon…so short in fact that Mark drove the entire way – I didn’t do my usual hour or so behind the wheel. We arrived at Cliffside Park Campground around 3pm; it’s between Racine and Milwaukee. We stayed here once before, in 2023, and it’s a really nice county park campground with huge sites and lots of trees and green space…a bit different from the KOAs we typically stay at! Milwaukee and the surrounding area (along with Chicago, Detroit, and other cities in the Midwest) are experiencing Air Quality Alerts, thanks to smoke from the Canadian wildfires…so it’s a bit hazy here but the temperature has finally cooled off and we’re in the 70s! Yay!

We had a busy and fun day on Friday, starting with a tour of the Pabst Mansion. No doubt you’ve heard of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (PBR), and this mansion was the home of its founder, Captain Frederick Pabst and his wife Maria. The mansion was completed in 1892 and is an amazing example of life during the Gilded Age. The exterior is being completely restored, so it’s just a mass of scaffolding, but the interior is beautiful (albeit a bit musty-smelling!). Our tour guide shared the history of the family and the mansion, and it’s really unbelievable that it only took two years to build given the amazing woodwork and craftsmanship throughout the home.

From there, we headed to another Milwaukee icon, the Harley-Davidson Museum. The company was founded by William Harley and Arthur Davidson in a small shed in Milwaukee in 1903, and the museum does a wonderful job of telling the story of the past 120+ years. It was so interesting to see some of the earliest motorcycles, and how the company has created a truly iconic brand with the most loyal customers.

The museum had a wall of 100 teardrop fuel tanks – it was so interesting to see all the variations over the years – so many colors, and a ton of different logos and typefaces (which is a bit shocking to the marketer in me…consistent branding is so important!)

This museum visit brought back some memories of 2013 when we toured one of Harley’s assembly plants in York, PA. I dug out this photo from that visit; at the time, we called this “retirement planning”. Oh well, things changed…

Our next stop was a quick one, to briefly see the Milwaukee Riverwalk (it’s nice…but Chicago’s is better!) and find the “Bronze Fonz”, a statue of Henry Winkler in his most famous role as “The Fonz” on Happy Days which of course was set in Milwaukee. That’s the third TV icon I’ve seen immortalized in bronze – Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, and now The Fonz.

After a couple of errands and a quick stop back at the campground, we had dinner at a local place with yummy food but mediocre service, and then headed to the lakeshore to find Racine’s two lighthouses. Our first stop was the Racine Breakwater Lighthouse which I thought was really photogenic! Our second stop was the Windpoint Lighthouse which is one of the tallest (108 feet) and oldest (1880) lighthouses still serving navigation on the Great Lakes.

Saturday was another busy day for us. We started with a tour of the “Burnham Block” which is a set of six houses in Milwaukee designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They were part of his vision of affordable housing which was to create ‘system-built’ homes. His goal was to cut the lumber or materials in a mill or factory and then assemble them on-site. This would reduce the cost because there was no need for skilled tradesmen. While the concept was good, the timing was bad – just as Wright and his partner in the effort, Arthur Richards, were getting started, the US entered into WWI. Ultimately, the six examples on the Burnham Block are among the few that were constructed; there are some others throughout the Midwest and others that likely haven’t yet been discovered since there were no good records kept.

There’s a non-profit that owns four of the six homes and has restored one of them as a museum; work on the others is planned once funding is available. The one that we toured is only 800 square feet which is a fraction of the size we’re used to seeing in Wright’s homes. It definitely had many of his usual features and is clearly identifiable as a Wright design. It’s hard to be a Frank Lloyd Wright fan and visit Wisconsin without seeing at least one of his homes…

After our tour, we made a very important stop. Apparently, Wisconsin is the Frozen Custard capital of the world, so we absolutely could not leave Wisconsin without trying some. A quick Google search revealed that nearby Leon’s Frozen Custard is widely considered to be the best, so it was critical that we go and judge for ourselves…after all, we are experts, having lived in the land of Abbott’s Frozen Custard for most of our lives. And I have to say, this was incredibly close in flavor and texture. Delicious! And a fun, classic building and sign, too! I’m glad Mark twisted my arm and convinced me to go (ha ha!).

Next up on our tour of Milwaukee was The Basilica of St. Josaphat, built in the Polish Cathedral Style by the growing Polish immigrant community in Milwaukee. It was completed in 1901 and became the 3^rd basilica in the US in 1929. My jaw dropped when we walked in. The interior is breathtaking. The dome is massive at 250 feet high and 250 feet in circumference. When it was built, only the US Capitol Dome was larger. Interestingly, the building was largely constructed from materials salvaged from the US Custom House, Court House, and Post Office in Chicago. It easily competes with some of the European Cathedrals we’ve seen!

We wanted to see more domes, so our next stop was the Mitchell Park Domes, an architecturally fascinating conservatory built in the 1960s. There’s a Floral Dome, Tropical Dome, and Desert Dome and they are filled with some of the most interesting and unusual plants we’ve seen. The Floral Dome also houses changing exhibits – the current one is motion-themed. Seeing the exterior was my primary goal, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interiors, as well!

That wrapped up our Saturday in Milwaukee. Sunday was a quiet day – we spent the morning at the campground; after lunch, we headed to a “Starving Artist Fair” in Racine. There were over 100 artists there and we saw a huge variety of beautifully crafted items. It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Monday morning we packed it up…our time in Wisconsin has come to an end. And because there always has to be something for Mark to fix, one of the tank handles fell off earlier in the trip. He band-aided it well enough to last a few days, but sure enough, off it came again this morning. So, another band-aid with lots of foil tape and some clothespins to keep it in place until he can properly fix it. As you can see, it’s really easy to get to…

We made one quick stop on our trip home, at the Mars Cheese Castle. We’ve driven by it so many times, and it’s a bit of a Wisconsin tradition, so we decided to check it out. We were actually surprised that only a small portion of the store is cheese…they sell all kinds of food and beverage (and their baked goods sure smelled yummy!) They definitely had quite the selection of cheese, especially cheese curds. Now we can say we’ve been there!

It was a really short trip, and traffic cooperated, so we were home by 1pm which was a treat. The trailer was unloaded and back in storage by 4pm! Yay! Another successful and fun camping trip is in the books!