So Long Waukesha

My last day of work in Milwaukee was July 23rd. It was a great part of the year to be gainfully unemployed, and we used our time off to its fullest. I already had another job lined up in Seattle, so it really ended up being a 3 month partially paid vacation. Wahoo! Sara and I spent most of our free time putting all of our stuff into boxes and taping them shut, hoping that the contents would get to their final destination in as many pieces as they began with. Of course, there was no way on Earth I could keep Sara inside packing during the 2 beautiful months of Wisconsin summer, so we grabbed the camera and set out looking for some final photos to remember the fond moments of our Midwest sojourn.

Many of our good times were in our county's seat: Waukesha. If you'll recall from a former posting, Les Paul is from this fine town, as are a bunch of people who live with a lot of strange lawn statuary on diagonally oriented streets. Zoe was born in Waukesha, and she can say the name of her birth town, which took a lot of practice. Is it just me, or is that a lot of signs on that sign? Also, here's a picture of me with a fox statue on a bridge over the Fox River in a city whose name means "fox" in Algonquin. Has anyone ever seen a fox in the wild? I think they live strictly in movies and statues. I'm so surprised that none of the locals have stolen this statue for their lawns. On this particular weekend Randy and Diane were on their way to spend our last few days in Wisconsin with us. This is code for "help us move all our boxes". By some strange coincidence the vacation they planned months in advance ended up being the same week we moved. Lucky them. I love those few days when they are on the road en route to visit us, its fun to call and see where they're at (usually Nebraska).

Wellants!

The Great Circus Parade included a whole herd of elephants which had been specially trained to withstand the weight of six to eight Americans. Three of those six to eight were Zoe, Sara and I. Zoe's been an elephant fan for all of her two years, and she just about exploded with excitement when she realized that the line we'd been standing in for many minutes was to actually sit on top of an elephant.

When it was my turn to get on the elephant with Zoe, the weird circus dude let me sit pretty much on top of his or her head (the elephant's head, not the weird circus dude's). It was pretty much the coolest thing ever because when the elephant flapped its ears to cool off, the ears scraped across my legs. I've never had gigantic ears flap across my legs before, and it was pretty neat. The elephant really liked it when I pet its head and ruffled its hair. It did not enjoy the Dutch rubs.

Sara wanted a chance to ride with Zoe too, so I passed the elephant jockey reigns to her. Ever since Zoe was a little glow worm we've been working as hard as we can to influence her favorite animal decision into the pachyderm arena. Imagine our relief when one of her first words was "wellant", which we have correctly interpreted to mean "elephant". Since then we've all become intense wellant fans, and hope to someday have a wellant ranch in our backyard. I'm sure we'll be able to succesfully wrangle the world's largest land mammal because the weird circus dude taught a secret wellant fact: Some are left-trunked and some are right-trunked. Let the records show that Sara, Zoe and Kason are, and forever will be, HUGE wellant fans.

The Great Circus Parade Part II

Here are some more pictures of Sara, Zoe and I in front of various circus wagons. There were about four really cool wagons containing old timey player organs that had little drums and bells and cymbals. I spent a lot of time staring at the organ wagons listening to the music, and I think some other members of my party got sort of bored. I'm sorry that I didn't take any pictures of those wagons, I was too busy filming several minutes of the music for Zoe to listen to at a later date when her attention span is longer than amount of time it takes for her brain to remind her legs that she now knows how to walk.
So the Great Circus Parade is sort of a big deal. The folks from Baraboo have been stomping their way through Milwaukee for 30 years now, from 1963 to 2009. I know the year's don't add up, but that's because it's not necessarily an annual occasion. As a matter of fact, the parade took a recess from 2005 through 2008, which means that this year was the first chance we really ever had to see the show. I'm pretty sure the wagon pictured below features lion-headed shrimp - limps. Golden limps. In a few milleniums archaeologists will dig up these bas reliefs and immediately assume we worshipped mythological shrimp lions. I wonder it that truly is the case in Baraboo. Yes, the giant 'S' on the wagon stands for shrimp. Or maybe Sara.
I wish I could post the rest of the pictures we took, but lets face it, this is teetering on the fulcrum of boredom as it is. But wait, here's a fascinating tidbit; the Grand Clown of this particular Great Circus Parade was none other than Ernest Borgnine. I wonder if I'd have recognized him if he hadn't been wearing the make-up? Probably not since I never watched any McHale's Navy, or SpongeBob SquarePants.

The Great Circus Parade Part I

Baraboo, Wisconsin is the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus fame. We always planned on heading out towards Madison to see the Circus Museum in Baraboo, but never really got around to it. I heard there's a big statue of Romeo the Killer Circus Elephant out there, and we definitely could have used a picture in front of that. Instead, the circus museum came to us, minus the killer elephant statue. Early in July the circus people loaded all their cool wagons and animals into trains and came on out to Milwaukee to parade around the streets and put on little shows. It was just like the first scene of Dumbo, but with snow instead of rain (in July?). Like I've said before, Milwaukee knows how to throw a party, they have cool stuff like this pretty much every weekend in the summer.
The parade itself was during church, so we weren't able to go, but we did spend a lot of time at the lakefront the day before where they had parked all the wagons, livestock and weird circus people for public exhibition. Check out how cool these here antique wagons are! There were about 50 of them parked all along the gigantic park by the lake, and each one of them was unique and beautiful. A lot of them are over a hundred years old. I never would have thought I could be so amazed by circus wagons. I've got loads of pictures of us posing in front of circus wagons (I bet you don't find that sort of action photography on many blogs out there), so I'll probably have to end this post with a To Be Continued...

Tonight We Gonna Party Like it's the Year 2009!

This is how we celebrate the New Year in Seattle! Oh yeah, what a cool city. I just had to share with the cyber world what must have been the most hilarious news caster banter I've ever heard. Here's pretty close to a direct quote - "History shows that the people of ancient China used fireworks to scare away evil demons, so if any of you are evil demons you best be changing the channel". That is awesome stuff. I'm pretty sure I would be a lousy newscaster because I could never come up with such informative and precautionary statements. Or possibly because I would make frequent usage of the term "pretty close to a direct quote".

Even though we had been dutifully warned by Guy Smiley, Sara and I were persistent in our New Year's Eve firework viewing. I kinda feel bad because we had long-time plans to actually see the fireworks in person at the Seattle Center, but we sorta wussed out. Do we get any points for actually taking the ride downtown to scope out the festivities? We got down there only to discover that the fog was thick enough, and the rain downpoury enough to potentially cancel the fireworks. I ain't waitin' no three hours for nothin', so back up to our safe little suburb we drove and watched Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest AND Anderson Cooper welcome the New Year 3 times. That's right, we west coasters get to watch the ball fall starting at nine o'clock. We learned that Anderson Cooper's middle name is Hayes, thus making him the only person in the world with three last names as a full name. The powers that be in Seattle have finally proven to me that wind, fog and rain aren't actually legitimate reasons to cancel fireworks. All those "postponed" fireworks shows at Disneyland must be some sort of conspiracy to get people to come back. I blame the rat.

So unlike some people, I'm way into the whole New Year's thing. Yes, I looked it up, that's supposed to be an apostrophe, it's short for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day...some people think it's plural, but that's wrong. Just an hour and a half ago we started a new decade, and that only happens like every ten years or so. Everyone remembers when 2000 rolled around, I was at the Larsen's house hangin' out with all my High School Senior friends, and it was my first time to ever stay up all night. I was such a rebellious young punk! I also remember when 1990 rolled around, which is a lot to say since I have the memory of an inquired politician ("I do not recall that event, Senator"). Specifically, I remember watching one of those "Best and Worst of the Decade" shows as my dad set up chairs in our basement for some sort of party. Man, that was 20 years ago. I know it's a bit cliche, but I really do feel like there's something magical that happens when that second rolls over from 11:59 59 to 12:00 00. 2009 was a huge year for Sara and I, we moved from one side of the country to the other, changed jobs, and are still coping with the tragic loss of Kopps Frozen Custard and Chicago-style pizza. May 2010 be as rockin' as Dick Clark can make it, and may God help us all to agree on the best way to abbreviate it...I recommend Oh-ten. Happy 2010!!

Fete de La Musique du Milwaukee

This here's a picture of the Zoe at Milwaukee's Bastille Days. The Eiffel-like tower behind her was rigged up by the Milwaukee School of Engineering, an institution which provided many back-packed students for me to try and not hit with my car on the way to work. I was usually successful. Milwaukee is a city that knows how to party in an international sort of way, and mid-July brought us this French fete. I'm not sure why, but this year was the first year we actually went to the party, even though it was highly recommended by many of our friends many years running.

There were several bandstands set up by the city, and filled with local musicians. I was surprised to see that next to none of the bands were playing anything in french, or france-related. This is probably because the majority of the fair-going public are not very entertained by accordian-accompanied schmultz in a foreign language. Honestly, France has severely dropped the boule when it comes to intriguing modern music (-M- excluded). Instead we got to enjoy yet another medley of Johnny Cash songs at least an octave and a fourth too high. Oh, and Celtic music...shudder.

Regardez s'il vous plait how awesome this Bastille Days poster is! Oui, oui, I know that this isn't the poster that goes with the year we actually went, but I liked the 2006 poster a lot. I gotta give Milwaukee a lot of credit for making this festival loads of fun, they had a bunch of street performers and murals all over the place. Did you see the cool aerial photograph of Cathedral Square that I stole off the internet (above)? Looks like quite the good time. I'll never forget the year that we were actually at the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day, what an awesome experience. To tell you the truth if you were to replace the music, and the beverage, this party would have been very similar to the Fete de la Musique held in Paris every June 21st. Everyone in the city is encouraged to perform music outside their houses/offices and get totally wasted on wine and European adrenaline. That was a grand time in Levallois. I love Milwaukee in the Summer time.

Mount Horeb Mustard Museum

The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum was conceived and created by none other than the assistant Attorney General of Wisconsin. There are over 4,800 different types of mustard in there. Unfortunately, the place was closed so we couldn't go in and sample the mustard. Shameful. Instead we could only look into the window and drool. It makes sense to me that the world's largest collection of mustard would be located in a part of the country so overflown with sausage.

I'd also like to include this picture that Sara had me take outside of one of the local pubs. I swear this was all her idea.

The Wisconsin Trollway

During our trip to Madison we couldn't pass up the short ride to Mount Horeb so we could take a ride down the legendary Trollway; a road lined with troll statues. Weird. Here are a few pictures of Zoe and I with our favorites. This was during Zoe's "hug all tall wooden objects" phase, so we had to stop at each one so she could get to know him or her at a very personal level. We found a map online that supposedly shows the location of all the trolls, but there were nowhere near as many as the map claimed. Perhaps some of them went back to their beloved Norway before the cold winter set in. If any of you ever make your way to Mount Horeb, it's probably best to do it at the beginning of the summer before the annual troll migration begins. I wonder why we didn't stop by Chris Farley's grave while we were in Madison? That would have been a good photo opportunity to feed our strange hunger to visit the burial locales of the famous.

The Wisconsin State Capitol

The Wisconsin State Capitol Building is the prettiest capitol building I've ever seen. Inside and out it is absolutely gorgeous. The building is a great big "X" with each "X" arm pointing out to the cardinal directions. Isn't it wild what kind of amazing things people can build? I look around at a building like this and I just can't fathom the work it must have taken to build it. And then I consider that this is but one of 50 state capitol buildings in our country, and each of them are unique, and most are beautiful. I just spent far too much time looking at pictures of state capitol buildings on wikipedia. That's an hour of my life I'm never getting back.

I like that the insides of the building are all different colors. From the second floor you can look down on the floor below the dome, and wave as your favorite state legislators walk by. The design of the inside actually reminded me a lot of Napoleon's tomb in Paris, just picture a giant gold-encrusted casket sitting below the dome and you've pretty much got a twin building. I wonder why they put such a short guy in such a huge casket. The building is all full of stairs, 2,782 of them, which rendered the place a virtual jungle gym for the Zoe. As I was chasing her from one staircase to the other, we came across original replicas of the Liberty Bell and the Wisconsin state constitution. Pretty exciting. The Wisconsin state capitol building is only three feet shorter than it's mommy in Washington D.C.

Since blogging about state capitol buildings is pretty much the pinnacle of internet-excitement (we should get YouTube out here to film it!), I think I should definitely tell the story of why the preceding Wisconsin state capitol building burnt down. Here's the shortened version: In February of 1904 the freshly repainted ceiling caught fire and the blaze slowly began engulfing the building. Since the nearby reservoir was empty, the state called in a firefighting crew from Milwaukee to bring water to the site and douse the flames. Unfortunately, en route all their equipment froze beyond use, and they had to watch as the entire North, South and West wings of the building burnt completely to the ground. I wonder why they didn't just put the equipment closer to the giant flames and let the fire thaw it out. Perhaps the frigid temperatures had effected their judgment. I just think it's hilarious that my previous state of residence lost its capitol building due to the state's most unappealing feature - locals with frozen brains.

I thought it was sad to read that the fire of 1904 destroyed the taxidermied remains of Old Abe the Civil War eagle. He was a vicious bald eagle that the Wisconsin 8th Infantry carried with them into battle during the first part of the war. Old Abe would scream and yell and raise a ruckus and the rebels would run away squealing like little girls. History says that Old Abe lost feathers to bullets and passing generals would tip their hats to him. Old Abe became the model for the 101st airbourne's Screaming Eagle patch, and the Case tractor company logo. There's a replica of Old Abe in the capitol building now, but that's just not the same.

Strawberry Days in Cedarburg

These pictures were taken in Cedarburg, Wisconsin during their annual Strawberry Days festival in early June. There's absolutely nothing interesting about Cedarburg except that the locals worship strawberries and drink a lot of beer. Actually, the only reason I'm including these pictures on the blog is that I really like this giant Leinenkugel's chair. I thought it was pretty hilarious to watch the chair security guard try to stop all the kids from sitting in the chair without spilling his beer. Heaven forbid that someone sits in a chair! I miss the summer.

Where Ma was born

That's right, this is the actual birthplace of Ma Ingalls. Strange how her parents named her Ma. What if she'd have become a non child-have-able person? I've always had this same question about the Berenstain Bear family. The reason we decided to not call Zoe "Sister" is that we wanted to try her on for size before we committed to providing her a sibling. But speaking of sisters, if any of you were one, or had one, you probably watched Little House on the Prairie while eating your after-school snack. As you likely know, Caroline Lake Quiner Ingalls most certainly did have children, and depending on which season you watched, most of them lived. She was born just down the road from us in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Charles Ingalls came along when Caroline was 21, they got married, and eventually moved from the big woods to the Minnesota prairie. Sara and I spent most of last year watching the entire series of Little House and we learned a lot from Caroline Ingalls, mostly that no matter how hard a modern woman tries, she can never hope to become as domesticated as the frontiers woman. Thanks a lot Caroline. No worries though, we men are just as unlikely to measure up to Charles Ingalls, we're just not hard-working or dreamy enough. This here's a picture of Charles and Caroline, she's the one on the left. Wow, he looks just like Michael Landon...not.

We probably drove by this sign a hundred times before we finally stopped and read it. We got pretty excited and took a bunch of pictures. When we moved out to Wisconsin we drove on I-90 past Walnut Grove. I really wish we would have stopped to take some pictures of the area. This is just the sort of thing that really floats our boat(s) nowadays. Why did old western people insist on living in freezing areas? I mean why didn't Charles and Caroline just pick up and move to Florida instead of staying in the midwest? Yeah yeah, I know, probably because the land was all but free in our nation's armpits, and you can't grow the same crops in the midwest as you can in other places, but seriously? Minnesota? Of course, this is coming from a guy that moved his family to Milwaukee. Humans are strange.

The Organ Piper

Here’s a picture of the Zoe and I at our favoritest pizza place in the whole wide world…well at least in Milwaukee anyway. This is a place that Donny introduced us to right after we moved to Wisconsin, and we became instant addicts. Every year Zoe wants to go to Organ Piper Pizza, mostly at my behest, for her birthday dinner. This place is awesome, they’ve got a gigantic Wurlitzer organ that makes all sorts of great little toots and woots. All the drums and xylophones and keyboards surround the pizzateers in the dining room and they’re all run from the single consul by a single organist. There’s even a line of ducks that jump and quack their little songs. At the end of patriotic numbers a great big flag comes down from above and all sorts of lights run around. Great times. The dude who plays the organ takes requests, and he always does mine, especially when I ask for the Beatles. Their pizza ain’t so bad either. I like it there a lot, but you don’t have to take my word for it, you Milwaukeeans ought to go try it out now (be sure to bundle up). I’ll never forget how much I loved nights at Organ Piper Pizza watching the locals dancing their polkas while I drank Sprechers root beer. What a great place.