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MidWest Fall Tour 2025

Sandy's niece Colleen was getting married in Wisconsin this fall. Of course we were going to the wedding, and as usual when we go back to the midwest, we planned a grand tour to hit all of the relatives. And catch a Brewer game or two.

Sandy left before me so she could spend some time with her mom. I left on a Friday, flying to Madison, where Sandy picked me up at the airport. She was staying at a hotel in Stoughton, next door to where her mom lives. We had breakfast with her mom the next day, then left midday for Milwaukee.

We stayed at our usual spot in West Allis, the Hampton Inn on 82nd and Greenfield. I was curious to see how the area around the hotel looked. In August there were torrential rains. Streets in the neighborhood were flooded and the apartment building next to the hotel had its underground parking garage completely submerged, cars and all, for several days. But there really weren't any signs of the floods. The area seemed to have recovered and looked the same as it had last time we were here. My hometown is pretty resilient.

While in Milwaukee, we went to two Brewer games, both against the Cinncinati Reds. Although the Brewers had already won their division, the Reds were stilll fighting to make the postseason. They were going into the last series of the year a game behind the Mets for a playoff spot. The Brewers lost on Friday, and we were there to see them lose to the Reds again on Saturday, 7-4. That meant that Sunday, the last game of the season would determine if the Reds made the playoffs or not. The Brewers won 4-2, but the Reds, who had the tiebreaker, still made the playoffs since the Mets too.

Of course our visit to Milwaukee included dinner at Barbieri'e Italian Inn, breakfast at George Webb, and frozen custard at Gilles. Those are all iconic places to eat that were favorites of mine while I was growing up in Milwaukee. Going to those places is the price that Sandy has to pay to get me to go back to visit the midwest.

Sunday night after the game we drove down to Yorkville. On any trip back to the midwest we have to stop and see the grandkids and this time we were there for three days. I spent a lot of time with one or both of them on my lap while we read books. I hope they learn to love reading as they get older. It seems like a lot of young people just don't read books anymore. They do have a lot of books, which is good. My favorites are definitely "Quantum Physics for Babies" and "Calculus for Babies".

Sandy bought a playset for them a little while ago that was a combination gym set/swing set/tree fort. The weather was nice so we could go out in the back yard and watch them play on it. Both of them were constantly saying "Gramma, watch this!" and "Grandpa, watch this!". We even got to play on it a little bit ourselves, sitting on the swing or climbing up into the fort. We were less daring than they were though. Didn't want to risk our old bones.

When we were inside they would tear around the house. They have incredible energy and are always moving. They make me tired just watching them. And even though it had only been a few months since I had last seen them, they both had grown a lot. They're not babies anymore. They're little kids.

Thursday was their day to go to daycare so Sandy and I left that morning and drove up to Wisconsin. We always pass through the very edge of Lake Geneva when we travel between Yorkville and Milwaukee. There's a WalMart there that is my standard midpoint-of-the-trip stop for snacks. They carry my favorite pretzels - thin and extra salty. They're probably not the best for my health, but boy do they taste good. This time we turned and went into the town of Lake Geneva. After finding a parking spot (not easy), we spent a few hours walking through the downtown area, checking out the shops. We had dinner at Speedo's Harborside Pub & Grill. It was just across the street from a small park on the lakeshore. We sat out on their patio enjoying the view of the lake on a beautiful afternoon.

After eating we drove around the lake to Williams Bay. Just outside of town is Yerkes Observatory. It was operated by the University of Chicago from 1897 to 2018. It was famous for its 40 inch telescope, the largest refracting telescope ever used for general astronomical research. When I was little, my dad used to read books about astronomy to me. I remember seeing pictures of Yerkes Observatory and its telescope in those books. Yeah, I was a nerdy little kid. Technology has since passed the observatory by. Refracting telescopes had a fundamental limitation. Since the light traveled through the lens, it could only be supported around the edges. That placed a limit on how big the lens could be without introducing distortions. Reflecting designs passed up refractors a long time ago for state of the art research in astronomy. But I used to have a 3 inch refractor when I was a kid. I used it to look at craters on the moon and to plot the position of Jupiter's Galilean satellites for a school science project.

It isn't just the telescope technology that left Yerkes way behind. In 1900, it was dark enough in Lake Geneva for serious observing. Now you have to go to the top of remote mountains in Hawaii or Chile to do state of the art ground-based astronomy. Or into earth orbit with the Hubble or James Webb space telescopes.

The observatory is preserved as a museum but we couldn't get inside. You need to sign up in advance for a guided tour that's only conducted a couple of times a week. But it was still cool to see the building and walk around the grounds.

We finished off the day with a short walk along the lakeshore, followed by a stop at Scoops Ice Cream. That night we stayed at the Harbor Shores on Lake Geneva. It was a nice hotel, and as the name implies, it was located right on the shore of the lake. It was also only a couple of blocks from the main street through downtown.

Next morning we were up early and went for a hike. There is a public trail along the shore of Lake Geneva. It's over twenty miles long if you go all the way around the lake. While I think it would be fun to do, that's a little more than we were looking for this morning. It was a beautiful day and the scenery along the lake was pretty. The houses were impressive too. Lake Geneva was the fashionable spot to build a summer home if you were rich in Milwaukee or Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were some amazing, large, beautiful houses along the shore of the lake.

After our walk we had a late breakfast at Joni's Diner. When we came in we got the last open table in the place. The people just a few steps behind us had to wait. Behind them, a bunch more people came in and soon there was a whole crowd standing around, waiting for a table. They waited a long time too. It was quite a while before anyone finished and left. It just goes to show that it's better to be lucky than good, and this time we were lucky.

After eating and checking out of our hotel, we made one last stop in town. I had decided which souvenir tshirts I was going to get so it was time to go buy them. We got there about two minutes after the store opened. Sandy wouldn't have been too pleased if I had wanted to hang around waiting for a store to open before we could leave town, but I had timed it just right.

Colleen and Drew were having a dinner at their house for all the people in town for the wedding. We had the whole afternoon to get up to Oconomowoc, which is only about an hour from Lake Geneva. Sandy got one of those "Local Attraction" magazines from the lobby of our hotel and picked out some places for us to check out on the way. First we went to an fruit stand/orchard/distillery. It was way out in the boondocks. Google maps had us going down one obscure country road after another. I can't remember the name of the place and I'll be darned if I can figure out from the map where it was. It will forever be a mystery.

Our next stop was in Mukwonago. We went to The Elegant Farmer. It was a nice shop and we picked up some good snack items for later at the hotel. They also had a deli counter where we got lunch and a separate ice cream shack where we got dessert. Just a few blocks away we stopped at a quilt shop called Quilt-agious. As usual, Sandy was able to find something unique to buy there. We did pretty well in Mukwonago considering that we were just passing through.

We checked in at the La Quinta in Delafield, the town right next to Oconomowoc. That evening we drove to Colleen and Drew's house. They have a nice place. They bought it a few years ago and have been doing a lot of work on it. There were a lot of people there for drinks and dinner. We got to see a lot of Sandy's relatives and met some of Drew's family. While they were all nice people, the high point of the evening for me was that I got to meet Kringle, their black lab, and play with her for a while.

Saturday was the Big Day, but the wedding wasn't until late in the afternoon. We had a lot of free time beforehand. We started by taking a short drive to the village of Pewaukee where we went to the Beach Bum Bakery. It's just across the street from a beach on Pewaukee Lake. You have to admit that it's got a pretty cool name. We got some doughnuts and sat out on a bench looking over the lake while we ate our breakfast. It was another beautiful morning.

Suitably fortified, we made the short drive to Kettle Moraine State Forest - Lapham Peak Unit. Now I grew up in Milwaukee and I don't usually associate the word "peak" with anything in Wisconsin. Hills maybe, but no mountains. But I read somewhere that Lapham Peak provided a good viewpoint over a large area. We drove to the parking lot at the end of the road and hiked from there to the top of Lapham Peak. It was about a hundred yards - not exactly a major mountaineering feat. Like most peaks (hills) in Wisconsin, it was heavily forested which meant that we couldn't see anything because the trees were in the way. But there was a 45 foot high observation tower at the summit. We climbed to the top and we could see over the trees for a long way in all directions. Lapham Peak is 1,233 feet high and is the highest point in Waukesha County. The view was quite impressive.

After hiking back to the car we still had enough energy to drive into Oconomowoc and locate the venue for the wedding. There was even a farmer's market in the parking lot across the street that we took some time to cruise through. Then it was back to the hotel to clean up and get dressed up. Well, as dressed up as I ever get. Hey, I didn't wear jeans and a tshirt, so there.

The wedding was at the Oconomowoc Community Center, which is right downtown on the shore of Lac La Belle. The setting was very pretty. There was an altar and lots of chairs on the lawn behind the building, looking right out at the lake. The ceremony was held there. Colleen and Drew made a good wedding couple. Brooklyn was one of two flower girls and looked very cute. She did her job well. The weather was perfect and the ceremony was very nice. Afterwards the reception was in the community center. There was good food and drinks and dancing. I was pretty happy with the party because I didn't get drafted to dance. Sorry to disappoint but that is how I rate weddings. Colleen's brother Devin made up for my absence from the dance floor by putting on quite a show all night.

The next morning we were up at some obscenely early hour. It was a forty five minute drive to the Madison airport to catch an early flight. At least there was no traffic. No one else was crazy enoguh to be up at that hour. There were no problems with our flights and soon we were back home. Abby was glad to see up.