Tuesday, September 02, 2008

105 Trip: (Sat 30-Aug) Day 7 - Milwaukee WI - 2012 miles

Although things were officially over on Sunday, Saturday was the last big day and we planned on heading out early Sunday morning. Terry, Ted and Kristi were all heading back to St Louis (Ted & Christi to go back to work on Tue and Terry to visit family for a few days); and I was heading to MI.

We got up "late" (met at 9:00 for breakfast) and planned on hitting a few more dealers. We went by the Buell factory so I could get an ABC shot for that; and then off to a few dealers to get dealer pins. I actually already had a few from Tuscon and Santa Fe - just didn't realize that was what they were. So I figured I'd start collecting them as well. Cheaper than t-shirts for sure.

So it was a pretty laid back day; just doing some slow easy riding and checking things out. Once again the dealerships were massive. One we would have had to park probably 3/4 of a mile away and decided the walking just wasn't necessary.

Heading into two for Summerfest, we passed a small greek place and stopped there for a late lunch. The place looked like it was a family place and probably been around for quite some time. There were a lot of what looked like family pictures on the wall behind the cash register and we asked our waitress (probably 16 or 17) if she was up there. "Yes... these are me", pointing to a few little kids pictures, "... pretty embarrassing. But not as bad as these," pointing to 3 people in short shorts with a boat and a coastline in the background, "of my folks when they were in Greece!" Again - a nice, local, small family run place where the food was good. Score.

We headed into Summerfest and it looked like it might be a nightmare. TONS of people - and we heard from one couple that they waited in line for hours to see ZZ-Top and then couldn't even get close enough to see them and could just barely hear them. So we wondered around and finally found the place where Daughtry was going to play, and there were open seats in the pavilion! So Terry and I snagged enough room for 4 and then I went and hung out waiting for Ted and Kristi. So we pretty much just hung out there all afternoon (I think we got there about 3:30) with folks making a water or beer run every once in a while. We say "Puddle of Mudd" - and they were ok. Pretty much Heavy Metal - with one song I recognized. I've never heard "God bless you guys!" and "You guys are all in my prayers - be safe out there" type phrases, intermixed with the F word so many times. But hey... God listens to everyone and I'll take any prayers I can get. :) Anyway - wasn't too bad and most of the crowd was really into it.

Later I was getting hungry and decided I should go do a food run. Folks had been buying and I figured it was my turn. Plus I hadn't done one of the "wait in line for an hour" things yet. So I headed toward a place that was selling pizza... and there was 1 person in front of me! Got two pizzas and a deep-fried veggie fix: mushrooms, cauliflower and *eggplant*. The eggplant was awesome! So took that back and we call chowed down on it.

The people in front of us snuck a *dog* into the event. It was tiny. It was a toy something. Small enough to fit in a small purse. It was sitting there in the hot sunny, loud music and was seeming pretty miserable, sleeping half the time. I just don't quite get it.

Daughtry was a bit late - but everything was running a bit late, and was pretty good. Did about 45 minutes. Pretty much all of his big stuff that I listen too all the time. And his showmanship and the band were all good. So it was cool. The went off stage, came back and did "Going Home" for an encore and then he went off and the band went into a really good instrumental; but the crowd was starting to leave and so we jetted out of there trying to miss all the people/traffic that would be leaving. Especially since we had parked under an underpass in a dirt/grass area with tons of bikes and it looked like it could be a nightmare trying to get them all out of there. But we made it out of there and back to the room w/o any hassle - so another good day in Milwaukee and a pretty good end to the entire "105" experience!

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