Day 16 part 2: Are we in New York? or is this Milwaukee?

Saturday night, September 1, 2007
Milwaukee
By Jamie

After a mighty fun afternoon of baseball (save for the bad experience at the Irish Oak) we have a slight change in plans for Saturday evening. We had planned to spend the night in Chicago after the game, but we couldn’t find a hotel for less than $350. Not worth it in our minds. Milwaukee is only an hour and a half away, and since the game was so early we decide to skip the night out in Chicago and head north. Craig is our designated driver for the day. (AKA, too hung over to choke down a drink.)

Once in Milwaukee we find my cousin’s place fairly easily. He (Bill) and his wife (Tina) are actually out of town themselves, but we’ve got a key to the condo. Nice place, great location. After unloading our stuff, we take a little break on the couches and watch “Clear and Present Danger.” Our tanks are pertnear empty. At this point, we’re pretty close to calling it a night. (Particularly hung over Craig.) I’m able to twist his arm a little and we do eventually decide to check out some of the local establishments.

There a smoky little dive bar called Jim’s Time Out right around the corner from Bill and Tina’s. Some good conversation with the barkeep, but it’s a little too smoky for me. My eyes are burnin’. After that, we do a little wandering around and find Mo’s Irish Pub. It’s an authentic Irish pub right across the street from Mo’s Trattoria, Mo’s Café and a couple other authentic places owned by the worldly Mo. It’s about as Irish an experience as we had earlier at the Irish Oak. It’s actually not a bad place. They pour a proper Guinness and the car bombs seemed right. However, instead of crappy non-Irish dance music out of a jukebox (a la Irish Oak), we’re treated to crappy non-Irish live music. The band was on break when we got there. As they came back, they say they’ve got a request for some Irish music and launch into Van Morrison. That was the entirety of the “Irish” portion of their set. An evening of pretty bad bar standards. I don’t know how many times we heard Mustang Sally on Beale Street, but it’s a bit too soon to hear it again.

One thought that had crossed my mind while in Chicago was how we hadn’t had any random sightings of people we know. This has been a fairly common occurrence in past travels and I’m surprised it hasn’t happened on such a long trip. The call was answered at Mo’s in Milwaukee. I ran into an old high school friend, Jeff. He’s in from Seattle for a bachelor party. (For some reason three bachelor parties came through Mo’s.) It was a very welcome surprise. Jeff is one of those guys you always wish you’d kept in touch with. Really nice and interesting guy. His crew is on the move, so we only have time to exchange a couple funny memories and email info. Good to see him.

After Mo’s we work our way back to B&T’s and make one last stop at a place called the New York Bar or something like that. It’s just like being in New York! Except not! Bad karaoke joint. Our karaoke senses have delivered us once again. It’s small, fairly empty, crappy sound and has a slim song selection, but it seems like an appropriate stop. I spew out Daydream Believer and Easy. Craig takes on Lay Down Sally. A fit ending to a (relatively) low-key evening.

OK, the actual ending was a snack at Dunkin’ Donuts and microwave sliders at Bill & Tina’s. Yes, sliders.

Bill and Tina are scheduled to get back into Milwaukee around 5:30 on Sunday. We had planned on staying there that night after the Brewers game. It would have been nice to actually see them, but it wasn’t meant to be. The road weariness is setting in and we decide that we’ll spend the next night west of Milwaukee at a friend of Craig’s. It will give Craig a chance to catch up, but it will also give us a head start on the long drive for Monday. Home is calling.