Mad-Town & Milwaukee

UWisc marching band

photo: Vicki Weisfeld

A recent midwest trip took us to spots in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you might want to add to your touring agenda.

Madison

In town for a University of Wisconsin football game, we put on our red shirts and walked to Camp Randall stadium on a gorgeous fall day. There’s nothing like the Big Ten football game for over-the-top pageantry. The 300-member Wisconsin marching band is justifiably famous for both musicality and precision maneuvers, plus cheerleaders, pep squad, Bucky Badger, smoke cannon, and boistrosity.

When the opposing team took the field, taking note of the deafening roar from a sea of red, I thought they might just turn around and go home. The Wisconsin fans may have wished they had that day, because though the spectacle was great, the UW football was only so-so (video highlights). In the end, though, Badgers ruled!

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum (which currently has a special exhibit of World War I posters) provides a manageably sized, well designed tour of Wisconsin residents’ role in the military, from the Civil War to the present day. (30 West Mifflin Street on the Square).

Madison, state capitol

Wisconsin state capitol dome – photo: Vicki Weisfeld

The State Capitol is well worth a visit. We didn’t take one of the guided tours, and just walking around the building offered plenty to see. Beautiful murals throughout the Supreme Court and legislative chambers (missed it, if there’s a brochure explaining these). The rotunda I’m told that, of all the state capitols, is most like that in Washington, D.C. Building and grounds are in impeccable, restored condition.

 

Hungry? Great places to eat:

  • with kids: Ella’s Deli, 2902 East Washington Avenue
  • if you love Italian: Naples 15, 15 North Butler Street
  • for a casual, tavern atmosphere: Old Fashioned, Pinckney Street on the Square

Milwaukee

To recreated our experience in Milwaukee, I’d have to provide the contact information for a lot of friends and family members! Failing that, something all visitors might enjoy—either in Milwaukee or in a theater near you—is the IMAX National Parks Adventure, narrated by Robert Redford (trailer). This will be one of the last films to be fully shot on 70mm celluloid, rather than digitally.

It’s a terrific, dizziness-inspiring look at our nation’s jewels—from Hawaiˋi to Acadia, from the Everglades to Alaska, from hot, hot, hot to Lake Superior ice caves. And I’m not ever going to do that bicycle thing.

Reading on the Road

Nick Petrie’s The Drifter – a former Marine lieutenant visits Milwaukee after the suicide of one of his men and finds unexpected danger, starting with the vicious dog hiding under the widow’s porch.