Day Six: Wringing Water from the Socks and Kobe Beef

Day Six: Wringing Water from the Socks and Kobe Beef

Yep, it was one of those days. After lucking out entirely for the past five days, our day to set out for Milwaukee started out with a light shower that, by the time the evening was over, had developed into major flooding with several roads in Milwaukee being shut down temporarily.

We started out our day by finishing packing and getting Kurt up so he was ready to leave with Dotty, Lew, and Scott by 7:30. After bidding them farewell and safe travels, we returned to the party room and had one last visit with the cousins, aunts, and uncles. We all looked out the window and watched the Weather Channel and saw nothing but rain, rain, and more rain in our picture. So, Tom and I finally decided that it was time to just put on the rain suits, grit our teeth, and make the plunge, so to speak. After saying our good-byes, we suited up, got the Harley and took off in a steady rain toward Milwaukee. It rained on us the entire trip to varying degrees. Once we arrived around Waukesha, we were met with a deluge. I could feel my boots filling with water and could feel my fingers getting pruney. Not my favorite way to be, but we were almost there.

When we pulled into our destination, the Iron Horse Hotel, we were greeted by some very helpful and friendly staff that were able to get us into a room right away so we could get into some dry clothes. When we opened the door to our room we knew life was going to immediately look up for awhile. This hotel is beautiful and, at the same time, very biker friendly. The staff is also wonderful as well.

We got our belongings unpacked, I got my wet shoes stuffed with towels, rung the water out of my socks, and as luck would have it, the rain stopped. We revitalized ourselves with a lunch of beer cheese soup, seafood gumbo, and one of the best burgers we’d had in a long time. Then off to the “mothership” we went—the Harley Davidson Museum.

The museum is somewhat overwhelming and, although we saw the majority of it, we didn’t see everything—we noticed that the skies were getting darker, so we wrapped it up for this trip. As we got to the bike, the skies once again opened up and we found ourselves, soaked to the bone. This time when we got back to the hotel, it was certainly time for a hot shower, wrapping up for awhile in the wonderful plush robes supplied to us by the hotel, and just knocking back and having a beer while watching the storm continue outside our window and watching the reports of the tv. Apparently there was flash flooding all around us and a couple of tornados in the vicinity. We were snugged in, so we were just grateful for being dry.

After awhile of watching the weather get worse and worse, we decided to go down to the hotel bar and have a drink at least before the power went out. When we arrived downstairs, the bar was loaded with anyone but bikers…this place must be the hot spot these days. We loved it…people watching! We ordered our hard-earned gin and tonic and sat back and enjoyed our surroundings. Once we decided we were hungry, we checked the menu and I saw Kobe beef and fresh crab meat sliders…that won me over…Kobe beef! Tom ordered a great meat and cheese plate with lamb, salami, a couple of local artisanal cheeses and some great condiments and crostini. We topped it off with a green salad we shared. We enjoyed it immensely…all the food was incredibly done. We topped it off with a shared piece of rhubarb cheesecake and Tom wisely ordered us a cherry brandy to accompany it. We wandered over to the lobby sitting area and relived our good days in visiting with all the relatives, and I told Tom this was such a nice comfortable place to be, I felt that this was the “do-over” for our 25^th wedding anniversary trip (to a less than savory location—25 years before it was great—who knew?) as well as my upcoming 50^th birthday dinner. In other words…bliss J. We checked the weather and decided to ask if the room would be available for another evening so we wouldn’t have to pack our worldly belongings tomorrow before heading back to the museum for the steel toed tour. As luck would have it, we could have our room for another night…hoooooray!

With that good news, we headed back upstairs, placed our wake up call for tomorrow morning’s tour, hopped back into those plush robes, and just took it all in while the weather put on a sound and light show.

When you have Kobe beef, even wet socks can’t ruin your day...ttyl

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Day Six: Wisconsin Trip