Moon Women, Secret Agents, and Cerveceros

Saturday, June 8, 2013


And now the well belated continuation...


After a night of pleasant sleep on the floor of a Holiday Inn Express- it was time to get up. By pleasant, I mean terrible and virtually non-existent but it was my choice to sleep on the floor. Still beat the tent floor in Cooperstown!



With self pity out of the way, and the waves of post road trip showers over- we ventured out to taste America. Paul and Dave were already ready to go to Denny's next door but the ad for the Red, White, Blue breakfast plate gave us a final push in that direction. When an old man in a commercial declares his pancakes to taste like America, how can you not resist?



From what I understand, American tastes like something between disgusting and great. The pancakes were covered with icing of some kind, and were sickly sweet but compelling nonetheless. While everyone else partook of typical Denny's fare, I played spoiler by getting one of their healthier options- a surprisingly good veggie omelet with turkey bacon. This was topped off with all you can drink breakfast Dr. Pepper.



Drunken Visions in the Forest


Upon the advice of a few Milwaukeeans, we headed over to the Miller Brewery tour. The brewery campus is fairly large but the tours start in the gift shop on the West side, something that took us a few minutes to figure out.

On the tour, they start you off with a short film about Miller's long history. The film covers how they bailed out the City of Chicago with booze during the great fire. No doubt something Brewers remind Cubs fans all the time. The movie continues to tell the tale of the 'Girl in the Moon' which is featured on Miller High Life. Apparently, a Miller employee got lost in the forest after a work function and had a vision of the girl in the moon. I translate the story as meaning he got really tanked, stumbled into the forest and started hallucinating. Not as inspiring as a 'vision' though, so I see why they chose the former explanation.

After seeing the inner workings of the plant itself, they took us into the underground caves where Miller used to keep the beer cold in those pre-mass refrigeration days. Then came the best part of the tour- free tastings! These started in their tavern with a generous serving of Miller High Life-which we had to down pretty fast. We chased this with two more samples- I had the excellent 'Canoe Paddler', as well as the watery low calorie offering- Miller 64. Don't try the 64, not worth the calorie savings.

Half intoxicated, except for Dave, who was driving, we stumbled into Downtown Milwaukee. We walked a bit around the core but not enough to truly felt like we really experienced downtown. The canals were beautiful and every patio along the river seem to be calling us. I will have to return again.

We made our way to a nondescript alley to a door labelled 'International Exports', that's when we knew we were at the 'Safe House'. This spy themed restaurant and bar will make sure you work for your entrance if you don't know the password. In our case, we had do the hokey pokey while everyone in the restaurant watched us on camera.

Through the door, the place was full of spy movie memorabilia, posters, and pun filled signs. Once, our waitress starting calling us 'spies' in a silly earnest voice, we realized she could not turn off the shtick intended for kids. It was all in good fun, so we played along. The food was pretty good in the end- Andrea and I split the 'Our Man from Havana'- a Reuben with Caribbean dressing, which still had far too many fries. Overall, a silly but fun experience.

Into the Ballpark

After a pit stop at the hotel, we made it to Miller Park via taxi. Word to the wise, if you want to use your hotel's shuttle, you will likely have to be part of a Brewers hotel package. There is also a ton of bars downtown that offer shuttles- but our hotel was out west- so its a moot point.


Miller Park is a cross between a baseball stadium and an airline hanger, but it definitely works as a dome. It is elements of those retro ballparks but with ultimately a modern feel. An outdoor ballpark that can be covered if necessary. This is in stark contrast to our concrete monstrosity here in Toronto which only feels like a ballpark when the top is popped. Add to that, the food selection and beverage choices were aplenty. I searched for Cheese Fries in a helmet in vein, but I did manage to get deep fried cheese curds, and a hot dog. Andrea grabbed one of the many flavour of baked potatoes- this one of a tex mex variety, and of course a pretzel. There are many more adventurous food choices like a meatball stuffed with spaghetti, deep fried cheesecake, deep fried bacon, and every type of sausage or meat product ever imaginable. They amazingly have vegetarian and kosher options- even though they are rare to find.


At the ballpark, they were celebrating Latin Heritage night, so the Brewers had their latin inspired 'Cerveceros' jerseys on, which personally I would love if the Blue Jays did something similar. Our organization owes a lot to the latin communities, as long as it is done in a respectful manner, and not in a patronizing way that these theme nights can sometimes turn into. The atmosphere was fun at the ballpark, but the whole game had a weird feeling since we had no stake in whichever team won- but we decided to cheer for the Brewers. The home team ended up prevailing 4-3 after the Phillies made a late surge on the back of Dominic Brown.


One Last Dance


One thing I can say is that the ballpark's outdoor parking lot is massive, which caused a lot of headaches getting out of the park via cab. There does not seem to be a whole lot around Miller Park, except you know, highway, so walking anywhere would have gotten us just as far.


Once we got back to the hotel, some of us were tired while others wanted to continue partying. I found myself somewhere in between and we dragged ourselves over to a nearby hotel bar which was seemed to be Jimmy Buffet inspired. It was a weird mix of older women and college age kids, and a really loud, obnoxious R&B cover band. Maybe it's just not my scene, but after a drink, we called it a night, and prepared ourselves for the trip to Chicago.

Next blog, "Cubbie Blue Arcade Super Fun Time"