Hello to all you blog readers! We’re back to share our next little adventure with you. We’re in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Neither of us has ever been to any place in Wisconsin, but now we can say we have. What brings us to Milwaukee is the annual conference of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI). Christine is presenting with some colleagues/customer and is also receiving an award. This association and its annual and regional conferences has been very important to Christine and the work that she does. I have also been a member for many years and we have met and gained many new friends, colleagues and customers. The annual conference is held in a different place each year and this has enabled us to travel to some places we’ve never been to, like Milwaukee. More about the conference in a later post.
We flew to Detroit and then to Milwaukee late yesterday and arrived at the Hyatt Regency. Even though this was a short trip distance and time wise, it still is tiring to travel, so we were bushed by the time we arrived and pretty much just unpacked and went to sleep. The conference doesn’t start until Thursday afternoon, so we came a day early and will stay a day after so we can do some touring around Milwaukee. And, I must say, what we’ve seen so far is very interesting and beautiful.
Milwaukee is on the west side of Lake Michigan, almost directly north of Chicago. It is really, really flat in this lower east part of Wisconsin, being along the lake. Milwaukee is a city of around 600,000 people and is famous for its beer brewing history. The founder of the city was Solomon Juneau, a French Canadian explorer and in 1846 Milwaukee was formed by the merger of three neighboring towns. By then, there were waves of immigrants, primarily German, coming to the area. By 1900, 34% of Milwaukeeans spoke German. A large Polish wave of immigrants also settled in Milwaukee. The area historically has been home to manufacturing, stockyards, rendering plants, shipping and other heavy industry. But Milwaukee became synonymous with Germans and beer starting in 1850. Milwaukee was the number one beer producing city in the world for many years. The brands Schlitz, Pabst, Blatz and Miller have all been made in Milwaukee, but Miller is the only brewery still producing in Milwaukee. Beer and brats reign supreme in Milwaukee, but I was interested to read that Milwaukee is home to 6 Fortune 500 companies – Johnson Controls, Northwestern Mutual, Manpower, Rockwell Automation, Harley-Davidson and Joy Global.
Milwaukee has invested a lot in its river and lake fronts. It is a very inviting tourist area in some sections of the city, primarily East Town and the Third Ward. Our hotel, the Hyatt, is close to the River Walk and so we set off after a lazy morning to go exploring.
As we headed towards the River Walk, a block away, Christine was interested in the building with the clock tower that we see from our hotel window.
At night, the clock face appears as a big moon in our line of sight. The large building in the forefront is the Milwaukee Center, an office tower. The clock tower to the right is City Hall, and it is a beautiful building built in the 1890s and opened in 1895. I was fascinated to learn that the building was built without using any scaffolding, an amazing feat, I’d say. As we were looking up admiring the building a woman walked by in kind of uniformy clothing. She turned to see what we were looking at and made some comments. We soon learned that she was a volunteer Public Service Ambassador. These folks are billed as walking concierges and walk around the downtown area with maps and other handouts helping tourists with information and directions. I was super impressed by this. She encouraged us to go into City Hall and also told about some other things like like music in the park tonight across the street from the hotel.
We did go in to City Hall and we’re very glad we did. It is a very interesting building with an open lobby all the way up about 12 floors. The walkways are around the edge of the opening and the offices and rooms are entered through the walkways. This City Hall was modeled after architecture in Germany and at the time it opened was the tallest habitable building in the country, with its tower being the second tallest in the country. The building is now a national historic landmark. We wandered around looking at photos lining the wall. One floor showed city council members through the years and we noted the first female council member came in 1960, but there have only been a handful since then.
Across the street from City Hall is another beautiful building, the Pabst Theater. Built in 1895, it is the fourth-oldest continuously operating theater in the United States. I had no idea that Milwaukee was such a trailblazing city!
The next block down were two other fantastic buildings, the Mitchell Building and the Mackie Building. The Mitchell Building was built in 1876 and must have been a knockout mansion in its day. Andrew Mitchell was a U.S. Congressman. He was a Scottish immigrant and made his fortune in the railroad business. He also built the building next door, which housed the Chamber of Commerce for the grain industry. Really wonderful buildings visually.
We then walked some of the River Walk. I had my picture taken with the Fonz. All you Happy Days fans will remember him.
The River Walk is along the Milwaukee River. We toured the section going south.
We’ll explore more of the River Walk going north later. Hopefully, we’ll have an opportunity to eat at one of the many sidewalk cafes along the River Walk. We also saw kayak rental places. I think it would be fun to paddle up and down the river. We’ll see if we have time for that.
For lunch we walked over to the Milwaukee Public Market. It is advertised as Milwaukee’s most unique downtown food destination and bursting with one-of-a-kind, high quality selections of artisan & ethnic products and freshly-made prepared foods. Before going, I thought it might be along the lines of Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, which is such an overwhelming place to visit. The MKE Public Market is a lot smaller and very much less hectic. We wandered around trying figure out what to have for lunch. Christine first bought some items to carry her through lunches this week. We then settled on a pita plate, mine veggie and Christine’s chicken curry. It was very tasty. We finished with a strawberry mango smoothie, which really hit the spot.
After the market, we went back to the River Walk and we saw a really cool thing. I was aware that there were some river cruises going up and down the Milwaukee River, but I had wondered how the boats go under all the relatively low bridges. I figured some were draw bridges, but these were the first that I have seen like these. Rather than two halves of the bridge going up at angles, the whole bridge deck is raised so that boats can clear the bridge. Fascinating to watch!
We walked for a while longer and then turned back towards the hotel. We haven’t walked at all since Malta, and so our backs and feet were telling us we’ve been too sedentary of late. Near our hotel we saw a couple of other interesting buildings.
The county courthouse looked kind of weird, like it was unfinished. And it looks rather imposing down at the end of Kilbourn Avenue.
Now, we’re lazing away the rest of the afternoon. Christine is trying to nap. She needs to be rested and ready for her presentation on Friday.
This evening, we met up with several AHDI colleagues. The lobby was a great greet and meet area as AHDI members shuttled in from the airport. We eventually went to dinner at the MKE Brat House and had $2.00 Schlitz beer (on tap) and famous German sausages. Christine had a combination platter that included the local delicacy – fried cheese curd. Really yummy! It was a fun dinner with AHDI friends, but by 7:30 we all were ready to crash and back to the hotel we came.
We had a really nice day in Milwaukee, but tomorrow at noon, the conference begins, so we won’t be able to goof off much.