I started off the morning by going to the hotel restaurant to grab breakfast. The front desk only gave me drink coupons and not a meal coupon even though they told me that breakfast would be free, so I gave the waitress my room number and they said they would take care of it. On the weekends, they have a buffet breakfast with pancakes, eggs, hash browns, bacon, and sausages.
A little before noon, I headed to the Sprecher Brewery to take their tour and have some beer samples. We stayed in the bar talking for a long time and both the 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock tour behind us came through before we were done.
Sprecher Brewery
Sprecher Brewery
From there we went downtown to have lunch and some coffee. The weather was awful with both rain and strong winds, so we didn’t venture far and walked into the first place we found and ordered a Chicago-style deep dish pizza that was very mediocre. The weather improved later, so we walked around a bit around downtown and along Lake Michigan.
Downtown Milwaukee
Lake Michigan
Hoan Bridge
Milwaukee Art Museum and downtown
Since I had a 5am flight in the morning, I went back pretty early to get a few hours of sleep in before leaving the hotel. Since it was close to the airport, I was able to take a 4am shuttle, walk up to the automated check-in kiosk, and go through security with plenty of time to spare. The second segment ORD-SFO looked like it might be oversold the night before as ORD had weather delays and cancellations the day before, but the plane ended up with 30+ open seats and cleared all standby passengers. I guess I can’t get a bump every time!
At any rate, Milwaukee is a nice change of pace from nearby Chicago, and although I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to Milwaukee instead of Chicago, it’s not a bad place to visit.
