The End of an Era

Most of this past week, I wasn't working.

Or at home, for that matter.

This week, we moved my oldest and her partner up to Milwaukee. 

Her partner had gotten a job up in Milwaukee, and so they both moved north of Chicago farther up along Lake Michigan.

My job was driving the U-Haul from Cincinnati --where we added some of my oldest's stuff-- up to Dayton, where we loaded her partner's boxes and whatnot.

This was early on in the loading process.

I was met up in Dayton* by my youngest, who was lugging up from Louisville an old kitchen table her boyfriend was unloading, and we put that in the truck as well. Then we went back home to Cincinnati, leaving the truck up north, to get some rest before the epic trip.

Early in the morning on Wednesday we drove up to Dayton, and I settled into my seat for the next several hours.

It's a Ford E-Series engine (something you'd
find on a Ford Econoline). It's not well known
for being a quiet engine, and the sign saying
"the floor will get warm" didn't endear me to the cabin. 

Having driven a U-Haul across town back home when I moved my son into his and his partner's apartment, I knew what awaited me: noise.

Sure, THAT U-Haul was a Dodge and this was a Ford, but it still was going to be a noisy ride. I did have one saving grace: I put on my earbuds and plugged into my smartphone, so if people tried to get a hold of me I could talk without fumbling for the phone. The earbuds cut out most of the noise, and I could listen to music and podcasts along the way.

Gentle, my ass.

We took off, and my oldest and her partner, her partner's sister, and the guinea pigs quickly pushed ahead. My wife and youngest were in our Honda CR-V and followed suit, and I lumbered along behind in the U-Haul. At least the U-Haul had air conditioning and automatic transmission, because it was not the most pleasant thing to drive. There was also no cruise control, so between the rough steering and constant need to put my foot on the accelerator, I had no opportunity to get distracted.

Okay, I wasn't driving a big rig, nor did I have

a CB radio, but it certainly felt like what I was

doing as I followed the semis heading west.

The trip west to Indianapolis, and then north to Chicago, reacquainted me with the Indianapolis highways in a way that the trip up I-74 to Gen Con never did.

THIS!!

As soon as we crossed the border from Ohio to Indiana on I-70, the roads almost literally went to shit.

I bounced along like I was driving a trampoline, and I was eternally grateful that I moved the container of cleaning materials from the top of a mountain of boxes to the floor, right next to the truck's sliding door. And what had to have been a cruel joke, all of these signs along I-70 kept proclaiming that Indiana was building "Next Gen Roads".

"How about making your roads CURRENT GEN instead of these pieces of shit!!!" I shouted more than once.

Nevertheless, I pressed on while listening to an episode about Elizabethan Spycraft from Professor Suzannah Lipscomb's Not Just The Tudors podcast. Yes, I am SUCH a nerd.

Somewhere before I reached Indianapolis itself, I discovered another truth about U-Haul trucks: they are thirsty bois.

Putting it on the truck doesn't make it true.

I filled up the gas tank before I reached Indy, and again before I reached I-94 up at the northern edge of Indiana. Holy crap was that tank gigantic, and even more than that was the hole in my wallet after each pit stop.

After that last pit stop --with a short break for lunch sandwiched in between at the exit for West Lafayette, the home of Purdue University-- I spent a miserable time driving through mid-afternoon traffic in Chicago.

There wasn't a point where I was at a standstill, but I crept along just slowly enough so that I couldn't take any pictures of the sights, such as the downtown skyline or a view of Lake Michigan. Or this building:

I was not expecting to see this in Chicago.
From LinkedIn.

I knew Steelseries is a Danish company, so when the Steelseries building in Chicago appeared in front of me, I was surprised. Again, I had to fight the truck the entire way through Chicago, so there was no moment where I could take a pic of the building itself.

My drive through Chicago was made more painful by the reality that I didn't want to deal with the toll roads. If I were driving my own car I'd have no issues paying the tolls, but I was driving a rental and I wasn't dealing with anything that might cause me to have to pay U-Haul some extra money. So... I ended up getting off of I-94 out of Chicago and onto US Route 41 until we reached the Wisconsin border. Once there, no tolls awaited us so we got back onto I-94 and away we went.

***

Even though Wisconsin and Ohio are both part of the Midwest, you knew you were in Wisconsin when the first billboard I saw was for a place called "On The Border", a "Gentlemen's Club" in Franklin, Wisconsin. 

"Wow," I said to myself. "You don't see that in Ohio."

Not that those clubs don't exist in Ohio, but that they had actual billboards for them on the highways. At worst you'd see the occasional billboard that says --and I kid you not-- "Love Stuff up ahead". I always imagined 'Love Stuff' being said with Isaac Hayes' low voice, which is something I simply can't imitate.

There's another thing that let me know that I was in Wisconsin:

Yes, they take their cheese seriously in Wisconsin.
Again, too busy to drive to take a pic.
From Wikipedia.

The Mars Cheese Castle is very much a thing --we visited it once when we were up for a friend's wedding back in 2004-- and given that my oldest loves cheese, she'll likely become a regular customer.

Milwaukee itself wasn't what I expected. Throw out any images in your head that were driven by old episodes of Laverne and Shirley --or even the knowledge that breweries such as Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz call Milwaukee home-- because they don't really fit the reality. The downtown skyline doesn't look as impressive as Chicago, Cincinnati, or Cleveland, but the layout is much nicer and cleaner, and there are tons of old buildings still around. The weather was in the upper 70s with a nice breeze blowing off of Lake Michigan, and people were out and about in both downtown and along the lake shore. Parks covered the shore, as well as marinas and a beach and the Milwaukee Art Museum, and joggers and families were enjoying the early evening.**

I took this photo of the Milwaukee Art Museum
after we dropped off the U-Haul. Yes, your
eyes don't deceive you, it looks like a yacht.

The apartment itself was in the upstairs of a renovated building that dated from 1913, less than a mile from Lake Michigan. The first floor contains shops while the upstairs floors all had been renovated into modern apartments. My oldest completely lucked out in how nice the entire neighborhood looked. Sure, there's the obligatory Starbucks, but there was also a small bookstore, several nice restaurants, some quirky shops, and even a small repertoire movie theater. Oh, and a hospital is about 1/2 mile away, so there's that as well.

Now, all I had to do was park the damn truck.

It took a while to find a spot, and I became very acquainted with the narrow roads and the beautifully maintained century old houses ringing the neighborhood, but I finally "created" one by parking in a "private parking only -- violators will be towed" spot behind the apartment and emptied the truck. Then a short trip back through downtown Milwaukee --which included the beautiful Historic Third Ward-- and to the U-Haul spot to drop the heap off, and that was that.

***

The guinea pigs did survive the trip, although the weren't so sure about the new place until the very end of our stay. By then, they were happily munching on treats and begging for more.

As for us, we grabbed some dinner at the end of the block at a local bar, and set out for home.

We originally intended to get through Chicago and then grab a hotel for the night, but after making it that far, we decided to rotate drivers and just push on to home. I won't bore you with the details, as it involved a lot of dozing along the way when I wasn't driving, but we made it back home at around 8 AM EST. My youngest and my wife grabbed showers and then slept, but I simply konked out. Several hours later, my youngest went back to Louisville, where she was working that evening assisting with the front ensemble for one of the local high schools' marching band, and we began our career as (semi) empty nesters. I say "semi" because our youngest is still in college and may yet come back home after graduation, but we'll see.

***

So now you know what I was up to this past week.

Since I was determined to basically keep a low profile, I wrote up a bunch of posts beforehand and scheduled them to post over the course of the week.

Now, when we go back to Milwaukee to visit, I ought to see about getting a six-pack of Schlitz just to say that I tried it. And for those who remember how Schlitz' owners pretty much destroyed the brand by trying to go cheap with the brewing process, the original recipe is back and is being made in small batches. 

*Technically speaking it was Huber Heights, a suburb just north of Dayton, but nobody outside of SW Ohio knows much of anything about Huber, so let's just say it's Dayton and leave it at that.

**Not to put a damper on this, but I'm sure that by winter this weather will be rather brutal.

EtA: I corrected some grammar and the missing link to Laverne and Shirley's theme song, which includes highlights from the show. In case you didn't notice, Laverne and Shirley worked at mythical "Shotz Brewery", a riff on Schlitz Brewery.

#Blaugust2024