A Day Trip to Milwaukee

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One of the day trips Chris wanted to take while in the area was to the Milwaukee Zoo. She had gone there as a child and had many fond memories. We picked a warm but reasonably nice day and got there shortly after it opened.

Our first stop was  at the gorilla exhibit. The building is rather large but at each window we saw  the same thing - nothing. Apparently they were being fed or still asleep. Finally we saw some acrobatic spider monkeys. Guess we will need to stop back later.

We wandered around all corners of the zoo getting to see a wide variety of animals. The most entertaining was one of the bears. It was pacing back and forth over a 30 foot section of its outdoor area adjacent to the dropoff keeping us safe. As it got to the right side, it would do this interesting 180 degree turn, nearly falling into pit below. It kept doing this over and over for the five minutes we stuck around.

Vibrant Peacock

Baby Giraffe

Finally Saw Them

Wrinkles

After spending nearly six hours at the zoo, we decided to leave and do a brewery tour. The Miller factory was not far away, and if we hurried, we would get there before the last scheduled tour of the day. The visitor center is quite nice with a decent size gift shop. I found a few shirts I would have liked, but I would have needed to get rid of others in order to have room in the motor home.

They have their own motor home!

We ended up having a very large group of close to 25 people. The tour itself starts with a short movie explaining the history of Miller and all the brands they have purchased over the years. Then we head to the packaging building. The volume and speed numbers were staggering. One fun fact was that a tractor trailer full of bottles of beer would last you 22 years of drinking a six pack a day!

Next was a walk to the old underground cellars built over 150 years ago. They were designed to have the cavities between each cave be filled over the winter with ice from frozen ponds and then stay cold year round. I was surprised at how nice the mural was in the cave we toured.

Mural in the cellar

Next we crossed the road and headed to the beer gardens. They let you have three 8 ounce glasses and have 6 different brews to choose from. Not bad for a free tour. Some of the buildings reminded me of Kodak Park with the combination of old and new and some brick buildings many stories high with no windows.

After we nursed our drinks, we decided to try a geocache that was in downtown Milwaukee. It had well over 500 favorite points. From the description, we had no real idea what we were looking for. We initially drove by the location which was pretty much an alley between a couple non-descript buildings. We ended up parking a few blocks away and walked back. We looked around outside a little bit but eventually realized it must be in one of the buildings.

We noticed a line of 6 or more people standing at a entrance to a building nearby. We looked around there, but it wasn't even clear what they were waiting for since there really isn't much signage. We  talked to one woman who was heading out a different door and discovered it was a restaurant and was an interesting place with decent food. Since we were hungry, we decided to give it a shot so we got in line and waited.

Each group got called in one at a time by Miss Moneypenny - she was sort of the hostess. The first question was "What's the password?" Each of us needed to whisper it into her ear. Chris apparently got close just by dumb luck when Moneypenny said she was only off by one word. Turns out Chris whispered "I'm looking for a geocache." Since neither of us knew the password, she forced us to perform 3 Chinese ninja poses with sound effects! After the fact, we discovered that there was video camera in the entry and it was broadcast to TVs throughout the dining area.

The whole resturaunt had a spy theme. We were greeted by our handler (waitress) and all customers were called agents. We asked her about how to locate the geocache and were told she might be able to help us out. After we put in our drink orders, she came back with them and a sheet of instructions that we needed to follow. After ordering dinner, we start walking around the other areas in the elaborately decorated restaruant. At first we though our sheet would lead us to the geocahe, but turns out all guests get the same sheet and are all trying to figure out where the instructions lead you.

While we were exploring and being completely confused what we were to be doing, our handler came and found us to say our food was ready. We headed back, had a really good dinner. After finishing our meal, we still had our original mission to complete. We went back to the one bar where the bartender was also a magician. We stood and interacted with him and were quite amazed how good he was at card tricks. Especially since we were standing within a few feet of his hands the whole time.

Finally we asked him if one of the cases we saw on the shelf behind him were the geocache, but alas they weren't. But he did tell us to go to the main bar and ask that bartender. Sure enough, the ammo can was hidden up on a shelf behind a picture at the back of the bar. We signed in feeling accomplished even if not completely sure what we had just experienced.