June 12, 2015 – Rainy, 60 degrees

Miles Today: 34

Miles to Date: 2,110

States to Date: 11

I slept and took my time getting on the road for my short trip to Milwaukee. I wanted to see Calatrava’s Milwaukee Art Museum, and knew in advance his building was all I would see; the permanent collections were closed to renovate the old building, and the blockbuster gallery in the Calatrava building was between installations. I had a leisurely ride north along the coast, meandered into Milwaukee, and spent enough time in Calatrava’s spectacular building to appreciate its majesty and watch its brise soleil close and reopen at noon. The building is smaller than I envisioned, yet it inspires awe at every turn – a sort of nautically themed muscular masterpiece that says, “I do all the tricks of structural gymnastics because I can.”

If Chicago is the Midwest’s answer to New York, Milwaukee is more like Boston – cool and fun and more manageable. Rain began to sputter as I started pedaling through the city, so I stopped for lunch at Jimmy Johns to wait out the downpour. It was still coming down when I headed over to The Brewery, a fascinating historical reuse project at the old Pabst Brewery. The rain was steady, so Dennis Stapleton spent an hour talking to me about the project in a conference room, but it cleared in time for us to walk the site.

Calatrva wasn’t the only cool art I saw today. I also loved this house along the lake in Cudahy:

I had a bit of writing time and then headed over to my warmshowers host for the evening in New Berlin, who cycles with a parrot, Barney the biking bird!