Week 2 - Weddings, Babies, Blues, & Bikes
Left Miguel’s for Chicago and got to catch our last sunset in the Bluegrass State. My friends Jessy and Stewie were waiting for me in their beautiful new apartment in Lincoln Park with deep dish veggie pizza - I could die of happiness - and an air mattress for me and Riv. We got up early the next morning to cook breakfast and caught up before I left River with them for the weekend and left for Milwaukee to watch my cheese get hitched. I had planned to camp outside the city, but is the freezing rain fell from the sky and the winds blew I quickly found my friends from the University of Miami and asked if I could shack up with them.
The wedding was out-of-control, as to be expected. Bagpipe parades, confetti canons, wedding cakes made from wheels of cheese, choreographed dances, a twelve-piece band, 6-foot tall hydrangea centerpieces, what seemed like 20 open, endless bars. The wedding itself was at the Harley Davidson Museum, I think because it was the only place big enough to hold all 400 of us, but even that was incredibly cool. October 1, 2016 was one for the personal history books, because as we danced the night away with old friends, I received a phone call from my best friends saying that their son, Mickey, was born healthy and happy. Can’t wait to meet this little man.
I ended up going back to the Harley Museum the next day. You could view all the bikes starting back in the early 1900s and see how they progressed through history and what an integral role they played across our culture from pop icons to the military. I got kicked out of the museum for the second time as they closed the doors on me at five o’clock. We walked around downtown Milwaukee. and even made it out to Lake Michigan hugged each other for the last time and made our way to our perspective cities.
Made it back to Chicago and explored a lot of the Lincoln Park area. River and I adventured to Montrose beach at sunset. Montrose is a beach that exists just for dogs to be themselves in the middle of the city, and its magical. The whole park itself is beautiful and cruising down Lake Shore Drive with no traffic at rush-hour blew mind. We went out at night to a place called Kingston Mines, an old blues club in Lincoln Park that pulses with live music until 5 in the morning. We saw two blues bands play full sets while we ate gumbo, cornbread, and brisket purchased from a small back kitchen that operates into the wee hours - and this was a Tuesday.I tried to get some work done at the café down the street the next day and they had the best looking pastries I've ever seen so I bought a gift certificate as thank you to my friends and skipped town after a little laundry and clean up.
On my way out of town I met up with an old musician neighbor of mine, Paul Bedal, and caught up on life. he also gave me a zoom lens for my camera that has come in pretty handy for viewing wildlife out west, since I forgot to pack binoculars. After our walk in the park I headed out to the burbs to meet up with one of my dearest friends and his dad. We played pool and talked about good movies and books to partake in on the road he gave me his heavily highlighted copy of Timothy Leary Flashbacks. We fell asleep watching Jeremiah Johnson, woke up and dined on the feast of scrambled eggs and English muffins agreeing that nooks and crannies are as incredible as the commercials say they are. I shoved off heading for Montana via the northern Midwest.