The Good Land

I recently too a trip to the Milwaukee area. Number Two lives about an hour outside of Milwaukee, is married and has two kids. The original plan was for me to fly out there and chaperone the kids on a train ride to St. Louis, where we would spend some time with my parents (their grandparents). The rains and flooding in the midwest led my brother and his wife to reconsider, so in the end I spent the entire week keeping the kids occupied.

It wasn't bad. I can't complain; I had wanted to spend some time with them. The trip came up on short notice, and there's never really a good time for me to take off from work. I got to drive, and I got to experience a life I considered but never followed - me, the city girl, heading out to the country to don a frock, do the dishes and take care of children.

We took two trips in to Milwaukee. The first trip, we expected to go to Discover World, which is a sort of hands-on science exhibit and aquarium, but they were closed. We went to the Betty Brinn children's museum and the Milwaukee Public Museum instead. We came back two days later for Discovery World.

The trick is, my niece gets carsick. We make her eat as full a breakfast as possible, and extra bags are usually packed in case we need to contain the spillage. She gets upset about it. Of course it's painful for her, but she's also worried about making other people mad. When we had our incidences, I gave her lots of encouragement ("yeah honey! That's great! Get it all out! Get it in the bag!"). We pulled over, had water, and caught our breath. She always fell asleep on the trips back home.

My nephew was good. He's kind of a dork, like any older brother can be, but he was an able second hand for me. He needed his alone time though. I gave him plenty of opportunity to range on ahead of us, away from his aunt and little sister.

We also went swimming. There is a schwimbad near my brother's house; we call it that because it's more than a pool, and resembles nothing so much as the schwimbads we went to in Germany - miniature spas, really, with additional activities, a fod canteen, and pleasant grounds to walk upon. After seeing the beer culture, the German and Polish influences, and finally the schwimbad, I pointed out to my brother that he has recreated our childhood home - he lives in West Germany, only it's in America.

At the museums, we saw: live butterflies, giant catfish, hermit crabs, a 3-D fly-through of the solar system, a giant ship mounted over the exhibit hall, and a diorama of buffalo being driven over a cliff. This last piece made my niece very sad, because buffalo calves were shown in mid-air, plummeting to their deaths.

Milwaukee as a city is interesting. The downtown is like so many others, slowly being revitalized and reclaimed. The highway system is epic, interlocking ribbons of asphalt leading to anywhere but there. The city itself is very flat, and post-industrial; a place that is still transitioning from one economy to another, but having trouble since, as my brother put it, Chicago is barely an hour away and gets first dibs on most enterprises looking for a mdiwestern metropolis.

Where my brother lives, though, is both expansive and bucolic. There is still a Main Street, where parking is easy to find and quaint little shops line the road; there is an old-fashioned ice cream and burger joint, right across from the library. Rivers flow through town, swollen from the recent rains and carrying ducks ripe for feeding bread to on a warm summer day. It's a beautiful town, and I'm glad I went.

Our final destination was Mount Olympus, a Greek-themed water park and amusement park. We splashed in the wave pool; my niece went under and needed some time out to recover before going back in. We went down the slides, and we went on three different go-kart tracks and four different roller coasters. I was genuinely afraid of the final one, called 'Hades', which apparently has a 140' drop and runs underneath the parking in total darkness.

Here's a clip - though I admit, watching a roller coaster isn't the same as being there.

After the park, we went to a theme restaurant; the theme was polynesian. The portions were HUGE, especially the drinks and the deserts. I ordered what I thought was a sensible dinner - coconut shrimp with vegetables and rice. It turns out this meant, "shrimp wrapped in coconut and deep fried, then skewered and mounted a pineapple top", giving the effect of enormous airplanes circling an island and swerving in front of my face. Furthermore, the shrimp were easily separated from their deep-fry jackets, leaving little Body Snatcher-style husks behind.

On the way home, my brother and the kids slept and I talked with my sister-in-law. We've known each other since our college days; she's about four years younger than me but we ran in overlapping circles. We watched the harvest moon mark the summer solstice and cruised down the highway until we came home. The children were unpacked and put to bed; it was after midnight, and I had an early flight top prepare for.

I could end there, but there was one more thing. As I finished packing, my niece came down to kiss me goodbye. Four years old, she burst into tears. "I don't want you to go-oh-oh-oh-oh," she cried. "I want you to stay-ay-ay-ay-ay." Tears running down her cheeks, I told her I would visit again, and that I had people back home who wanted to see me. She wouldn't stop. I pointed out that if I stayed, it wouldn't mean ice cream and swimming every day; I'd put her to work. She cried some more but finally calmed down.

Her brother was easier. He just wanted to fall asleep.