TaGeez made the most appalling confession: He was about to allow 2 vacation days expire! WHAT!?!? NO NO NO NO NO!
Pack up the car! It's time to see the Fall colors! When in doubt, go to Lake Michigan and Milwaukee!
If you missed my recent post, we grabbed the only remaining 🌵 cache in the world!
And then up to Lake Michigan for a restful reprieve after grabbing the Wings of Milwaukee virtual. Have you been to Lakeshore Drive for the webcams? We grabbed them on an earlier trip, but I like to revisit them when we pass through, hoping to see other Cachers experiencing them for the first time!
One of our main goals of the trip is to visit Mama Rosa, a Dambo Troll in Wauwatosa. She was AMAZING, and we are grateful we were told to come back to see her at night. The park was filled with "broken" lamp posts (Rosa's "flowers"), cool carved & lighted benches, and an amazing art exhibit made of trees and twigs. Lucky for us, local Cachers published a fun Adventure Lab and bonus cache in the park. After returning home, Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids announced they are bringing 12 trolls to Michigan next summer!!!
Heading home on Tuesday, we detoured to the O&H Danish Bakery on the route home. SO DELICIOUS! Plus, one more geocache on the way out of town - we had a pile of trackables to leave!
Now is the time to up the fun! Let's stop in Chicago on the way home! Off we headed for a little spectacular sightseeing and caching in historic Rose Hill and Graceland Cemetery. Fascinating history at both!
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| Eternal Silence - Graceland |
Rose Hill Cemetery is a beautiful, historic "golden era" landscape cemetery with aisles of headstones and traditional mausoleums. We stopped at the Virtual, ISQ - Horatio May Chapel, where we had to climb to the back of the chapel to count glass domes.
Graceland Cemetery was smaller, but so much more exciting! We started at Eternal Silence, marking the final resting place of Dexter Graves. Then we toured the monuments to many of Chicago's greatest architects (another fabulous Adventure Lab)!
One of the most exciting discoveries was the grave of Kate Warne in the Pinkerton family plot. She is located next to the Allan Pinkerton monument and the markers honoring other lost Pinkerton employees.
Meet Kate Warne: America's original female detective! In 1856, she shattered barriers by becoming the first woman detective in the United States. A master of disguise, she infiltrated secret societies, cracked major theft cases, and uncovered a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln—helping save his life. She went on to lead Pinkerton's female detectives, proving that courage, intelligence, and a little undercover ingenuity could change history.
We continued to head downtown, where we found this gem at the location formerly known as the Big Monster Toy Company on Racine. TaGeez is always a great sport!
Wrapping our day at MingHin Dim Sum in Chinatown! Fabulous day of adventure in Chi-Town!
The weather was Fall perfect, and the company, as per usual, was a hoot. We relaxed & cached and enjoyed everything Western Lake Michigan had to offer!
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