Walking Around Milwaukee - Our Birthday Adventure

 A little-known fact: in non-Leap Years, TaGeez and I celebrate our birthda ys two days apart! This year we decided to celebrate our birthday adventure in Milwaukee! ShelleyJean and I enjoyed exploring Milwaukee last year, and I knew it was TaGeez's kind of town.

You know we love a good road trip!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TAGEEZ!

Michigan to Indiana and Illinois to Wisconsin. Traffic was so bad in Chicago that Waze detoured us to Chinatown in Chicago! What a cool energy! We will spend more time here on our summer visit to Chicago.

And we detoured ourselves to downtown Highland Park. It's nothing like the one back home. Here's another area to explore during the daytime - there are so many restaurants!

HAPPY SATURDAY!

Saturday morning found us explore Lakeshore Drive in Milwaukee. What is it about Lake Michigan and our birthday adventures? Not really much ice on the lake after an unusually warm day the day before, but this morning the wind was brisk! Perfect day to visit a historic cemetery, water tower, lakeside park, and lighthouse. 

And part of the charm of this adventure is our antics in front of THREE webcams! Again, that wind was harsh, but we love a road trip! 

Milwaukee webcams

We are cold and hungry so it's time to turn inland and head for some food. No trip to the area is complete without a stop at the Tardis cache! It deserves the 1100+ favorite points!

We found out later that our good friend from back home, GeoConsumer, visited this cache just a few hours earlier!

Hey, TaGeez, I think it's time to head out for some food. Any idea where the spy bar is? 

This door looks promising!

The Safe House is definitely a place to spend the afternoon exploring! Check out this 1,000+ Fave point geocache, watch the magician at the bar, and visit all the rooms, reading the walls. Happy Birthday to us!

The Covert Cache

Afterwards, we explored the ladybug building, the Milwaukee Riverwalk, drove by the yacht-shaped art museum, sought the Pabst Mansion, and visit the Lego Store on release day!

One last sweet cache before we headed to our temporary home with some takeout.

Story Time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCRAPCAT!

We are starting early heading home so we can make many stops along the way. First stops were different travel bug hotels to drop off our birthday trackables. Then we found the Frank Lloyd Wright houses on the Burnham Block before heading to the Third Ward neighborhood for the Milwaukee Public Market!

We picked up vegetarian samosas and birthday cupcakes for a picnic lakeside before heading home.

TaGeez loved Wind Point Lighthouse in Racine - we had the place to ourselves! Too bad too cold for a quick dip!

We stopped in Portage, IN for caching and then dinner at Quaker Steak & Lube! We wrapped our caching adventure at sunset by grabbing Adventure Labs and puzzle finals at the Pure Michigan rest stop across the Michigan border.

What a glorious weekend! We drove 1,000 miles, sang in the car, enjoyed good food & great experiences. What more can you ask for? 

Lake Michigan Circle Tour: Mighty Milwaukee Geocaches

ShelleyJean and I loved the Milwaukee webcams, and we had more amazing caches on our Lake Michigan Circle Tour! Check out these two - each one awarded over 1,000 favorite points!

The Doctor Is In! GC6YDR6

As a Whovian, I have wanted to do this cache since I heard about it as HQ's Geocache of the Week in September 2018. This was so amazing we visited it twice!

It's amazing after so many years it's still in pristine condition. It still has the sound effects, and the Simon game appeared brand new. 

I really hope newer cachers don't ignore it because it's listed as a puzzle cache.

Covert Cache GC3798

Walking along the riverwalk, you may overlook the "International Exports LTD" sign, but I didn't! Hmmm... I wonder what's down this unmarked alley.

Bond, Jane Bond

I don't want to give too much away, but, behind one of these marked doors, was intrigue, mystery... shall we call it a "safehouse" for geocachers?  

So much fun! To reach this pivotal spot, we entered a secret door, had to "prove ourselves to not be spies", locate a secret door, and navigated a darkened secret passage to reach the treasure. 

What we didn't know is that, as we were making fools of ourselves in the anteroom/entrance, there were 3 or TVs inside projecting the hijinks! I'm really hoping we weren't recorded 🤣

moving eyeball

As you navigate through the passages, there's a cold war room, French resistance. 

There are concealed doors. The one on the right has like 3 doors secreted. 

Make a point of adding extra time to your visits so you can stop to read all the walls, doors, and signs. Tell the bar staff if you have kids - they have special operations they can participate in (we heard rumors of labyrinth basement passages and a secret kids-only elevator).

Definitely one to bring TaGeez back to!

Both of these were highlights of the trip, but I have so much more to share!

🔍

Lake Michigan Circle Tour: Webcams in Milwaukee

It's been a LONG while since I've posted. Life has interfered, and there haven't been too many adventures this year. TaGeez and I did attend Midwest GeoBash, but, due to work commitments, only for the day. But I did just return from a fabulous adventure with ShelleyJean. 

Did you know there are still three active webcams in the Milwaukee area? 

I'm a huge webcam fan! Not only is it figuring out how to find them, use them, get the best photos, but it's the camaraderie when you run into another Cacher there. It's, also, the fun of waving at a camera with passersby clueless why you're acting that way!

Last week ShelleyJean and I did a 5-day circle tour of Lake Michigan - leaving from Detroit, circling the bottom of Lake Michigan, going past Chicago, and heading to the Milwaukee area. There, we lucked out to find 3 working webcams.

Outstanding in Your Field GCE8E9

Posted coordinates take you to the side entrance of a TV studio, but the camera focuses on the shopping plaza completely on the other side and across the street. Not the best of shots - just as the camera clicked (snaps a pic every 15 minutes) - the clouds came out and covered the sun. 

Southeast of Milwaukee in New Berlin

• URL http://weather.weatherbug.com/weather-camera/?cam=WITIT 
• Parking for webcam: N 043° 10.934' W 087° 57.751'
• Webcam snaps pick every 15 minutes (:00, :15, :30, and :45) and saves image for 24 hours

:) Webcam GCPHVN

This one took a little more work. I could see from prior logs that there were multiple camera angles, and most of them seemed to be smudges versus real images. The Brady Street Bridge position, though, seemed the clearest position.

Downtown Milwaukee

• Click on link http://www.lakefrontcam.com/.  If you click the link and the image is blank, don't click random buttons across the top of the webpage. Instead, try a different browser. For me, I can see the image on my iPhone but not on my PC. Another Cacher (Hi Frogmore!), had to switch from Chrome to Firefox.
• Once you click on the blue button in the bottom right corner to take control of the camera. You will have control for 1 minute (don't worry - the camera will stay in place after that 1 minute - it does not revert to its original position - unless another Cacher assumes control).
• Once you have control, a menu appears in the upper right corner, click the menu option and select Brady Street Bridge for the clearest picture.
• Parking is just South of the bridge - about 1/10th of a mile - on North Lincoln Memorial Drive N 043° 02.988' W 087° 53.480'
• Walked to N 043° 03.086' W 087° 53.367' for a clear shot!

Lessons in Modern Cartography #2 Webcam GCH51C

This is a nice little webcam in Port Washington. It's in a park with a lot of birds and scenic views, located next to a sweet downtown port town. I think, however, parking may be an issue during prime tourist season - you may have to park and walk. The hardest part here was determining which direction the camera faced!

Port Washington - North of Milwaukee

• Click the URL http://24.106.61.2:8081/view/viewer_index.shtml?id=349 
• Stand at N 043° 23.233' W 087° 52.056'
• Camera changes position every 15 seconds, so we had about a minute between attempts