Holiday in Milwaukee: 2019

Summer of 2019 seems like ages ago. It's become difficult already to recall a time free of social distancing and self-quarantine. A time in which going outdoors was not only acceptable, but encouraged. Now we lay holed up in our homes and tell the tales of a time long ago, in which we visited far off lands like Milwaukee, and sampled the local fare, and borrowed the bed of a stranger, and looked at art, and touched countless doorknobs, and washed only when the dirt became an inconvenience.

We woke up early and Samie and Marcus and I rode north along the lake to the Green Bay Trail, which led us the Oak Leaf Trail. We rode paths and crushed limestone and we sweat in the afternoon sun. We stopped in Kenosha for a Pilcrow coffee and a sandwich, and then a stale donut that I didn't realize I needed. We pedaled on and we watched the sun set and we looked at the lake and we swatted gnats and we counted mosquito bites until the miles reached 100. We found the AirBnB and crashed into the couch and then dragged each other up to walk down the street to order 2 massive pizzas with breadsticks and beer and we ate til we all felt ill (When you don't ride a century regularly, your appetite only seems insatiable). We took the leftovers home and passed out while watching a documentary about ants. We woke up sore and threw the leftovers in the microwave before venturing out for coffee. We sipped at Kickapoo and ate more at a restaurant that looked like a fire station. We rode to the art museum and looked at the art and listened to Marcus clop around on the marble floors in his clipless cycling shoes. When we saw everything that there was to see, we rode to the Amtrak station and boarded the train back to Chicago.

We never knew how good we had it. Let's hope we can do it again soon.