Aug 31, Waukegan, IL

This morning is bright and sunny! A nice change from the last few days. We head out of Kenosha with a slight breeze in almost calm water and motor south on Lake Michigan, leaving Wisconsin and entering Illinois.

Linda bundled up on August 31.

The air temperature is in the mid 60's and the water temperature is 58 degrees. A very pretty day on the water but still a little cool for August 31st.

North Point Marina
At 1400 slips, the largest on Lake Michigan

We pass North Port Marina about 10 miles south of Kenosha. North Port Marina is the largest marina on Lake Michigan. The walk from your boat slip to the marina office on shore can be as much as a half mile.

Lighthouses and breakwater at Waukegan

We did not stop at North Port but continued another 5 miles to Waukegan, Illinois where we are docked at the Waukegan North Harbor. This is another large marina filled with recreational boats that have reserved their slips for the entire summer season.

Main Channel into Waukegan

Approaching North Harbor.
Downtown Waukegan in the background.

There are no large slips available in the inner Waukegan Harbor so we are at the North Harbor. This 'overflow' North Harbor is at the end of the main channel and we are a little 'rock and rolly' as we are tied in our slip. Oh well. We are nearing Chicago and need a day to just relax and get ready.

Sculpture of steel and canvas provides shade over a picnic area in the park.

There are two hamburger stands and an ice cream vendor at the foot of our dock and the nearby Waukegan Yacht Club is open for lunch. But there are no restaurants that are open for dinner and no shopping nearby.

Aug 30, Kenosha, WI

Awoke this morning in Racine after an all night rain to cooler temperatures (low mid 40's overnight) and not much wind. So we moved ten miles south to Kenosha. This moves us closer to Chicago, is a new place to see and has a grocery store nearby. We miss having a car.

Three Breakwater Lighthouses mark the main channel into the port of Kenosha

We enter another breakwater to the south of the main Kenosha channel to access the South Point Marina

We are docked at the South Point Marina which has all the facilities and is near the trolly and the older downtown. The folks in the slip next to us welcome us to their marina. They are Ron and Lynda Schluter and Bret Williams aboard the FANTASEA VI. We ask about grocery shopping and they immediately offer us their car as there is no grocery close by the marina. Wow! Soooo nice. We accept and come back loaded with supplies and ready for Chicago.

South Port Marina

After an overcast morning, the weather has turned sunny and nice in the afternoon. We walk the area around the marina and find there is a lot of redevelopment taking place here. There is a mixture of new residential condominiums and new retail. Several buildings are complete but the occupancy is not very good so far. Only one restaurant in the retail and no stores open.

Residential on the left and retail on the right

Mostly vacant

The marina and surrounding land was formerly the main, fully integrated, factory site of American Motors. AMC was sold several times and finally went bankrupt in the 1980's. The factory and the property finally reverted to the city for unpaid taxes. The factory was torn down and the site cleaned up and is now in the process of being redeveloped. The marina seems full but the development of the condominiums and the retail does not seem to be going very well.

Aug 28-29, Racine, WI

We left our dock at the Discovery Center in Milwaukee with calm winds, overcast skies and patchy fog and motored 20 miles south to Racine, Wisconsin. The water temperature in Lake Michigan is a warmer 55 degrees as we come down the coast. Air temperature is 62.

Milwaukee skyline as we leave the Discovery Center

Freeway bridge over the Milwaukee River

Lighthouse marks the entrance to the Milwaukee Harbor.
Large freighter in the distance on the way into Milwaukee.

Windy Point Lighthouse

Breakwater at Racine

We are docked in Racine at the large Reefpoint Marina (over 900 slips) and were welcomed to the dock by 'the trawler welcoming committee' and some people we met in Pt Washington. This is a friendly place. Yesterday's weather here consisted of waves of heavy rain all day and I think the people are just happy to be 'out and about' even in the drizzle today.

Reefpoint Marina

Not many vacant spaces

Most slips are leased for the whole season.
Many slips are personalized. This one 'Redneck Yacht Club'.

We found the local trolly (25 cents) and rode the entire route to see what's here. Very pleasant small town dominated by the boat slips and recreational boating. There are quite a few four story condominium projects along the marina that look relatively unoccupied.

Downtown Racine

Episcopal Church

Windy today and temperature in the low 60's. Where is summer? We walked the town and found lots of shop and a few storefront vacancies. Not as many vacancies as some of the other towns along this side of Lake Michigan.

There is an arts program sponsored by racinedowntown.com that involves painting or otherwise decorating Adirondack chairs. Each chair has an artist who finds a sponsor or a sponsor who finds an artist. The chairs are displayed in the downtown business district and/or in front of sponsoring business for the summer. The chairs are then auctioned off in the fall with the proceeds to a support next years effort and to a worthy cause.

This is the oversize one

Past subjects that were painted and decorated (artists can modify the shape, too) have included large garden globes (30"), dogs, cats, fish, birdbaths and lighthouses. We enjoyed looking at the various efforts and thought some were very good. They always do one 'oversized' which they display in the town square. Good project to showcase the local artists.

Aug 24-27, Milwaukee, WI

Today we moved 25 miles from Port Washington, Wisconsin, to Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin. Lake Michigan was flat calm and we had a delightful cruise with lots of sunshine. The water temperature was 51 degrees and the air temperature was mid 60’s. Cool cruising on the water. This is nice weather but not summertime weather.

Ran the generator today while underway and it ran well for an hour and quit. Same problem as before. Bummer. Fuel solenoid may have been bad but was not the whole problem. Called the local Onan/Cummings service dealer in Milwaukee from the boat before we docked to send someone out from their shop tomorrow.

Approaching Milwaukee.

Milwaukee Art Museum from the water. 'Wings' are closed.
'Click' on any picture to enlarge.

McKinley Marina.

We are at the McKinley Marina which is adjacent to the large Veteran’s Park and about a mile from downtown. The marina is a large one with 685 slips and all the facilities. We have a good view of the Milwaukee skyline. The marina Internet is not free and even so is not working. Bummer.

Brady Street

We walk into town using the pedestrian overpass (over Lincoln Memorial Drive) and visit the historic Brady Street neighborhood. Some shops and several good restaurants and famous bars. Seems like a college neighborhood.

We found the Milwaukee Yacht Club for dinner tonight as it is in the same area as our marina. This is the first time we have used our club reciprocal privileges and find it a very pleasant experience. We may do this sort of thing more often. We talked to a couple at the club who made us feel at home. He told us that ‘Wisconsin’ was really an Indian name that meant ‘the place with the really bad weather’. True or not, it rings true as the weather is quite cool and windy in late August.

The technician from N-Power, the local Cummings dealer, came to the boat early and diagnosed our generator problem as probably (90%?) being the voltage regulator board. They do not have the part locally and so we order it form the factory and hope it will arrive tomorrow.

So we set out to see Milwaukee. First we head to the ‘Historic Third Ward’ which is a theater, arts and decorating neighborhood. One of the highlights for us was the ‘Milwaukee Public Market’, a collection of food vendors. About the best of it’s kind we have seen anywhere. Like Carmine’s on PGA in West Palm Beach but larger and with independent vendors. Also enjoyed ‘Artasia’ a gallery specializing in art, carvings and bronzes from China, Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia. Over 1000 Buddhas plus masks, statues, temple carvings and alters. Very unusual!

Milwaukee Public Market

Inside the market

Historic Third Ward

Owen with a large wood carving

Visited the Pfister Hotel downtown and walked across the Milwaukee river to the ’Shops of Grand Avenue’, a downtown mall which is about 30% vacant.

Milwaukee River downtown

Then walked ’Old World Third Street’ an area of restaurants and bars and some shops, one specializing in German/Polish sausages and one in Wisconsin Cheese.

Old World Third Street

Linda with a 'cheese hat'

There are some really big older buildings in Milwaukee. Must have been built in very prosperous times.

County Courthouse is a beautiful stone building from the 1800's.

City Hall is a well designed brick building.

Rain overnight all night last night and cooler this morning. After two nights at McKinley Marina we moved a mile south in the harbor to the Lakeshore State Park Marina which is near the spectacular Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum and next to the Discovery Center.

We move past the Milwaukee Art museum
which has it's 'wings' extended

Discovery Center
with the DENIS SULLIVAN

Skylne view from the Lakeshore State Park Marina

DENIS SULLIVAN underway

We are much closer to the downtown and restaurants. Services here include 50 amp but no water or other facilities. Internet is within range from the Discovery Center. We are the only boat in this small marina tonight. We are pretty self sufficient.

Nick, the technician from N-Power, the Onan/Cummings dealer in Milwaukee, came to the boat today with the new part, the Automatic Voltage Regulator board and installed it for us. The generator is running fine and we are again hopeful. We will run the generator for several hours on our way to Racine and that should tell us if this repair has fixed our problem.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee Art Museum inside

Twenty foot glass sculpture from Seattle

We tour two of Milwaukee's museums this afternoon. The first is the Milwaukee Art Museum, with the spectacular 'burke brise soleil' "wings" which open every morning at 10 am, close and open at noon and close again at 5 pm every day. The building and 'wings' were designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. This part of the museum opened in 2001. Museum is good inside and from an architectural point of view this new wing of the museum is great inside and out. We see the wings in the open position.

Linda with a real 'mummy' at the Milwaukee Public Museum

Next we visit the Milwaukee Public Museum, which is a natural history museum with large specimens and skeletons of current and extinct animals (even a real mummy) and has many large displays and dioramas depicting scenes from prehistoric peoples to modern cultures from all over the world. We think this is one of Americas great museums.

Students from Marquette University practice in the Milwaukee River

From the museum, we walked across the Milwaukee River and went to 'International Exports' a James Bond 'safe house' that is a famous restaurant in Milwaukee. We found the 'International Exports' off the alley across from the Pabst Theater and entered the small lobby. Upon entering we found there were two doors both of which were locked. We could not find a way into the restaurant. We spent a few minutes (two or three minutes) knocking on the locked doors and looking around for a way into the restaurant. Finally read a small sign on the wall that invited us to press a lever and as we did a bookcase wall opened up. This led to a hallway with double doors at the end which opened into the restaurant. Turns out the whole process of confusion and discovery is shown to the restaurant patrons on closed circuit TV for their amusement and entertainment (doesn't take much to entertain bar patrons). Some folks even get a round of applause as they finally make it through those doors and into the dining room. Fun evening and certainly unique.

Another night of drizzling rain and cool temperatures. We move the boat over to the wall at the Discovery Center. No power here for us (only single 30 amp) but it is closer to everything and has wifi Internet which we can tap into. Then we head off the the Harley Davidson Museum (Harley/Davidson is headquartered in Milwaukee). Featured are motorcycles from as early as 1907 and exhibits that include a good sampling of the motorcycles built over the years. There are movie clips, war time displays, police displays and displays featuring local motorcycle clubs and their patches and activities. We see customized bikes with everything from additional chrome to more elaborate ways of making a bike unique.

Harley Davidson Museum

Owen with early 1907 motorcycle

Biker costumes

1939 motorcycles

All decked out with chrome

With Jewels

Then back to the Milwaukee Art Museum for the noon closing and reopening of the 'wings'.

Open

Closing

Closing more

Almost closed

They have a wingspan comparable to a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. Santiago Calatrava is famous for his design of buildings that move. We are told that in one of his buildings in Dubai, parts of the towers rotate at different speeds so the building changes shape. This is his first design completed in the USA (2001). The wings slowly close and reopen for us at noon. Remarkable.

As we are docked at the Discovery Center and there is no 50 amp power available here, we have run our generator from 1 pm to 6 pm, and again from 8 pm to 10 pm to generate power for our boat. It worked as it should. I think our last repair has solved the problem. Thanks Nick and N-Power of Milwaukee.