Homestead

Harley-Davidson!

Day 2

Hi!

Today we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Summerfest grounds. Wow!

Yes we really did go to the MAM. H-D had put on a display there of historical motorcycles, photographs, gas tanks, and so on. The museum had also put on a display of photographs or H-D riders from around 1962-6. Wonderful!

So was the ocean of Harleys parked outside and the rivers of Harleys rolling in to see the exhibits also. So wonderful to hear all those Harleys! Honestly, Milwaukee resonates to the sound of Harleys these days!

Summerfest, almost next door to MAM, is a huge park, acres of lakefront, where Milwaukee - City of Festivals - holds many of its festivals. It's set up for it, or at least it looked that way to me.

It's one of the two main places that H-D is using for events. (Besides the official H-D events, Milwaukee has dozens of block parties celebrating the Centennial.)

We walked over many of those acres today, but not nearly all of them. We had lemonades and wine coolers, beers and pop. No, not all at once, of course. We were there from morning til dark and the day was hot and humid despite a cool breeze off the lake.

We saw 100s of Harleys at MAM and 1000s of them at and around Summerfest. We noticed license plates from at least a couple of dozen states today, and Lindy photographed vest-backs from Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Scotland, Equador, Bavaria, Germany, and other places.

We watched a precision drill team and awed at their demonstration. Then we watched a stunt rider do tricks while he described them. If the drill team awed us, what verb would I use for the wheelies, nose rides, whirls at the fence, ground burns, and stunts for which I have no name. Whee!

H-D has a partnership with the MDA, and the latter had a large presence at Summerfest. We bought pins and rockers to show our support, but we were pikers.

H-D put on an auction whose proceeds went to the MDA. We saw a jacket go for $5000 and lots of items go for $1000 and over. I think that $5000 wasn't even the highest price people bid!

At Summerfest, one of the main features are the food kiosks or whatever the correct name would be. They represent restaurants or chains and I don't know what all. So all day you drift through scents of foods.

You also drift from the sounds of one band to another as Summerfest has several stages, and H-D has them filled much of the day.

Oh and today I noticed lots of kids and teenagers at MAM and Summerfest - I hadn't particularly noticed them yesterday or Wednesday.

And once again the H-D riders & passengers displayed a delightful variety of self-expression in clothes and hair and beards.

We left the grounds tired and happy, but blocks and blocks of Harleys were streaming into Summerfest for the shows that continued or hadn't begun yet. All the way home, H-Ds rumbled around us, and we could still hear them when we got home.

Marvelous day! Hope yours was too!