We managed to sleep in until well after 7:00 AM (late when you usually get up at 4 AM for work every day) and after I took a shower we kind of laid around the room a while. The bed was hard to sleep on and the pillows were flat. When we were getting ready to leave, I saw some cleaning people in a supply room a couple doors down. I asked if we could get another pillow since they were so flat (for CrowDog). They said they had some brand new ones! I asked for two, then. Some assembly was required--I had to put on the pillow cases. We then headed out to Annie’s American Café where I was all set to have their strawberry crepes. Until I saw that they went out of business. DAMN. There was a Perkins across the street, so we headed over there. Breakfast was good, but I was really hoping for crepes.

We went back to the room for a little while to wait for rush hour to calm down a bit. It wasn’t very warm out so I put on my leather jacket when we headed out. We’d decided to tour Miller Brewing this morning. I mapped out a route there, heading up Blue Mound Road. Soon we were near Miller with signs telling us where to turn to find the tour location. Unfortunately, there was a lot of road construction in the area. Luckily they put up signs directing us the long way around the block to get to the parking lot. We picked a couple spots amongst the other Harleys parked there and a couple parked next to us. The woman was riding a dresser trike and had to be pushed into the space. If she’d pulled in front first, she could’ve used gravity to get herself backed out. Duh.

We entered the building and got our “tickets” for the 10:30 tour. When the woman behind the counter asked if we would be sampling the beer (we don’t like beer), we both said “no.” This flustered her a bit! She asked us again and we again said “no, we would not be drinking beer.” She finally understood and we wandered around the gift shop and lobby waiting for the tour to begin. There were lots and lots of bikers there, and a few bewildered citizens. It was funny.

Finally, it was tour time. We were led into a room with comfortable seats where we were treated to a 15 minute video (on three screens) that told of the history of Miller. Quite entertaining and very well done. It made good use of the total width of the three screens. From there, our tour guides led us outside and up the street to a building, and up a long flight of stairs to where they packaged the cans and bottles. It was mind boggling, seeing that many cans and bottles zipping past. Back down stairs and through to the warehouse. Again, simply amazing. From there we hoofed it up the street a couple blocks to the caves. They were something like 60 feet underground. I thought we’d get to see some of the big vats where they actually do the brewing like I had in previous tours, but we didn’t. We went from the caves directly to the place where they gave out samples. We ended up sitting with a yuppie and a kid and the yuppie’s mother. I asked where they were from. She couldn’t say “California,” but instead had to say “Hollywood.” Big woo.

Since we didn’t want beer, we ended up with root beer. A good substitute! We grabbed our postcards, our souvenir pin, and headed back to the bikes (after a quick potty stop). From the number of bikers waiting for the next tour, it looked like they were going to have a busy day.

The street in front of the parking lot was under construction and thus was one-way (we’d seen a pack of bikes earlier riding the wrong way and meeting vehicles!). Fortunately, the one-way took us the way we needed to go. We got up to 35th street, hung a right, then hung a left on Wisconsin. We took this street downtown and then I hung a right on Broadway, then a left on Michigan at the next block. Perfect! Right to the Summerfest grounds. We headed directly to “our” parking lot and once again got a spot near the Dunlop truck. Since I’d finally figured out where the dealerships were set up, we headed that-a-way. I was in search of a new big sweatshirt to wear under my leather jacket and CrowDog wanted some gloves. The first two dealers had neither, but we both scored at Hal’s HD booth. CrowDog got a pair of shorty gloves for something like $22. I found a large size thermal shirt for $29. It was just what I wanted. I tied it over my shoulders and we headed back out to the bikes to drop off the bags we ended up with.

When we got to the bikes, I saw that some moron had parked us in! There was a small slot where CrowDog could back out, so he moved his bike over to another spot where nobody could block us in. While I was watching him back up the bike, I heard someone call my name. It was our friend Shelly! It took me a minute to realize it was her. It was so good to see her. We exchanged phone numbers while CrowDog moved my bike. We met her friends, then split up to go back into the park.

We wandered around, eating, watching people, and so on. There was a wind surfing demonstration at 1:00, so we wandered over to see it. The wind was coming off the lake and it was cold. I ended up putting on my new thermal shirt. The guys on the surfboards did some neat stuff. It was interesting. Then some folks did stunts on jet skis. It was amazing! Man could those things move.

Again, more wandering around, eating, people watching. I had some excellent chocolate-covered strawberries. Expensive (two for $1.50) but very good. Eventually we wandered over to claim our spot in the bleachers again to watch the welcome from HD and George Thorogood perform. And boy did he ever. He’s an excellent guitar player and we really enjoyed his show. I liked how he said, “I’m going to do everything in my power to get arrested tonight...” There were even more people in the crowd than the night before. Because I was absolutely freezing cold, even with my leather jacket on, we headed out a few minutes before his show ended. Since it was dark, I turned on the rail lights on my saddlebags so CrowDog could keep track of me. I found my way to the interstate with no problems, but it was very busy. It was kind of hard keeping track of CrowDog back there. But we made it back without incident. I can’t begin to describe what it’s like to be riding along the interstate in Milwaukee with dozens of Harleys all around you.