Sunday Drive

Last Sunday, Kris and I decided to take a drive down to the east side. She is taking her scout troop to the UWM planetarium Friday afternoon for a program and badge, and had no idea where it actually was. Since we had nothing better to do, I decided to show her where it was and go over the best route to get there. It took me back to my college days. I had astronomy 101 there my freshman year and if my memory serves right, I got a B+ for the class. I probably should have gotten an A, I remember it being a piece of cake class to pad my GPA at the time. Anyway, after I pointed out to her where it was, where to go into the building, and where to look for parking (for those not familiar, east side parking around UWM totally sucks, and with winter parking rules it is even worse!) I decided to drive the girls around the east side a bit pointing out some of the huge mansions on Newberry Ave. And around Lake Park. Then we thought we’d take a drive past the Pizza Man rubble. That was a big deal to them since they had seen all the stories on the news about the fire and the building engulfed in flames. We drove down North Ave. And I pointed out where Kris and I met, Judges Irish Pub. Boy, what a dump that place is! But back in the day, I wasn’t picky, they had cheap beer, plus I knew all the bartenders and bouncers so I often got free beer. We then went down St. Marys Hill by the North Avenue water tower. I was telling the girls about how that was where I used to go sledding in college when we got a big snowstorm since I had just taken them girls sledding for the first time in Germantown. There is also a picture of my dad as a little kid, I would guess maybe 2 or 3 years old, sitting on a hill that I learned a couple of years ago was on St. Marys hill. I told the girls that was where grandpa’s picture was taken and Ali especially thought that was pretty cool. After an hour or so we headed back home, but it was a nice trip down memory lane. Maybe we’ll drive back this summer when we can go by Bradford Beach. Hopefully the MMSD won’t have dumped any raw sewage into the lake yet, but I am not going to count on it.