BeigeJournal

I spent Saturday afternoon in downtown Milwaukee. Though a bit cold and very cloudy this morning, with thunderstorms forecast, the weather turned nicer in the afternoon, and I went to central library, on Wisconsin and approximately eighth street. Inspired to do more walking around in part by last week’s visit to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, which I intend to write an entry about once the photos I took are back from the lab, I commenced wandering. I did walk the new sixth-street viaduct before, when it first opened, and this time I crossed the northern part, then walked west on Canal street, past the Valley Power Plant. Part of the Hank Aaron trail is in this area, west of the plant. I’ll have to look at the map of the trail and do some exploring some day. The 16th street viaduct is apparently closed for construction, but the pedestrian stairs up from canal street are, for some reason, open. Ember lane led north to St. Paul, and then east past the Aldrich buildings and out of the semi-abandoned industrial splendor and into the gentrified Third Ward.

I stopped in Voss Books, a very charming used bookstore, complete with a very furry cat, as all used book stores should have. I bought a copy of Periodic Kingdom for $4.75. As a chemist, I can hardly resist books about the elements. I then stopped at Starbucks, for the very first time in my life. I’m sure it’s hard to imagine anyone in the United States in 2004 who has never bought anything from Starbucks, given that it takes some effort to get more than a kilometer from the nearest one (their web site has a locater to find the nearest store, which hardly seems necessary), but there you go. The white chocolate mocha sounded good, and, sure enough, was. I may join the cult of the cardboard insulator wrapped paper cups. The nutrition information tends to indicate why it tastes so good. The “tall” size I had contains 410 kcal and 20 grams of fat, 13 grams of that saturated. Plus 43 grams of sugar.

I then headed north. The city does seem more lively than I remember it being when I first moved here, in late 1995. A great many buildings have spouted balconies, having been converted from “abandoned” to “condominium.” It would be nice in many ways to live in the city, though aggravating in others.

I’ll have to bring the camera some day and do some photoblogging.