shop view 1
shop view 2
shop view 3
Oh oh oh! My feet hurt at the end of the afternoon. I felt like I could hardly walk! But don't you feel sorry for me. If you read the rest of this, you'll see I paid a small price!
Fun? I reckon! We went to another huge H-D dealer, Hal's, with another street fair going on. Someone cleaned Lindy's glasses so neither dirt, dust, nor sweat could affect them. People were building saddles customized for H-D rider's butts & bikes. A lady was taking orders for tailored vests, jackets, chaps, & halters. You could get prescription goggles. You could pick almost any kind of ready-made leathers. There were custom wheels & special tires & I don't remember what all, and that was outside the dealership!
Inside was a huge shop so clean that you'd be hard pressed to believe the mechanics worked with grease & oil & gasoline! The workbenches looked frighteningly tidy.
shop view 1
shop view 2
shop view 3
In the showroom, 50 or so H-Ds waited for you to fall in love with one or more of them. Maybe a kazillion leather clothes items lured you, as did a gazillion cloth clothes items & a merzillion mementos, gadgets, & oh yes, parts.
Then we went to a factory where H-D assembles engines. On my! If you appreciate tooling, or automation, or good workmanship, take that tour of the Capitol facility! My my my! We walked & stood & walked again for an hour or more, and I grinned damn near as much as while riding!
One of the things I liked best about the factory was how many women worked there.
At those two locations, we saw H-D T-shirts from Capetown (South Africa), the Rhine Valley, Japan, the best little Harley house in Georgia, 100s of WI H-D dealers, WA, SD, SC, FL, & probably others.
What did I love today? Everywhere we went today we saw oceans of H-Ds & H-D riders, men & women. Milwaukee really organized itself to support this event. Special lanes were set aside for H-Ds. Cops were friendly or at least not hostile. Truck drivers accomodated H-D riders. It was wonderful!
What did I love 2nd most? The clothes! Especially those worn by H-D riders & their passengers.
One outfit baffled me. A lady wore a leather halter, a do-rag (kinda like a bandanna), and a long skirt. I could have sworn she was a rider or a passenger, but how do you ride in an ankle-length skirt? It *did* have snaps along one side from its hem up to about her hip, but still! How does one ride with all that?
So what I loved second most was all the self-expression in the clothes of the H-D riders & their passengers.
What did I love most? what I loved most was all the self-expression in the hair & beards of the H-D riders & their passengers.
Wow! What a marvelous day!
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!
looking out
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H-D 13
not bonsai
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.
illuminated balloon
people 1
people 2
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 as 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!
Yea! The parade!
TJ had received a parade pass - 5000 of them were randomly assigned to early ticket buyers - and a friend would pick her up at 0445. So I woke at 0400 to make sure she made it.
Ho ho ho! TJ had been up since 0300, had packed us up porta-chairs for the parade, and was ready for her ride to arrive.
He did, and off they went to form up in the parade body.
predawn pre-parade
A little while later, we went down to the parade route, to get a good parking place & to get a good spot. Wow! Did we ever! Both, but we set up chairs right at the curb edge of the sidewalk, about 50 feet around the corner the parade would take.
Then we waited, & watched humans become a crowd. After all the good
places filled up, people who showed up just in time for the parade asked
if they could sit on the curb or in the street in front of us. No. 
And then the parade started! A pre-pre-parade of several dozen motorcycle officers made sure the route was clear. A pre-parade of 3 huge H-D semis did the same.
parade01
parade02
parade03
parade04
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And then it began! Whee! Willie G. & hls kids who work in H-D, & their kids rode by waving & smiling. So did other people I should have known, then a group of riders each of whom had raised at least $5300 for MDA during the year. Next came dozens of riders each bearing the flag of a Harley Owners Group (HOG) chapter. Finally came the 5000!
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parade09
parade10
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When TJ & her friend came around the corner, Lindy & Dennis - who'd taken pictures of other riders - jumped to get a picture of her. (Yea! This morning we know Lindy's - digital - worked!)
parade15
parade16
parade17
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parade21
What other riders did they photograph - or try to?
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One rider had devised a structure that let him carry 100 flags! Several riders sported magnificent horns (imagine Vikings). Some carried flags from their home countries - Norway, Finland, Mexico, Brasil, Argentina, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, & others I didn't recognize. Wowee!
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There was a rider in top hat & tails, another in a bikini & chaps, a couple still in their wedding dress & tux. There were Aussie outback outfits & cowboys, one H-D covered with odds'n'ends. There were riders in buffalo skin "helmets", one passenger in not much at all, riders in costumes derived from our flag.
parade38(TJ)
parade39
parade40
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10,000 Harleys!
I cheered & grinned & clapped for damn near every one! So much so that some photographer with a camera as big as a human leg shot me from close up while I cheered & grinned & clapped for the riders passing behind him.
Then it ended with a flourish from the same (?) group of several dozen motorcycle officers who had made the pre-pre-parade sweep, and the same (?) 3 huge H-D semis who had made the pre-parade sweep.
Somehow it was 1230. We put away the porta-chairs in Dennis & TJ's car then joined TJ at Summerfest. TJ introduced us to half a dozen friends from the parade & from before, and we sat around in the shade & lake breeze recreating bits of the parade & before it, too excited & delighted to even eat!
Later we did eat, & we saw some more of Summerfest. Then we went to The Experience, an immense display that H-D put together. On the road (Lindy & I saw part of it at Riverside, near L.A.) it had featured (for me anyway) some of the 2003 H-D models. Here many of the 2004 models were available - really! People sat on them, rolled them back & forth, turned the handlebars from side to side. A control freak would have lost his manners!
H-D tanks
folks & tent
TJ rides
But The Experience also displayed historical H-Ds, posters from 100 years of ad campaigns, clothes riders have worn, and probably lots else I didn't notice or forgot.
All that wore us out. It was after dark and the rock'n'roll had hours to go but we didn't. We came home, tried to watch some of the telly coverage, but were too tired for that even.
Hope you can tell we were still grinning even then.
We woke slowly yesterday morning, rose slowly, and moved slowly - or I did. But we finaly got out of here around 1000.
Oops! A local Harley dealer, House of Harley-Davidson, waited to serve us a pancake breakfast. (They didn't wait to serve the more prompt & quick.) They wouldn't have served us if we arrived later than 1100. Whew! We did.
In fact we arrived down by Summerfest in time to walk around past the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) and see the people running from the just opened gates to the arena that H-D had set up in Veterans Park. Wow! When you see a crowd of people running, I recommend that you see it from the side and from some distance like we did! On the other hand (OTOH), we heard of no injuries, so apparently the crowd did it well!
crowd, stage, screens
trying again
H-D set up a huge stage with plenty of backstage masked to hide the logistics of putting on a big show. But they protected the park to this expent: they didn't set up bleachers. It was probably a good thing another way: they didn't expect 150,000+ people to show up for their party. The arena accommodated us. Bleachers might not have.
folks
more folks
still more folks
OTOH, the people around Lindy & I (we got lost from TJ & Dennis, but we knew we might, so we took two cars there) decided to call the fine surface of dust that soon collected on all of us a patina. I liked that. Bleachers might have missed giving us all that patina.
Why did people run? To get into the first section, nearer the stage. Lindy and I got into one of the second sections, about 1 1/2 blocks from the stage. You probably know there's actually some comfort in that. And the enormous screens and speakers mean you miss little if anything - so I think.
So clearly we were there long before the real show began at 1800. But H-D didn't leave a crowd like that to its own devices - civilization is too thin a patina. Nope, by the time we settled into our places - they only allowed so many into each of the fenced-off sections of the arena - they played rock'n'roll. But wait! Rock'n'roll I like? Yep! I think they played really popular rock'n'roll from the last 50 years; I didn't know half of it, but what I did know was good to ear again,
I love jeans, but I really love low-rider jeans. This morning I'm not even sure that's the right name, but I do love them. And yes, maybe some people shouldn't wear them, but others definitely - well, I'm glad they do!
We got acquainted with the people around us in that superficial way you
do so you can share witticisms with them and vice-versa - or
half-witticisms.
After a couple of hours of rock'n'roll, H-D had a cople of Milwaukee radio celebrities put on a telly show for us using the enormous screens already there. It was fun but not very demading. The couple in front of us slept for an hour, then woke and rejoined the festivities. Another couple had me take their snapshot with the huge H-D stage as a backdrop.
"Aw c'mon, look happy!" I heard a snapshooter plead. He must've been facetious. Everyone around me did.
"Did you ever see so many Twins in one family?" reads a billboard in Milwaukee. We learned that in the pre-show. (The H-D engine is a V-Twin.)
Another item we learned, from no less authrity than the sheriff in Milwaukee is that Milwaukee health food is Krispy Kremes & coffee.
One more tidbit that enlivened the pre-show: a couple who met on internet, met in person at an H-D dealership in Milwaukee & he bought her a Harley as a wedding gift.
flyover 1
flyover 2
flyover 3
flyover 4
Amazingly, the rock'n'roll & telly show entertained so well that suddenly it was 1800 and we (the audience) were counting down the seconds. We all enjoyed a good laugh when the countdown finished and nothing launched.
But Dan Ackroyd soon emerged and joked with us before some group I knew I ought to know came out and entertained us with rock'n'roll I knew and rock'n'roll I didn't. Okay, okay! I finally asked a neighbor. The Doobie Brothers - duh! Well, at least I knew I should have known them!
Later, Tim McGraw wowed some of us (me, for instance) then brought out Kid Rock. Gosh! He wowed me too! He had me up and dancing around as if I knew how! And laughing at his outrageous lyrics. And giggling at the humor in them. What a delight to learn to like someone new (to me)!
Then Elton John came out and delivered so much more than his recordings reveal! What a showman! Kid Rock joined him for one number and Tim McGraw for another. And - way later then I'd've expected me to stay awake - the music finished.
How did we know? H-D put on the biggest, loudest, most extravagant, and most impressive fireworks show I've ever seen!
Some things H-D couldn't magic though. We still had a long walk out and back to the car. I still needed a burger as part of my winding down from the show. And we still had to drive home following MapQuest instructions. They're good, but sometimes I don't understand them until I've tried the wrong thing.
Fortunately Lindy drove and asked for directions and we got "home" by 0200.
Yes "home". Thank you TJ & Dennis for making us so welcome and so comfortable in your wonderful house out here in this lovely neighborhood, so shaded and secluded by your trees!
scads of HDs, parked 
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