Day Two began with us pooling our quarters, readying for the upcoming ::cue sad trombone:: TOLLS. Jump ahead to several tolls later, we’re “out of quarters”, and approaching the next toll and all we have now is a $20 bill. We hand it over to the jolly toll-taker, and as he’s making change, a whirling light goes off inside his booth, and he says, “Do you have a transponder in your car???” “Uhhhh … yes, but we were told it’s not valid!” “Oh, it’s VALID!!” says he, smiling and handing me back our 20 bucks. D’oh!! Ending this part of the story with the news that, YES the transponder now worked well, and continued to do so, and YES, Enterprise Rentals adjusted our final bill to our satisfaction.
And now to our destination du Jour: WISCONSIN!! (State #39!)
We crossed the state line from Illinois to Wisconsin in the morning, and found a WONDERFUL photo op:
The “Welcome to Wisconsin” sign is terrific, and I snapped a truly “old school” photo, placing Lulu in the foreground, and framing the sign. 
Then Gerry … all GUNG HO! to participate in finding the perfect Lulu Photo Op, offered to climb up the embankment, AND scooch BEHIND the sign, to perch Lulu atop it. Sure, why not?
And #FindLulu #FindGerryToo was born. LOL (I’m pretty sure you can find them both, yes?? 😉 )
Our final destination on Day 2 was the lovely city of Milwaukee. We sure packed a LOT into the one day!
Thanks to our early start, we arrived at our very cool art deco inspired hotel, The Ambassador well before noon.
This is the lobby of the place … the rooms were lovely, too! I believe our GREAT DEAL (and it really was!) is available due to one of their infamous former guests: Jeffrey Dahmer. But, I digress ….
We had a 1:30 Tour of Milwaukee scheduled, and we hopped on the hotel’s COMPLIMENTARY shuttle. (Let’s just say that adjective will pop up again before the day is done ….) We were instructed to meet our tour at Milwaukee’s City Hall. (Side note: we were dropped off of the full van first, and as the driver announced “City Hall!” and we disembarked, a few people on the van called out, “Are you getting married???!!??” LOL “Nope … that happened almost 32 years ago.”) In front of City Hall was this odd yet beautiful sculpture … turns out that there was a city-wide sculpting contest & this was the winner. An anonymous buyer purchased it, and then donated it to the city. Our tour guide told us it has no name yet, and no one knows what it depicts. Ahhhh, ART! LOL
Speaking of Art … I was mildly disappointed when our tour guide told us that, due to city-wide construction, the tour bus would not be visiting a few attractions … including this:
The “Fonzie” statue. This time I’ll have to settle for a Google image, but no matter!! It was really great tour!! One of the first stops was at an area on the east side of the city called Black Cat Alley, which is an “award winning outdoor art gallery”, and an ACTUAL alley. There are currently 17 murals (by 18 different artists). Here are a few photos I took. (Lulu needed a nap, so she’s not in any!)
Welp … there is enough left from our day in Milwaukee that I believe I will end here, and let the next post take us on through!
Remember one thing: “COMPLIMENTARY” hotel shuttle. See ya on the flip side, folks!