I Went on a Trip…and Did Very Little

Despite the con that was the purpose of our visit being cancelled, roommate extraordinaire Carrie and I ventured to Milwaukee anyway. We had four nights in a nice hotel booked cheap and it seemed a shame to waste them. At the very least, it sounded like a good idea to just get out of the cornfield for a bit.

We didn’t have a concrete plan to do anything. Oh, we had ideas and got even more from the very nice concierge in the hotel. We thought maybe we’d go to the museum or possibly walk a block over and go shopping.

Instead, we did basically nothing. From Thursday at about five o’clock in the evening when we checked in until Monday at around ten o’clock in the morning when we checked out we didn’t even leave the hotel.

And it was glorious!

After spending the day on trains (the first one being late enough that we had to run to make our second one and that was not a great time), we had room service. The next day, Friday, we were totally going to go downstairs to eat in the pub, but instead we got all caught up in a How It’s Made marathon on the Science Channel and ordered in pizza instead. Thus began our food drawer. We stashed the left over pizza and breadsticks in the dresser along with some of the snacks we’d brought along because we are experienced travelers. After that, any extra food went into the drawer for later.

Saturday, after receiving passive-aggressive notes from housekeeping (okay, not really; they slipped a card under our door saying they were honoring our Do Not Disturb sign and if we needed anything to call them), we left the hotel room so they could come in and do a bit of tidying, which was mostly them just making the beds and putting in new towels because the room was so nice we didn’t want to do anything to mar it. We admired the Christmas tree in the lobby (which had been lit for the first time that day in a ceremony that we missed because it’s not Thanksgiving yet and I acknowledge nothing Santa-related before then), Carrie got some Starbucks, and we hung out in the lounge before finally heading to the pub.

At the pub we enjoyed a fish fry and cheese curds (when in Wisconsin!) and I had a fantastic pumpkin ale which was why we ended up going back to the pub again on Sunday. That second visit I got to watch three NFL games while enjoying my ale and onion rings and chicken tenders.

In addition to the pub and watching more of How It’s Made (that show is just fascinating; I never before contemplated unicycle wheel hubs), Sunday was momentous as I had for the first time in my 34 years a Starbucks coffee. I liked it well enough and didn’t die. It was a salted caramel mocha and I wanted to add pretzels to it.

Monday, we bid goodbye to our now empty food drawer and our fabulous view and the seemingly endless episodes of How It’s Made (we watched several episodes before leaving that morning, too, as our love had grown so strong), and trained on out of there, making a stop at Union Station for lunch with my amazing friend Harry, before finally arriving home to find the cornfield really friggin’ windy.

I think most people would find our vacation to be incredibly dull and a missed opportunity to see all sorts of Milwaukee things, but to Carrie and I, it was relaxing. For me, it was the equivalent of floating in a warm pool for several hours. Refreshing.

So don’t knock it until you’ve gone someplace else and done nothing.