Avec Marie Therese — A Month in the U.S.A.: Sunday — Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin

On Saturday night we slept at the home of Millie Amsler in Grayslake, Illinois. Millie's grandmother (also Phyllis' grandmother) was the sister of Marie Therese's grandmother. Millie prepared a lovely Sunday breakfast for us. We sat at her kitchen table for a long time, talking and working with our computers. It is impossible for Marie to connect to her e-mail here in the United States. So frustrating!

It was raining outside, so we failed to get a photo of Millie's house.

After we said goodbye to Millie, we drove to Millie's old house at 506 Whittier Lane in Mundelein, Illinois. Marie Therese recognized that house from her visit here in 1966! Millie raised eight children in that little house.

From Mundelein, we drove to Milwaukee to see the Milwaukee Art Museum, a beautiful building designed by the Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava. It was too cold and extremely windy — my excuse for yet again failing to take a photo of the building. You can see photos of it here:

calatrava milwaukee

The indoor parking lot, where I always park, was closed today because it was filled with an exhibit of flowers! What bad luck! We had to pay $12 for valet parking, and then dash up the slippery wet steps into the museum. (Two of us dashed up the stairs. The third one hobbled up, one step at a time.)

Ici il y a two pin-ups Lyonnaises.

From the inside of the museum, one has a fine view of Lake Michigan. We enjoyed that.

The inspiration for the flower show was the current exhibit entitled, "Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair." On display were creations by some of the worlds most famous fashion designers — Pierre Cardin, Lagerfeld, Christian Dior ... all the famous stars.

You can see more here: http://mam.org/inspiring-beauty/gallery.php

After we left the museum, we expected the valet to bring us our car. Alas. The key to the car was not on its hook. Where is it? The valets looked for the key. I looked for the key. It was not there.

What happened to my car? Has it been stolen? Ay!

We waited outside in the biting cold and ferocious wind for at least half an hour. The wind occasionally blew keys off the hooks.

FINALLY, one of the valets realized that he had my car key in his pocket. Whew! We got our frozen selves into the car and drove to a Mexican restaurant, La Fuente, for lunch. Sorry, no photo.

We drove for about one hour and 15 minutes from Milwaukee to Madison.

For the evening meal, we went to the home of my friend, Sheila.