It's Harley Time!

Milwaukee is a great place, and especially this weekend for the Harley Davidson 105th Anniversary. I, of course, won't be around for the bulk of it, but even just the taste is pretty good. Last night on the way back from the airport, there was clearly a rumble in the air and WAY more motorcycles on the road than usual.

This afternoon I'm working from Panera and it is definitely not the standard Panera crowd. There are the senior citizens, the moms with their pre-schoolers, and the riders. One woman just walked in looking every bit the soccer mom carrying a big black helmet. And there are clearly many other riders here as evidenced by more leather boots that one would usually see on a Friday afternoon here. And, I'm sitting at a window by the street - it's loud with the rumble of bikes and pretty hard to get work done because the different bikes are just so interesting to look at - not to mention it's all really, really cool.

Too bad I didn't pass my motorcycle class.

Rockerbox in Milwaukee

We were wandering around old neighborhood this afternoon and came across some closed off streets, a LOT of motorcycles parked, and a band. This was Rockerbox. There was a bike show, all the people that went with all of those bikes, vendors, and music. What made this a particularly typical Milwaukee event was that nearly everyone was walking around with a beer in hand and for a fairly hot summer day - there were a lot of people wearing leather. Even the kids had cans in their hands which actually (and surprisingly) appeared to generally be soda.

As we walked around we realized several things:

• There seemed to be pre-set tattoo minimum for anyone walking around either carrying a beer or wearing leather. I couldn't tell exactly, but that number seems to be somewhere between 4 and 17.
• Vintage records, falafel and schwarma, funny t-shirts and vegan brats make for fairly interesting vendors - and that doesn't include all of the motorcycle-related tents.
• Someone is making purple port-o-potties. I thought they were all blue and I was clearly mistaken.
• We are not very cool people.