City of History: Kenosha, Wisconsin

Yesterday, despite the fact that we've officially entered winter and the coldest part of the year, I ventured an hour south of Milwaukee to the lakefront city of Kenosha.  Kenosha is best known for its production of automobiles for Nash, Rambler, Hudson and AMC between 1902 and 1988, and has remained a city rooted to its past.  It even has historic, fully-operational streetcars that run throughout the city.

I have only been to Kenosha a few times, most memorably to visit the Bristol Renaissance Fair a few summers ago, but had never been to the downtown area.  I knew they had a lot of interesting museums, and I took the time to visit two of them, the Public Museum and the Civil War Museum.  But first I had to see the lakefront.

I knew from seeing other photos online and video on TV, that Kenosha has a very nice red lighthouse that jets out into Lake Michigan.  And I knew I wanted to add to my photographic collection of lighthouses with this one.  What I didn't know was that this part of the lakefront has 3 lighthouses including matching red and green striped ones, the green one close to its rocky coast and the red one further out into the lake.  I tried to get a good photo of pairs of these lighthouses, and a couple of them turned out better than I expected.  I had used my telephoto lens when I was in Port Washington because the lighthouse there was so far away from land, but since the red lighthouse was so close, I was able to use my wide-angle lens (and my polarizing filter) to get the lighthouse pairs.

The lakefront also has some cute sculptures in its Harborpark.  My favorite was this pig with a tuba:

After getting as many photos as I could at the lakefront before the sun rose too high, I headed over to the Public Museum and the Civil War Museum which, conveniently, sit side-by-side down the street. 

The Public Museum was small, but free (donations encouraged), and their main exhibit was a history of the Kenosha area which went back all the way to before the ice age, and included indigenous animals, the life of Native Americans in the area, and the bones of a mammoth that was discovered there.  They also have a second floor of rotating exhibits. 

The Civil War museum (which costs $9 in admission) was fascinating.  Every hour on the hour, they have a 15-minute 360 degree film where they show the lives of Union soldiers which feature professional reenactors and was filmed at Old World Wisconsin.  They also present a complete history of the war with makeshift buildings including stocked general stores, a train depot, and boarding houses, each with newspaper clippings of the war plastered to their walls, so you get a year-by-year account.  Like the Public Museum, they also have a second floor of rotating exhibits.

There was one more museum I wanted to visit, but I ran out of energy.  That was the Dinosaur Museum.  That will be something for another day in Kenosha. 

 

Signs and Sculptures: Waukesha Janboree

Yesterday, I spent part of the snowy day in my old home city, Waukesha, to attend their annual Janboree.  Every year, they have a winter festival with outdoor games, arts & crafts for kids and a popular ice sculpture contest.

While I was down there, I remembered that some of the businesses in the downtown area have put up some art of their own spotlighting the city's history.

One of the themes of these murals is the electric guitar, invented by Waukesha native Les Paul.  Waukesha is known as one of many Gibson Guitar Towns, and the Waukesha County Museum even has a permanent exhibit dedicated to Paul.

But, the main reason I went back to downtown Waukesha was the ice sculpting contest.  This year's theme was "The Olympics" (makes sense), and the sculptures ranged from athletes to the Olympic torch to the 5 Olympic rings.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stay until the sculptures were finished since the snow was accumulating and I was worried about driving home.  But, as you can see below, the sculptors worked hard to make their creations, and I was very impressed by their talent to turn ice into art.

My Summer in Pictures

I feel bad that I've gone two months without posting to this blog.  I would like to say that my summer has been so jam-packed, I haven't had time to write anything - but that would be false.  Truth is, I haven't done too much in Milwaukee this summer.  I missed all but one of the festivals, didn't go to any outdoor concerts, or take any trips besides the one to Savannah.  This is mostly due to not having the money to do any of these things.  I also had a volunteer job taking performance photos for a local community theatre, but it turned out to not be as much fun as I thought it would, and I just resigned.  Also, last summer, I made my big purchase of a Canon DSLR camera, and spent the entire summer going places and taking photos.  So, I feel like everything I wanted to do, I did last summer.

I did get out a few times this summer to take photos, though.  I went down to Milwaukee's South Shore (aka Bay View), and got some shots of the boats there:

I even found a cool "history of Bay View" mural:

At the end of June, I volunteered at the Lakefront Festival of Art, and took some photos of the great sculptures before my shift:

And then a couple of weeks ago, when it was overcast but not rainy, I practiced my macro flower photography at a local park's garden:

I'm hoping to stay more up-to-date on the blog.  I just took some photos this morning before brunch with a local Meetup group.  If those photos turned out as I hope, I will post them this week.

Botanicals In Bloom in Milwaukee

Last weekend, I took my camera on a photo shoot to Milwaukee's Boerner Botanical Gardens which are settled on the south side of the city.  I was there to take some more macro shots of flowers for my collection of cards in my Etsy shop, but I also wanted to take advantage of an article I read on www.photo.net on how to take great garden shots.

You must go through the Education Center (pictured above) to pay the $5.00 admission to the garden, and when you walk back outside, you are immediately greeted by six stone statues that represent the life span of a flower.  I posted the first three below:

Here are three more pictures of the statues close up:

I then headed down to the rose garden, which, unfortunately due to the summer drought, was not in full bloom.  I was able to get pictures of some other nice flowers, plus one of the wood and stone trellis:

And a nice pool:

I really enjoyed taking this picture of the hedge garden.  Made me feel like I was in a scene from "Alice In Wonderland".

By the time I was done taking my flower shots, they had turned on the sprinklers and I took some shots of the pond below:

And then got pictures of two more of the gardens' many sculptures:

This one looked prettier from far away:

I had a fun morning taking these pictures, but I always have a good time whenever I visit.  Despite the unusually dry summer, there were a lot of lovely flowers to see.  To see the cards I made with the pictures from this shoot, please visit my shop at www.jayjstudio.etsy.com.

For information on Milwaukee's Boerner Botanical Gardens, go to www.boernerbotanicalgardens.org.