Diorama Delivery Adventure Part 1 - Milwaukee

On Saturday morning, my friend, Hillary, and I left National Airport in DC at ridiculous o'clock. We flew direct to Milwaukee, as airfare to Milwaukee was $300 less than airfare to Chicago. (And Peeps/JustBorn did not end up sponsoring our airfare. So...don't buy Peeps. They suck. Unless they are still considering paying our airfare. In which case...Peeps -- yum! You are the  only bunny and chick shaped slightly stale tasting marshmallow best Easter candy out there.)

The plan was to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago (about 1.5 hours) after spending a little time driving around Milwaukee to take some photos with our Peeps diorama:

We asked three different Milwaukeeans (what are people from Milwaukee called?) what we should see in the hour we had to explore their fine city...and all three (independently of one another) said, "well, the Bronze Fonz is about it."

I beg to differ...I think another interesting thing to see in the area is exit 340 from Rte. 94. Is it home to both the Bong Recreation Area (completely true) and the Mars Cheese Castle (also completely true). That city planner is a genius.

It was gray and overcast in Milwaukee, and there were very few people out and about. We made our way to the Harley-Davidson plant, the Miller Brewing Company, and ultimately the Bronze Fonz:

Bronze Fonz should be a band name. Or my first tattoo.

We then headed south to Chicago....Chi-town...the Windy City...and drove straight to our hotel...the fabulous Palomar on State Street. I love Kimpton Hotels, anyway, but this particular Kimpton was especially gorgeous, not to mention reserved for us by Hillary's sister-in-law who works for Kimpton and therefore secured us an employee rate. We were checked in by John, who asked as he pulled up our reservation, "You're here for the Peeps contest, right?" as though he had checked in many other finalists already.

John.

Over the next two days, we got photos of us and our diorama with every doorman, porter, front desk staff person and manager at the Palomar. (One of whom was a man that I handcuffed myself to for the photo. Hillary immediately sent that photo to Canetto without explanation. You know, so he knew I missed him.)

More tomorrow on our adventures around Chicago, including all of the landmarks we visited and our unintentional media blitz that got us a spot on the CBS evening news in Chicago (really!).

In the meantime, please vote for our Larry Peep Live diorama: www.chicagotribune.com/features/peeps

Totally missing being followed by paparazzi,
Brutalism

To read about the Diorama Delivery Adventure Part 2 click here. And for the 3rd and final part, click here.