Some great dome...a little art collecting and a fantastic glass of whiskey!

After lunch at comets dinner, we drove over to the Milwaukee Hortocultural Center where they have built 3 domes with self contained Eco systems. One is a desert, one is a tropical rain Forrest and one is for what they call "show plants". The place was pretty empty, but only because it was like 120 degrees inside each of the domes. Below are some great pictures from inside right before we both passed out from the oppressive heat.

On the way out of Milwaukee we passed by Miller Stadium before heading over to Madison, Wisconsin.

Once in Madison we walked around the capital building and visited a few shops.

Then I paid 100 university of Wisconsin freshman to wear bowler hats and walk around the Papbst Family Mansion to confuse the security cameras while I stole the portrait of Teddy Roosevelt in the library (See photo).

Ahh...I'm just kidding. We actually found this awesome antiquities dealer in Madison right off of State Street and he gave us a 3 hour tour of all the collectibles that he has amassed over the years. I came dangerously close to buying a hand painted 17th century astrological map but I exercised some restraint for the first time this trip. Instead, I bought a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt and an original print of a cartoon map from the 1939 world fair (See photos).

We are now in Galena, IL the birthplace of Ulysses S Grant. We are going to visit his childhood home tomorrow morning and the head over to Charles Mound to summit the high point for the state of Illinois.

Before calling it a night we stopped by a local Irish Pub and had a glass of Midleton Very Rare Irish whiskey. It was fantastic. Back in NYC it is usually $40-$50 a glass, but this place had it for $18 so I couldn't pass it up.

Stay tuned for my next post...this trip is just getting started.

P.S. Anyone know any thing about mountain lions? Will thay attack humans? Do they move in packs? What's the best way to fend off an attack? I'm trying to convince Brian that mountain lions aren't going to attack us if we climb Harney peak, SD at night to avoid the heat. Any thoughts?