Greater Milwaukee Men

The 20th anniversary of 911 and Labor Day were in the same week this year, within 5 days in fact. During that time I was doing the great American past time of touring, specifically in an area replete with national identity in South Dakota. The experience of 'getting away' but also being in and among monuments and reminders of what we have accomplished during those dates made me reflect on where we have come recently. The trend I see is away from service and community to self-centeredness. The back of a CCC pin packaging I just bought.

I just spent a week visiting South Dakota, and while places like the Badlands and Black Hills are impressive, it was another case of making me appreciate my home state of Wisconsin even more. This is a place to appreciate Milwaukee, but MKE is in the state of Wisconsin, and its home state is to be celebrated as well. While Wisconsin is known for its outdoor recreation as one of its features, I think it is underrated for its grandeur. It may not have the scale  of natural features of some states like mountains, canyons, or the ocean, we have a lot of variety and beautiful landscapes. I have visited many regions of the nation now in my early 50s, at this point really just the Northeast rural/wilderness areas (outside of the metropoles) and as I already stated, none of them have tugged at my heartstrings more than my home state. What makes Wisconsin so great in my mind? The cliffs of the Apostle Islands