Only one more day and Thursday's rare appearance of the
northern lights would have been even more unique - it would have come at the start of
Hanukkah, the "Festival of Lights". I may not have seen the aurora borealis this time, the last time I saw them in Waukesha was 6 years ago, but did have the opportunity to celebrate a different festival of lights Friday.
After work, my sister and I visited Miller Brewing's
"Friday Night Lites" where we experienced the wonder of 100,000 colored lights synchronized to
Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter". Wizards in Winter is definitely not your average Christmas carol and the lights aren't your average display. I'm told it's the largest show of it's kind in the Midwest. The show was as exhilarating as the temperature.
After the show we crossed back over State Street and down into a cave.
Miller's cave was used to store wooden barrels of beer before the advent of refrigeration and was hewn out of rock over a hundred years ago.
From the cave to the Miller Inn where we enjoyed a cup of very fresh Foster's Lager. Miller postcards were on the table for us to write and supposedly Miller would pay the postage to anywhere in the world. I sent one to Santa Claus, North Pole, Alaska, so we'll see...
Our tour group then walked the four blocks back to the visitor center / gift shop for another sample and a door prize raffle. It wasn't the big brewery tour I've wanted to do but it was fun. The hour long tour cost us nothing but ideally we would have brought a toy for the company's Toys for Tot's drive.
As if 100,000 lights weren't enough, we then headed back east to the Hilton for a ride on the Jingle Bus for the
Milwaukee Holiday Lights Festival tour. Our one dollar bought us Mardi Gras beads, hot cocoa, cookies and a narrated tour of the sights and lights of Downtown aboard a comfortable Coach USA bus expertly driven by Karen, a sleigh driver for Santa in the off season.
Miller's last "Friday Night Lites" is next Friday, 12/22, with tours every 20 minutes from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. The visitor center is on the west end of the complex at 4251 W. State St.
Milwaukee's Holiday Lights Festival runs through Jan. 7th. The Jingle bus is available for tours Thursday through Sunday until Dec. 30th. The tours start at 6:00 p.m.
Hanukkah lasts eight days beginning 12/15 and ending 12/23/06.
