An Afternoon of Time Travel! Blists Hill Victorian Town

First, I must apologize profusely for the long delay between posts; I was very busy for the last bit of my travel, and then was unfortunate enough to catch a dreadful illness on one of those awful heavier-than-air flying machines. I promise to chronicle the rest of my journey in reasonable time, and then we will get back to regular scheduled DIY tutorials and other such blogging.

So for those of you who may not remember my post on Iron Bridge Gorge, I remind you that the region was the jumping-off-point for the Industrial Revolution. And they built a fantastic outdoor museum to commemorate it! *cue geek-out*

Alrighty, picture spamming time:

This contraption here is to control a mine lift!

Inside an iron-working plant.

This is also the filming location for the show Victorian Pharmacy, which I blogged about ages ago. As if I wasn't already geeking out enough.

THE ORIGIN OF INDUSTRY! Iron Bridge Gorge

It's no big secret that we steampunks have something of a love-hate relationship with the Industrial Revolution.On one hand, it brought a whimpering end to the heyday of art and craftsmanship and forced millions of people into wage slavery, but on the other hand... gears! And other shiny things!

Love it or hate it, the Iron Bridge Gorge is where it all started out. With the right combination of coal and iron ore resources, and some guy who had the idea to work iron with coal instead of wood, the industrial age began with this big bridge here:

Pretty isn't it? Ah, lovely old days, when designers actually bothered with ornament instead of just cost.
Speaking of the past, tomorrow's post is Blists Hill Victorian Town, the massive and epic outdoor museum built to accompany the industrial history of this place!

Steampunk Cafe

The exterior

Not too long ago, I was wandering the city of Milwaukee in search of cool-looking old buildings, (What do you mean that's weird? Doesn't everyone do that? No?) when I discovered Alterra Coffee, and upon entering just about died from joy.

BEHOLD THE MACHINE! Erm, the sewage-pumping machine, that is.

The atmosphere of the place was incredible, all bricks and pipes and machines. Housed in an old Victorian pump house, this place oozed pure steampunk. By pump house, by the way, I'm not referring to a little shack that pumps toilet water. I mean that there's a giant machine that used to suck dirty water from the Milwaukee river and replace it with lake water. Though no longer functioning, the machine is still there for the purpose of looking awesome.
The bad news is that it's a small building in a fairly central location with good food and atmosphere--so parking and finding a seat is a nightmare. You have no idea how many times I've tried to go here only to find a line of cars battling over parking spaces.

An interior photo