And we're talking about all of the events coming up to downtown Racine. We were talking
about no vacation for you and your staff. No. Everybody's got to, uh, got a work
card. It's a lot to do. And I remember at the beginning of the year we were talking
about, there's an event here at event there. And when you get to June, it all explodes.
Yes. That's a good way of saying it. All right. So today is, uh, what is today? Today's
the today's June 11th. And we actually have an event today. Okay. I don't see it on my
list here. Yes. That's because it's every Wednesday and Saturday. It's called Benden
Brew and it's free yoga, um, at the very end of Christopher Columbus Causeway. Kind of
pass. Oh, you know, it's just wonderful, beautiful view overlooking the lake and it's
a tiered area. And you can, um, get a free yoga class. And then after it, you get a coupon
for a valid at 12 different downtown locations where you get a free beer brew or coffee brew.
So whatever your fancy is, it's so fun. We probably have 50 to 70 people attend each session.
So we have them every Wednesday at 6 p.m. So you can go after work tonight. It's going
to be gorgeous out. And then every Saturday morning, um, at 8 a.m. And 9 a.m. And it's
completely free. Just bring your yoga mat and you're good to go. That way you've been
people in all different types of positions. Yeah. Benden, then you brew. Oh, man. I don't
think I'm bendable anymore. I used to be bendable. I don't think anymore. That's why you
got to go to it. You got to get more flexible. I don't think I bend though. I think I break
when I get you ever try to bend something and it snaps. Oh, yeah. No, this is just so
cool. If you ever get down that way, you'll see how gorgeous it is. All the boats are
coming in and out at it's talk about like a Zen place to do yoga. This is the perfect
place. Now the word, I have a photograph on a postcard. I think I'm where I did with
it, but I actually have a postcard somebody gave me and it's Hey market square in its
heyday. No pun intended. When they used to actually have course drawn wagons bring
hay to monument square, right? Yeah. And that's where it gets us name from. Absolutely.
So now we have the hey market. It's back. We're bringing it back. Old is the old is new,
right? But yeah, we have this amazing hey market tomorrow from four to seven PM. It is
jam packed with vendors. We've got nearly 50 vendors that will be down there. Everything
that you can think of under the sun as far as artisan goods, food trucks, produce, honey,
jam, bread. You name it. You will find it down there. It is awesome. We have a great
band that'll be playing. We've got a beer garden. It's just a really cool vibe. It's
a night market, you know, that's where I met my dealer. The honey dealer guy. You're
honey guy. My dealer on the street. That's where I met him down there. That's where
we get around. He will be there. Yeah, that's that's what we met him. And I told you
Christmas time I was sneaking a jar of honey into the house because I got it for my wife
a big jar from this guy. And she knew she was getting it because on the ring camera,
there I am holding the jar of honey. And she said, I saw you bringing it in the house.
You sneak. Watch me bring it in. Let me tell you come to this thing hungry because
we've got around 10 food trucks. You know what? Food truck will be there that is brand
new that I think is going to be a huge hit is a buckets and yard arm have kind of cold
mingled and it's called wings on wheels. So you can get buckets, wings and yard arm sand
dollars all in the same food truck. That's the biggest thing. Food trucks. When did
this thing go? Food trucks are exploding. Even in the harbor facet, all food trucks are
going to be a bunch of food trucks. We have a Mac and she's food truck at this one coming.
But I mean, who doesn't want yard arm sand dollars and buckets wings together? Yeah,
I mean, we've got barbecue. We have Mexican. We have ice cream. We have smoothies.
We have so many different bakeries. Oh my gosh, you guys have to come hungry.
Hungry now. We always talk about food. Yeah, I don't need breakfast for I leave the house
on the morning. Now, here's the big one. Harbor Fest is back after I think back the last
one was 19 ought six when it was here. And anyway, Harbor Fest is back the 13th and 14th
Friday and Saturday on the lake front. They have nine bands playing. They've got the
foreigner tribute band on Friday night, then Saturday night, Pelican. So I know all this
stuff. And we're going to be out there. Actually, I'll be out there with our crew giving them
prices away Saturday, one to four. So yeah, it's going to be so fun. If you want to save
a couple of bucks, so it's $10 to get in. But you can actually buy tickets at the DRC office
for $8. So if you want to swing in today or tomorrow or even look at this secret
information, we didn't know. Hey, if you're going with a group of, you know, five people,
you can save yourself $10. So, yeah, just come on by the DRC office for just five main
street. Yeah, it's a little secret tidbit for WRGN listeners only in movie. They call
them Easter eggs when you find little secret things. You found an Easter egg and a little
secret. So it's $8 at the DRC office. Yeah. All right. And when do you sell them? What
hours? We're open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Today, tomorrow and Thursday, Friday and Saturday,
noon to four. And yeah, four to five main streets. So swing mayor before you go down
there and you'll save yourself a couple bucks. It's nothing else. The lighthouse run. Just
thought the thought of running. I know you can walk it too. I know that. Yeah, they
have the two mile, the four mile and the 10 mile used to be winding up at the YMCA,
but that's gone. I just saw it yesterday. Yeah, the routes different now, but they still
go behind the zoo and they still obviously loop the lighthouse. They have to do that.
But 5K events is doing such a great job of running that day. They took it over, I
think, five, six years ago. And that, I mean, such a lighthouse run, like, defines
Racine, right? It's so great. We have hundreds of runners. Are you going to put your sprinkler
out? No, it's not coming down main street. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's a different
route. Yeah. So I just put my little mister out there and spritz of the people when
they came by, but yeah, they're not doing it on Main Street. Yeah. So I know, no spritz
are this year. But I love when you watch it, you get these real serious runners first.
They're the people from Kenya and all they can know. Yeah, I remember doing it a couple
times when I'm like doing the four mile and the people with it doing the 10 mile, like
the like the first place were passing me. They're always from Kenya. I don't know. I
feel like a loser right now. So you get the real serious ones. And then you get the
people that are running, but they do it, not, they don't do it for a living. Then you
get the people that are pretending to run. They got the arms going back and forth, but
they're moving in a nice speed. Then you got the people who are running walking, running
walking, then you get the walkers, then you get the people with the baby strollers pushing
and finally you get people like me. But that's what's so great about it. I think it's
that it's inclusive to everybody, right? No matter if you haven't been able to walk
very far, you can do the two mile and walk as slow as you want. I think, I mean, that's
what I really like about that run is just, it's really for everybody. Yeah. And yeah, you
don't have to run. You can walk. I remember one year, my daughter was, when she lived up
here, did the lighthouse run. And there was a guy in front of her who was in his mid 80s.
But she saw him in other races too. He didn't do just this one. And I'm so ashamed.
There's so many in his mid 80s running in this race. And I'm sitting there with the cowbell
ringing as they go by with a spritzer. But yeah, people, they just love running. I don't
get it. You could take, you could take a car from the lighthouse to the end point. Why
run? Yeah, I understand. It's a fun thing to do. People like to be competitive. And
you get good exercise at the same time. And it's really fun. After the race, they always
have, you know, a little party going on down there. And it's, it's, it's a celebration
after you see the, you see the YMCA lately? Yes. I just drove by it the other day. And
it's sad. It's fun. Yeah. I saw it yesterday. I think it's a good thing. Yeah. I wonder
what they can do with the way I was in here. They don't know yet. You know, the reason
I saw it is because I don't know if you saw, but the giant flower pot that was always
on Monument Square, the Gateway students, if it tipped over in that storm, we had a
couple tell me about it. Yeah, literally put it down on Monument Square that morning
in that evening. That big storm came through. And so Gateway Welding students took it and
completely remade it. Added lights to it. So many new flowers every morning. Yeah, I
didn't know. Oh, you have to look at it better now. It is a hundred times cooler. There's
a little cardinal in there. There's butterflies in there. It's completely repainted at night.
It's lit up with all different color flood lights. I couldn't even come by my house. My
flagpole bent the one that's on my porch and little flagpole bent over and that thing.
I mean, I was watching it. I was terrified. Main Street was like the, I was terrified.
Then you go to wind point, big giant trees. That was my over a hundred years old, knocked
over. That was my neighborhood. Oh, that's your neighborhood. Oh, yeah. You get any
damage? One in my cul-de-sac went straight over. Pretty big. It's scary to actually see
it happen. Yeah, these are huge trees. I mean, wow. And this is nothing. And like I was
drive, you know, it's all over the place. The trees that were just. It didn't last that long.
It was just a couple of minutes. And then you watch on TV. I'm complaining about my flagpole
being bent. And you watch these tornadoes that go through the midsection of the country.
These people know homes left nothing. And they say, well, you know, nobody was hurt.
So that's good news. And we'll just rebuild. And I'm crying about my flagpole bent over.
I get good down to the hardware. Still get another one for 19 bucks. But I don't know.
These people lived through these tornadoes. I was terrified watching that rain. It was going
horizontal. Yeah. Yeah. We were out of power for almost a day and a half.
No, we didn't run out of power. Cable wasn't out. Nothing. Nothing like a cold shower in the
morning for me. Wow. That was something. All right. Enough with that.
Music on the monument. We get another hay market coming up. But music on the monument.
It's great when it's a nice day, nice evening. And you get the music on the monument.
Yeah. So our summer concert series kicks off here in about two weeks. And it's on the 27th of June.
Yes. Yeah. So 430 to 730 on a Friday. You come on down. There's live music. There's vendors.
There's beer garden. We have booked some amazing local talent. The bands are so good.
They're so diverse. You can check our website. But we have everything from blues to jazz,
to folk to singer songwriters country. We have one week as an all-girls band, which is really
cool too. The bangles. We tried to book them, but they were not available in our budget.
Four non-blans. Remember the group. Four non-blans.
It's clearly out of our budget range. But we got someone very close.
Pat Dantar and her group. That's what it is. I was going to be surprised.
Okay. How do you remember? You know, you have no notes in front of you.
I can do this. This is amazing. All right. So that's music on the monument.
And then we get to the 4th of July, where we have a ton of activities going on.
Strike up the 4th. This is on the 3rd of July, which is what day of the week?
Thursday? It's a Friday. Oh, no. The 3rd. I think the 4th July is a Friday.
So it's Thursday. It's Thursday. Yeah. We did that.
I do know this because normally we would have first Friday on July 4th, but we will not be doing
a double banger there because there's too much going on. So Thursday, July 3rd is called
Strike up the 4th. It's on Monument Square and it's a really great, you know, a live music,
of course, but it's really a mini festival that helps support the fest activities because
as we know, fireworks are not cheap, putting on a parade, closing down streets, security,
all of those things add up. And so this is really their big fundraiser to, to number one, kick off
the festivities and then raise some money. Kelly Cruz, executive director of the downtown
nursing corporation spending the hour with us today, talking about all the events downtown.
We got up to the 4th of July. That's the big one. The big parade, one of the biggest in the
Midwest, if not the biggest in the Midwest. And this is the one everybody waits for. I don't know if
it's thousands of people, but along the way, along the parade route, it's like multiple people deep.
And it's even on television every year. That's how big it is. Channel 24 runs it. Yeah. Yeah.
It is pretty cool. It's a great parade. Obviously, it's been, it gets bigger and better every year.
It's on the TV. It's on the radio. You know, it's really cool. This year, too, the hotel
verdant has the eve, which is that rooftop bar. They are actually selling tickets where you can watch
the parade from up there and also watch the fireworks from up there and throw little candies on people.
I mean, what? That's kind of nice. They're going to be barbecued. Yeah. You get diced clean
bathroom. It's a beautiful view. Last year, it was in the parade. And Louis Ghani,
we used to use one of his classic cars and we're lining up and I see coolant dripping out of his
car in a big puddle of green coolant. And they say, well, you're going to be okay. Oh, yeah,
I just overfilled it. I said, but it's a lot of coolant coming out of this car. And it's an old,
you know, classic car. That would should be good. So I'll be in another classic car, um, this year.
And I'm hoping I don't see that bucket of green coolant coming out of the car. It's kind of scary,
especially when you're going that slow in a parade. Yeah, they have over, I think close to 100
entries, which is pretty long. I know with the holiday parade, we usually cap it off
around 75 entries just because it's winter. And it's a little cold. And even that is a long parade.
So 100 entries is a lot to, you know, fourth, best parade or waiting for it. See, you have to
pray for great weather because most all this stuff is outdoors. And sometimes you get to hit it
where it's not great weather. Yeah, you know, last week, we had our first kickoff of the hay market.
And it was beautiful all day. It was supposed to maybe rain at three o'clock. It didn't at all.
The sky was completely blue. So we had all the vendors set up four o'clock hits. It's
blue skies all day. It's starting to getting very busy. 430 comes, you know, the market is really
getting into full swing. The band is playing. And out of nowhere, it starts to rain. And it was
just a consistent rain until seven o'clock. Well, you're lucky. It wasn't that big wind storm.
tornado is shower cane is thing that we had. That would have just blown everything out of
out of the. At least that we could have planned for and probably wouldn't have set up. But this
felt like everybody was ready to go. And that's where it, that's when it's sad, you know,
when we don't have it as planned. But we're hoping for great weather tomorrow. That's for sure.
Okay. So on the third, it's strike up the band on the fourth. We got the fourth best parade.
And it doesn't end there on Saturday, the fifth. You're still good. What a weekend for you.
Saturday, the fifth. What do you have? We've got live music, of course. Yeah. So we're keeping
the party rolling. So if you've got people from out of town definitely come down there.
We'll have, like I said, live music. We have a great band. Vendors, food trucks,
beer garden. And while you're down there, we were talking on the break about the public art
project is out and about now. Yes, let's talk about that. It's, it's kites this year. It is
kites, isn't it? I see them. I see them all over downtown. Yeah. Well, someone in our office
came up with that. And she had this first day on the job. I said, we need to start thinking of
public art for next year. She said, how about kites? I'm like, it's brilliant. So we worked with
the Gateway Technical College, their welding students actually fabricated each one of these
kites. There's 30 kites throughout downtown, 30 amazing artists that have put their heart and
soul into it. So really all you have to do is walk around downtown, pick up a scavenger hunt,
or you can download it on our website or on our social media and answer the questions. It's
totally family friendly. It's good for kids, adults, and turn that in if you answer at least 15
questions right, you get a free $5 downtown gift card. And you can buy these at the end of the
summer, right? Don't you have the auction? Yes, yeah. Well, at the end of the summer. Right now,
they're just for everybody to enjoy. I mean, there's so, there's some Mary Poppin ones,
there's some Snoopy ones. Well, Mary Poppins, you get the kite song from Mary Poppins. Exactly. So
there's a couple really cute Mary Poppin ones. There's Charlie Brown, a couple Charlie Brown ones,
which is great. Then we've got one that honors the giraffe at the zoo that passed away. We've got,
of course, a couple lighthouse ones that honor the lighthouse. I mean, it's very diverse. They're
really just fun to look at. And I don't know if you haven't been downtown to see me, you can do
the scavenger hunt on, you know, on your own accord. You can do it on any day. So today's going to
be beautiful. It's a great day to just get downtown. Get your steps in and do the scavenger hunt
and walk around. You're always working to exercise into these things, aren't you? I try. You know,
people moving. By the way, and I told this many times when they had the lighthouse one, which I
think was one of your first ones. Yeah, we actually bought one the light and it's in our living room.
And it coincidentally, it was a WRJN sponsored lighthouse. And we go to church with a guy who
built it, him and his daughter built it. And so we just happened to have it in our house. We still have,
we have some of the past public arts in our office. So if you come down to our office,
either by your harbor fest tickets or turning your scavenger hunt, you'll see we've got some of
the dogs cats. The dogs are in the building at the building where BMO is in the building.
We have several dogs cats, a fish, but we also have a lighthouse and it still works. It still
lights up and and spin. So yeah, my lighthouse still works. Yeah. So yeah, if you're interested in that,
we also have past public art that you can enjoy as well. Christmas, we hang ornaments from it.
And we let it spin with the light on and everything. Yeah, it's really, it's a really good
thing. That's a nice one too. We have the one we have. All right, on the, we got the tenth,
we got another hay market from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Then on the 11th, blues, blues, and barbecue,
first Friday's. Whoa. Yeah, so of course, the hay market is every other Thursday from here,
on out all summer long. And then we had to move first Friday because we thought, you know,
what, there might be a little bit too much going on with 4th of July, the fireworks and everything
else. So we actually, for the first time ever, we're moving our first Friday to the second Friday
of the month. So oh, I don't know if I can handle this. I know. It's little to take in, but this is,
we have an amazing blues band that'll be performing. We are highlighting all barbecue,
tons of barbecue food trucks and all the, we also have several amazing barbecue restaurants in
downtown Racine. We're going to be doing free brew samples at 20 different locations throughout
downtown. So you can get that. And of course, our first Fridays now, we've started sort of a
sub theme on all of them, which is called a creative crawl. And so we're really highlighting the
arts in downtown Racine at every first Fridays as well. So each one has a, you know, stay tuned
or go to our socials, but we'll be doing a lot of really neat things with hands-on artists will
be on-site at different locations, different demos, hands-on activities, all celebrating the
amazing arts scene that we have in downtown.
