Thanks to nephew, J.D. and his uncle Jim, I was able to spend a weekend in Mecca, a/k/a Green Bay, Wisconsin. Golfing buddy, Dale Hoerauf joined me and our flights went remarkably smoothly despite the fact that we were flying Northwest Airlines. We got in Friday night, were on our best behavior and in bed at a reasonable hour so we could get an early start from our hotel in Appleton, WI to Green Bay on Saturday morning.
A statue of Curly Lambeau greets visitors to the newly-remodeled stadium. We shelled out a few bucks for a tour.
Our tour guide took us into one of the skyboxes. For a mere $66,000 you and your friends can rent a box for the whole season. Chips and salsa for every one of the home games come with the room. The stadium seats nearly 73,000 people.
In the bowels of the stadium, this plaque adorns the wall in the tunnel from which the Packers emerge at game time. Just below the sign are some large bricks embedded in the concrete. The bricks were part of the original stadium and legend has it that players scrape their cleats on those bricks before every game to invoke the spirit of earlier teams who have brought glory to Green Bay.
After the hour-long tour, we got needed sustenance at this restaurant. It was one of those places where you fill your bowl with veggies and meat, then watch it being cooked on a massive round grill. The spicy sauces made the meal HU HOT!
Dale and I enjoy a cool one after the meal.
We drove downtown looking for the Glory Years Bar & Grill. I thought I had the right building but it didn't look the same. Once inside, I recognized the layout of the place but all of the Packer memorabilia had been moved to a new location. Worse, the proprietor of the Mexican cuisine restaurant that now occupies the space did not know where the historical stuff had gone. Then it was time to check out the Titletown Brewing Company. Dale enjoys posing next to large objects.
Dale is a guitarist in a band comprised of educators. Their moniker is Led Knoephla [no foolin']. So when we found this guitar store, Dale looked like he had died and gone to heaven. For our Norwegian relatives, knoephla is a thick German soup with lots of dumplings in it. [You knew that, Feli, right?]
I hurt myself playing air guitar in college and never screwed up the courage to try my luck with a real guitar. My loss, your gain. We took in a movie, American Gangster, which was quite long and intense. Again it was early to bed and early to rise. Sunday was game day.
