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GO PACK GO!!!
Well it's been a long time since I had anything travel related to blog, but Rene and I are on another exciting long dreamed about trip so this is the best way for us to preserve our memories and because many of you were very encouraging about reading my last travel blogs, I thought this would be a perfect forum to share and remember.
So, let me start at the beginning. Rene has LONG been a Green Bay Packers Football Fan. If the Packers are playing and the game is being televised NOTHING happens in our home. He has talked about and dreamed about going to a game since I have known him and that's about 30 years ago. That's a long time to talk and dream about doing something hey??? Anyway since it is the end of 50
th birthday year, I decided it was time to make this dream come true. Not being a football fan myself, I'm not very football savvy, so this trip has required some deep thinking. Of course I needed Rene's help so this trip is not a surprise. Things like.... what's the best game to go too, how long to
stay etc. Of course in typical Rene fashion when I told him we should do this, he hummed and hahhed and thought it would be fun, but maybe to extravagant. When I reminded him that we both work hard and we hadn't been anywhere for a while, he agreed it would be a good plan.
So…. we started the planning. After lots of different scenarios we finally decided we would fly into Chicago. Neither of us has been to Chicago so exploring that city for a few days and then driving up north to Green Bay Wisconsin sounded like the perfect plan. We would end our winter vacation by attending a Green Bay Packers game.
Now when we started to talk to our friends and family about our holiday many were shocked and a little confused about why we would choose to take a winter holiday and go not somewhere HOT and exotic, but somewhere cool and windy. Well, all I can say is this a just a different kind of holiday. It's not about sun and sand, rather about fulfilling a dream.
So the plan was set, Rene decided the game he would like to see
was the Packers vs. the Detroit Lions on December 09, 2012. I then went about finishing the details. We decided on 3 nights in Chicago, 1 night on the road and 2 nights in Green Bay. I love the HOTWIRE site for booking hotel rooms. They are very unique in that you pick the area you want to go to and the class of hotel. Once you have booked the room, HOTWIRE then tells you what hotel you have booked. They have great rates for doing it this way and because Rene and I are always up for an adventure, it's fun for us to not know until we book. Like a mini adventure all in it's own..
Our night on the road of course we were just going to ''wing'' it and for the 2 nights in Green Bay I called Packer Fan Tours and booked a whole Packers tour. In the tour we got the room, game day tickets, a free souvenir, money off some merchandise, some free drinks and meals and attendance at the tail gate party. Once the rooms were booked then the rest of the trip was about the exploring.
We were up
early on December 04 as our flight was departing Edmonton at 6:46. We got to the gate and just as we were walking up the gal announced that the ticket counter would be closing in 10 minutes. We were there almost an hour early, but what we forgot was that really we were supposed to be there 3 hours before departure on an international flight. Reminds me of another trip I took once (hehe). Anyway safely buckled in our seats we headed off to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago Illinois.
We arrived in Chicago at about 11:00 am. We took Blue Line subway train to downtown a few short blocks from our hotel called Mile North A Chicago Hotel. We settled in, put our stuff away and we were off exploring whatever Chicago had to offer.
Our first exploration was to walk up and down the Magnificent Mile on our way to the Willis Tower. The weather was 65 degrees F, so about 18 degrees C. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful clear day. A perfect day to go up the tower to see the city below and the land and water beyond.
Magnificent
Mile was given this nickname by a real estate developer to one of the city's most prestigious residential and commercial thoroughfares in the 1940s. Along this mile are 100’s of restaurants, high end shops and some of the world’s highest skyscrapers.
One very unique and interesting building is the Chicago Tribune Building. It was erected in 1925 and just prior to the building of the Tower, correspondents for the Chicago Tribune brought back rocks and bricks from a variety of historically important sites throughout the world. Many of these from afar stones have been incorporated into the lowest levels of the building and are labeled with their location of origin. Stones included in the wall are from such places as the Taj Mahal, Palace of Westminster, petrified wood from the Redwood National Parks, the Great Pyramid in Egypt, The Alamo, Notre-Dame, Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb the Berlin Wall, Angkor Wat, among others. Makes me wonder how these stones made it, first of all into these correspondents’ sneaky fingers and then how these stones made it across so many borders etc. to make it all the way to Chicago. No matter, it’s a cool story and interesting to see.
Another
building that is magnificent is the Wrigley Building. It is an impressive building that is directly across from the Chicago Tribune Building. Built in 1920 it was the home of the Wrigley Chewing Gum company until 2011. It is now owned by a group of investors including the folks at GROUPON. Interesting hey??
Amidst all these old majestic and wonderful buildings stands the new Trump Tower. This is a building that was erected in 2009 and is a hotel-condo building. We were told that the top floor of the Trump Tower has NEVER been occupied. True?? Not sure!!
We saw all of these sights on our way to the Willis Tower. Downtown Chicago is a beautiful place. The Willis tower was formerly named the Sears tower and is still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower. This skyscrapper is 108-stories high. At the time of its completion in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world, even taller than the Twin towers in New York, and it held this rank for nearly 25 years. Currently the Willis Tower is the tallest building in the United States and the seventh tallest free standing structure in the world. The
skyscraper is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Chicago, and over one million people visit its observation deck each year. So.... of course there is this crazy glass plate that juts out of the Tower. They call it the "Ledge." It extends about 4 feet out of the building and on this Ledge you can look directly down. Now I'm not really afraid of heights, but REALLY!!! standing on a plate of glass about 1400 ft in the air!!! Come on......what if I'm on the glass and it starts to crack??? OK...after I realized that, that fear might just be unrealistic, I decided to give it a try. Yeah....long enough to have Rene snap a picture or 2 and that my friends was just long enough. A lady I was watching later starting crying!!! WIMP !! hehe. After spending time gazing at Chicago and Lake Michigan and far beyond, from 103 stories up, we decided at carry on.
By this time the sun was starting to find it's resting place and as we walked back to our hotel we were priveldged to walk "The Loop'(Central Chicago) and be dazzled and awed by the festive colourful Christmas lights
that were strung on the buildings and trees. I think we just might have to plan other vacations in different cities around the Christmas season. So beautiful and I'm sure each city would have some special decorations to mark "their" city.
One of the must dos when one visits Chicago is to check out Cloud Gate, or more afffectionately known to the locals as "The Bean". The Bean is located on the edge of Millennium Park. It is a large bean shaped silver structure that really has no meaning, but it's is so cool and interesting!! The bean, because it's silver reflects all that is around, including the one who is gazing at the Bean. I personally think it's wonderful!!! Who cares if it has any meaning!!! Just below The Bean is a small skating rink with......you guessed it....Christmas music playing for all the skaters and gazers to enjoy. Ahhh Christmas!!!
By this time both Rene and I were starving. We definintely needed to eat soon. Hmmmm, when in Chicago what should one eat??? OH....how about some deep dish pizza?? Of course that was a no brainer and right next to our hotel was a funky looking joint
called Gino's Pizza. In we went, anxious to experience this iconic Chicago meal. Our waiter came promptly and we ordered a deep dish half cheese, half pepperoni pizza. He told us that to make a deep dish pizza takes about 45 minutes. Oh my!!! if we had know this we might have hustled our stroll a little quicker. Suddenly with all the yummy smells in Gino's WE WERE STARVING!!! Oh well we were gonna wait!!
And......the wait was defienlty worth it!!! the Pizza was delicious. We were so hungry we ate the whole pizza. Not a great big pizza, but because it's deep dish....it's massive.
So.....filled with awesome sights, sounds, smells and full bellies we rolled to our hotel, crawled into bed and fell fast asleep.
Dec 05,2012
We were certainly in no hurry to wake up on this morning as we have a Chicago tastebud tour booked for 11 am and nothing until then except to just be lazy. So lazy it was!!!
We did finally get our butts out of bed and off we went to find Pizano's Pizza at 864North State Street. What we didn't know was that 864 N. State St. was
only about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. So leaving at 10 am to get to our tour start time at 11 suddenly seemed excessively early. Oh well we' re in Chicago and if you didn't know, Chicago has a Starbucks on just about every corner. It's crazy how many there are!!!
So, problem solved we ducked into a Starbucks about 500 feet from our destination. We sat, drank hot coffee and nearly melted as we were dressed for a cool day, walking around downtown Chicago.
At nearly 11 we walked into Pizanno' s Pizza and met the manager of the resturant who instantly made us feel welcome as we chatted with him about pieces of his life and of course where we were from and what we were up too.
After chatting with him for a bit we were informed we were the only two tour guests. We were a little disappointed as it's always fun to meet new folks and being on a city tour is a great way to meet others. Oh well we also like eachother so we were just fine being just the two of us. We also found out that our tour guide
was going to be the owner and founder of Tastebuds. Lucky us!! A private tour by the main man!!!! Could it be that not so many people want to walk around a city at 38 degrees Fahrenheit?? Well guess what?? We are hardy Albertans and this weather is certainly not going to stop us from having a good time. We know COLD!!! And even more than that we know how to dress for COLD!!!!
Anyway.... the folks at Pizanos whipped up a deep dish pizza for is. Oh My Goodness was it GOOD!!! While we were munching on our pizza Lynn arrived. Lynn Jaynes, the owner of Tastebud Tours then proceeded to start our tour.
He told us that Pizanno's Pizza was the first Pizzaeria established in Chicago by a fella named Rudy Malnotty in 1943.
Rudy's aged mother still makes the delicious crust.
As we sat in the Celebrity room and ate our yummy pizza made simply with loads of mozzarella cheese and chunky tomato sauce we found out that President Obama and Oprah frequently are guests at this very restaurant. So Rene had a seat where Obama sits and I sat my butt on the same chair
as Oprah. Kind of a cheap thrill, but a thrill none the less.
Lynn of course was FULL of all kinds of great information and all along the tour we were informed of tidbits of information about his well loved city. Some of the trivia he shared with us is that Chicago has 7700 resturants. It is also the candy capital and tootsie rolls are made here.
Our second stop on the tour was the Drake Hotel. The Drake Hotel is a grand old Hotel that has a view of Lake Michigan. We had a tour of the very elegant and and posh Tea room. While Rene and Lynn chatted I had a private little side tour of the womens washroom. Well I've never seen such a classy and fancy washroom. I took some pictures and wondered why a bathroom would and should look so elegant. We all know what happens in the washroom and I don't care who you are or how much class you have, bathroom business is all the same. Kind of levels the playing field for us common folk. ( hehe)
Lynn then took us to the famous Gold Coast Ballroom (inside the Drake Hotel). this
ballroom was lovely. He shared a story of just one wedding that occured in the Ballroom and $30,000.00 dollars of flowers were shipped from Italy. Kind of puts the bathroom into perspective doesn't it!
After the Drake we stopped at a little cafe called L'Appitieo. Again a great story about how the brownie was invented right here in Chicago. The brownie we had was amazing of course. After the brownie we made our way to Pippins Tavern and it's neighbour cafe, Downtown Dogs. Here we were treated to and were given strict instructions on how to build an authentic Chicago Hotdog. This is how it goes: you take a 100% pure beef wiener, and lay it in a steamed poppy seed bun. next is the mustard, then some neon lime green relish, on goes some sport peppers, onions, dill pickles and finish by garnishing the whole dog with celery salt. One rule of the Chicago Dog is " it's against the law to put ketchup on a Chicago Dog"
When ordering this dog one just simply has to order a Chicago Dog and "run it through the garden". We had a good laugh about that one. Who says a hotdog
can't be incredibly healthy? After a run through the garden like that it's got to be healthy right?
While we made our way to our next stop Lynn told us a little Chicago history. As the story goes there was a great fire in Chicago in 1871. The story goes that Mrs. O' Leary had a milk cow and this old cow tipped over a cariseen lamp and the oil caught on fire that started the "Great Chicago Fire". Only 3 buildings survived this fire. The brick pump-house, an old water tower and most of St. James Cathedral. All 3 of these buildings are standing today. So........ it turns out that this story just may not exactly be true. (good story though and its told millions of times to millions of tourists) The good news of the story was that before the fire the whole city was built with wood products. After the fire, Chicago changed it's architure and it then caught the eye of many new foreign architects who were eager to build with steel and other sturdier products. Chicago became the city of, state of the art structures.
Our 5th stop on the tour was to a Cajun
place called Heaven on Seven. Here we sampled a bowl of gumbo and a small plate of jumbalaya. Jimmy the chef was born and raised in Chicago but trained in New Orleans and decided to bring his new skills and Cajun cooking to the Windy city. On the walls of this Louisanna style eatery are 2500 different bottles of HOT SAUCE!!! Rene thought he was heaven. Now if you bring Jimmy a bottle of hot sauce that he doesn't have on the wall, he keeps the bottle and buys you lunch !! Great marketing hey?
Our next stop was a small little under the rail lines place called the " Billy Goat Tavern. There's a great huge fun story about a goat and football and how the Billy Goat Tavern got it's name.......I just don't remember it all.
By now, as you can probably imagine, we were getting mighty full, but we had one last stop for a yummy treat of homemade carrot cake. Off we went to RBGrille and the Rock Bottom Cafe.
We enjoyed the amazing slice of carrot cake and because this great place brews its own beer we decided to share the beer sampler. 6 small
tastes of 6 of the beers that 2 young fellas brew themselves. Now I don't remember the names of them all but the last one was called "moo moo jitter juice". Beer made with the usual stuff but included was some cream and shots of caffeine. It was actually quite good. Not sure about drinking a whole bottle but a small amount was great. We know why they called it moo moo jitter juice. Makes sense!!!!
So with big full tummies and heads filled with Chicago history we said good-bye to our more than wonderful tour guide, Lynn, and headed to check out Chicago night-life.
Good thing it was a ways away cause we sure needed to walk some of this Chicago food off. Again as we walked through the evening we got to see even more twinkling, wonderful Christmas lights.
We finally made it to our destination, which was Jimmy Buffets, "Legends Nightclub. The blues music was GREAT and some of the best we have heard in our travels. We stayed for a few sets and then proceeded back to our hotel. Another great day in the Windy City.
December 6, 2012.
Again we were not
real anxious to get moving on this morning. When we finally got up and going, off we went to the train station to catch the city train to the Addison Stop. At Addison we got off and just steps away was Wrigley Field. The games were over and we were not even allowed in the stadium have a look, but it was still interesting to walk around the stadium. Wrigley Field is the second oldest ballpark in the majors. It's been around since 1916. Across the street and all around the stadium are rooftop seats. Rooftop seats are seats that are on top of surrounding condo and resturant buildings. Really great idea and would be a great place to sit and watch the games. No games in December friends, so we had a walk around the neighbourhood and back to downtown Chicago we went.
Once back to "the Loop", we found our way to Navy Pier. Navy Pier is a 3,300-foot long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. Navy Pier is filled with lot's of cool attractions, like the Lakefront, Children's Museum, Ferris Wheel, Boat rides, bars, street performers, and people... ton's and ton's of people.........in the
summer time. Again not much shakin in December. We walked the pier and gazed at Chicago from a totally different angle.
After we had enough of Navy Pier and we were tired of walking we made our way to the 96 floor of the John Hancock building. It was a free ride up to the John Hancock observatory lounge where after being patient and waiting our turn, we looked down on the nighttime city lights.
December 07, 2012
This morning we were up quite early, as we were headed North to Wisconsin. Out first stop for Breakfast was Frank's Diner in Kenosha Wisconsin. Franks' Diner established in 1926 is a old train car turned into diner. It was once featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, so we had to stop and have a taste. Franks is known for its "garbage plates", big ol' hashes of potatoes, 5 eggs, green peppers, onions, jalapeños, cheese and choice of meat(s). Both Rene and I of course had to have a "Garbage Plate". A Full Garbage has five eggs, a half has three, and you can get up to three meats in one — or go all vegetarian. I went
for the Half Garbage Plate with sausage. Even at half, the thing is filling. Even at half, the thing is delicious!!!!
After breaky we continued our journey north. Wisconsin is the dairy state and being that Rene and I were dairy farmers for many years, we loved the drive through the country side, admiring dairy farm after dairy farm. So many beautiful farms. We made another stop along the way at a place called Hoard's Dairyman. When we were farming Rene subscribed to a magazine called Hoard's Dairyman. A magazine filled with information and general dairy farming information. I don't think it's still in production, but here was a little museum, all about dairy farming through the ages. We had a tour of the museum and went back in time to our dairy farming days. Ahhh the memories.
Back in the car and still going North. We stopped at a little town called Friesland. Yup....we were in Dutchman country. Feels like we could be right at home in this state. We made our way north around Lake Winnebago. As evening approached we decided it was time to find us an age old Friday tradition and have us a
good old Fish Fry. We stopped at a little town called Stockbridge. First we went into this old Tavern called Gobbler's Knob. We shared a beer and some stories with some locals. They told us they were not serving fish fry, but the cafe/bar next door was. Off we went, next door and indulged, yet again, in the most delicious fish fry we had ever had. Tons of yummy food, the main part was the incredible fried fish. We shared more stories about our lives with yet other friendly folks we met in the cafe. As it was getting late and we had no reserved plans on where we were going to lay our heads, we said good-bye to our new friends and off we went. We stayed the night in one of the big chain motels just outside of Green Bay.
December 8, 2012
Just minutes away was our destination city of Green Bay. We arrived in town mid morning and within minutes found Lambeau Field. Rene was just like a little boy at Christmas. He was soooo excited to be in this place at this time!!! We ohhed and ahhed at the stadium, checked out the
fan club, the athletic club, the gift shop, the escalators, the bathrooms, ......well I think you get the idea! We then decided we should find our hotel for the next couple of nights and check in. We did so and met the gal who gave us our whole fan package! While we were settling in I was looking at some of the tickets we had and saw that we were booked for a Lambeau Field Tour at 3:00 pm. I looked at the clock, panicked when I saw that it was already 2:30. We grabbed our tickets, ran to the car, raced to the field and got to our tour meeting place just in the nick of time. For the next 2 hours we, along with many other fans we led through the hallowed halls of Lambeau Field. It was a fascinating tour with a fascinating story.
After our tour we went out for dinner in the city of Green Bay. After dinner we went back to our hotel and decided we should go for a drink in the hotel lounge. We were sure we would meet other Packer fans and we would talk football and share our lives
and stories. We put on our Packer gear and off we went. Got to the lounge and we were the only ones with Packer gear on. Hmmm where were all the fans. As we were having our beer, this guy comes over to Rene and says '' hey, my girlfriend really likes your cap, how much will you sell it for. Now you need to know that this cap was a Green Bay Packer cap and Rene had bought it quite a number of years ago for about $10. Rene looked at me, like I might know what it would be worth and while he was hesitating, the guy pulls out his wallet and says ''here, let me make it easy for you and hands Rene a $100 bill. Well, Rene whipped that cap off fast and pocketed the cash in his pocket. We laughed and laughed!!. The crazy things people do hey?
December 9, 2012.
GAME DAY!!! We woke up and it was snowing!. I was feeling not so happy about the snow and Rene was super excited. I thought for sure he had now lost his mind for sure. When I questioned his mental health he
told me that watching a Packer's game in the snow was the best way to watch them play. He said that when people think about watching the Packer's everyone thinks of crappy weather. What!! I thought, they are all nuts. So.....sure enough it snowed and snowed and snowed all day. We had some very warm clothes because we knew it could in fact be cold and even snow in December, but the weather all week so far had been so mild and now just because we were going to be sitting outside for 4 or 5 hours, it was snowing relentlessly. After breaky, Rene suggested we go out near the field and check to see if any folks were out getting ready to tailgate. Again I thought he was nuts....the game wasn't until 7 that night and he wanted to see if anyone was out partying at 9:00 am. Well off we went to Lambeau Field and sure enough......all kinds of people in all kinds of set up and dress were already in the party mode. IF some of these folks were starting now, my goodness what were they going to feel like at 7.00 pm. Craziness!!! But so fun
and interesting.
We arrived back at Lambeau with a bus load of folks at 5:00 pm. Part of our package was transportation to and from the game and to be part of a tail gate party. We loaded up in a school bus and were dropped off at Brett Farve's resturant. There we were with thousands of other fans eating hotdogs or hamburgers and having a drink. We milled around there for a bit and then Rene said we should check out some of the other tail-gaters that we saw earlier in the morning. Again we found them and thousands of other fans in various stages of dress up and drink. WOW!!! so these fans take this seriously. Some of the tail-gaters had big huge cargo vans or motorhomes painted in the Packer's colours and logos. Some had big huge sound systems blarring all kinds of music and there were even big screen t.v's mounted for all to see. The food and drink was plentiful!!! What fun!!!! and what incredibly loyal fans!
We found our seats and settled in to watch the Green Bay Packers and the Detriot Lions battle for supremacy! Rene loving every minute of sitting
close to the play and me loving every minute of checking out the fans, the mascots and the cheerleaders. Truth be told.....I really don't understand football all that much, but I love being in the stands. Football is such a fun spectator sport.
I must say that I was quite happy to get back into the warm bus at the end of the night. We got back to the hotel and we both had warm showers and went to have a light snack before bedtime.
I'm pretty sure Rene fell asleep with a smile on his face and a check mark on his bucket list.
December 10, 2013
Back we went to Chicago to catch our plane back to our home sweet home.
Another dream made reality. We really know we are blessed!!!
And so we remain......
In the Grip of Grace
Rene and Crystal
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Tracy
non-member comment
Love to read this stuff
I love ready your blogs!!! I think if we went on a trip together, I would still enjoy reading your account ((hugs))