On Wednesday morning, we left out early from Minneapolis knowing we had quite a busy day ahead. During the planning of this trip, we had nothing but baseball on my mind. And it was not until I had a phone conversation with my buddy, Brett Huffman, did I realize that we were going to be very close to Green Bay. Now, as you know, Tammy was born in Wisconsin and she and her family are all about the Green Bay Packers. Me, well, not so much, but I do enjoy football history. And Green Bay has a lot of very interesting history. So as I was mapping our trek from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, I looked at how far off the beaten path a drive to Green Bay would take. It turns out it would take a couple hours extra. So we decided to make it work. Trey, who is not a huge football fan, has stayed true to his family roots and does like the Packers. Funny story - we decided to keep this little diversion a secret from Trey. In fact, since I am a history nerd, we had told the boys that we were taking a side trip on our way to Milwaukee to a famous battlefield (which was technically true). After all, it wasn't unusual for me to want to see something historical. He bought it. It turns out, we had let Tate in on the secret the night before, but Trey had no idea. Even though the signs on the interstate kept referencing how many miles we had left to Green Bay, Trey was oblivious. Which made it that much better when be pulled in to the parking lot. He was totally surprised!
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| Trey outside Lambeau Field in front of the Vince Lombardi statue. |
It is a most impressive sight! In fairly small Green Bay, Wisconsin, there is this beautiful stadium in the middle of a town that doesn't seem much bigger to me than Hickory, NC. We decided to take the Stadium Tour (naturally). It took about an hour, but it was very informative. It could actually cause someone to change their allegiance to another team to become a Packer fan. I was very impressed. So much history and the pride that everyone there had for their team was incredible.
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| From inside the Atrium |
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| Our view from the Alumni Suite |
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| Our view coming out of the tunnel |
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| The Jensens at Lambeau Field! |
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| A very cool stop on our journey! |
After an awesome time in Green Bay, we headed south to Milwaukee and Miller Park. This had been a game we had been looking forward to. And we were not disappointed. Miller Park has a retractable roof and for this game, the weather was so nice outside that the roof would be open. It is a beautiful stadium with lots of friendly staff. We get there as soon as the gates open in hopes of possibly getting a BP ball. Unfortunately, we didn't get one during BP because of the layout of the outfield. It was not very good for souvenir seekers to be able to easily get a ball unless the shaggers on the would throw one to you. So we gave up on that and tried to get autographs. Trey is always on a mission to get as many autographs that he can. He hurried down next to the Brewers dugout hoping someone (hopefully Christian Yelich) would come out and sign. After 30 minutes or so, Tate and I gave up and went to find our seats which were on the Seattle Mariners side of the field. As we get there, a few Mariners players are stretching and just a few autograph seekers are nearby. As soon as we sit down, I see Mallex Smith signing and I tell Tate to go get a ball signed. He walks straight up to him and he signs (and he goes on to have a great game that night too, just a coincidence I'm sure!). Trey was unable to get an autograph and was pretty frustrated, even more so when he saw Tate's signed ball. Trey would rally before we would leave.
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| The view from our seats. |
The game was very entertaining, and unfortunately, the Brewers lost 4-2. We did get to see an unusual occurrence. The Brewers' Ben Gamel hit an inside the park home run which is something you rarely get to see. And we got to see Mike Moustakas hit a home run over the right-field fence. The game finished and Trey tried one more time to get an autograph. He spotted one of the Brewers on the other side of the field. He knew immediately by the hair who it was and took off. It was All-Star Closer, Josh Hader. I was holding my breath hoping he would still be signing by the time Trey got there. Fortunately, Trey did get a pretty good signature.
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| Trey finally got an autograph - and it was from Josh Hader! |
Miller Park was really nice and the people in Milwaukee are very friendly. The stadium was a pleasant surprise and you can really feel the hometown pride of the Brewer fans, not unlike the love that most people in Wisconsin have for the Packers. After a great time at Miller Park, we headed for the exit and got in the car to head south toward Chicago. We were going to Wrigley the next day!
