On Friday, January 18th, 2008 Sacia, Amanda, and I departed on our Wisconsin voyage to the NFC Championship Game. The drive over was complete with a hell of a lot of air guitar, drum solos, piano jamming, and a unfortunately some Lionel Richie. The Captain of the ship is also the DJ, so I was at Sacia's mercy while he flipped through his CD collection that featured many of my mom's favorites such as Bruce Hornsby, Fleetwood Mac, Lionel Richie, Frank Sinatra, and on and on. I've finally been able to introduce Sacia to some music made in the last few years...a little more progressive such as Kings of Leon and the new Silverchair album. Some day when we have a little more time I will attempt to introduce him to the Strokes, Radiohead, Silversun Pickups, Arctic Monkeys, and other music that isn't 35 years old. But that's how he rolls and I love the dude.
Our first stop was in Stanley, Wisconsin, which was a town of 2,000 right off US 29 in North Central Wisconsin. We hit up a typical small town Wisconsin Bar: Cheap beer, jukebox (with hand-written song lists), great food, and LOTS of locals staring you down. I ordered a round of Miller Lite's and the bartender asked me for $4.25. I thought she meant for each beer, but it was actually $4.25 for the round. Amazing. I instantly felt like I had gotten a raise. We had a few rounds, threw down some food, and continued on our journey. There isn't a hell of a lot between Eau Claire and Green Bay. It was basically a lot of towns that caused us to ponder what we would do with our lives if we had resided there. Some of the conclusions:
-Drinking Heavily
-Meth
-Make Meth
-Sell Meth
-Hunt Drunk
-Eat Cheese Curds
-Track down a hot cousin
Small town USA! In all seriousness the people you meet in Wisconsin are really the nicest people you will ever meet in your entire life. When we finally arrived in GB and hit up a bar named Sidekicks, Amanda got invited to a Bon Jovi concert in St. Paul by couple in their 40's within 5 minutes of talking to them. Additionally, within 5 minutes of talking to them Sacia and I had put down three Jag Bombs, attempting to sneak them in before the fourth member of our group arrived, Marcia...Sacia's girlfriend.
Seriously...Lionel Richie?!
We got good and "Wisconsin'ed" on Friday Night and most of the day on Saturday. As we went from bar to bar it was a riot meeting people and explaining to them that I was a Vikings fan from Minneapolis, and THEN explaining to them why I was going to the game. As a Vikings fan, I am really envious of the passion for the Packers that the state of Wisconsin holds. Every single person I talked to; man, woman, or child discussed the Packer game within the first 30 seconds of our conversation. This state absolutely lives and dies with their team. The only comparison I could really come up with would be the Nebraska fans with the Cornhuskers. These states literally shut down (well the bars stay open) when their teams are playing. Sacia had a group of 65 year-old diners at the table next to us SCREAMING "GO, PACK, GO!" during a busy dinner service, and everybody in the restaurant smiled and laughed. These Packer fans got such a kick out of us, and vice verse that they invited us to the next bar they were going to for a few rounds. Unfortunately, we had to head in a different direction to get home, but the gesture was appreciated.
Sunday Morning came...and the first thing on my mind was gambling. I introduced Sacia to the wonders of online sportsbooks and he looked like a 9 year-old opening up a Nintendo Wii on Christmas Morning. I took the Pats -13.5 and the Giants + 7.5. Had a gut feeling the G-men would keep this game close. Ended up splitting these bets...and I can always live with that. I'm just going to throw all of the money at the Giants in the Super Bowl anyways. I will ride the Eli "how the hell is he doing this" train until the last stop. Anyways, back to the task at hand here: Tailgating at Lambeau. We had the privilege of going to a VIP tailgate party at Brett Favre's Steakhouse, complete with free brats, burgers and of course Miller Lites.
This gave the four of us a chance to get good and warmed up before the game. I read a lot of studies in Men's Health about what city is the healthiest, or what City is the best for singles, and I would like to introduce a new study: What city can drink more beers before noon on a Sunday? The chances of ANY other city in American topping Green Bay are similar to the chances of any other woman in American topping Britney in a "Who is the biggest train wreck mom in America?" contest. It ain't happening. It is nothing for these Packer fans to have a 12 pack and 3 brats in them before they even head into the stadium. For legal reasons, I will not be divulging any information on my intake.
We sat in section 111 row 26 and watched a hell of a football game. Amanda and I were surprisingly comfortable, although our beers turned to slushies within 10 minutes of purchase.
The Giants were the better football team on Sunday Night. Eli Manning has been the story of these 2007 Playoffs. For a guy that the entire city of New York was trying to run out of town just 3 months ago, he has played as well as anybody of late, and he's now just one win away from a Super Bowl victory at age 27. The turning point in this kid's season came when he stood up to the remarks made by Tiki Barber, telling him to more or less shut it. Once Eli was able to show his teammates that he was the leader of this team, and he wasn't going to take any more crap from people they really rallied around him and believed he was "their guy".
I felt bad for the Packers fans after the game, and here is something that I thought was really cool: Giants fans going up to Packer fans in the bar afterwards and telling them that they were sorry they had to win that game and take away Brett Favre's shot at the Super Bowl. I chatted with a few of these Giants guys and they said that the reason they felt bad about winning was that the GB fans had been so nice to everybody all weekend. There was no hostility, no trash talking...just fun and football. I wish more parts of the country could boast a reputation like that.
One hell of a weekend...go pack, go.
No comments:
Post a Comment