Green Bay May 2023

I’m pre-writing some of this to see how it reads after I’m done here. I’m spending a week in Green Bay in May and I have got a few things planned coming up. I’m flying in Monday night and am staying at the Radisson near the casino next to the airport. The gym and pool and things are apparently all 24 hours during the times I’ll be there. So when I get there, it should be around 10PM. That night I’d like to at least locate the pool and the gym and see what all they have got going on there. The next morning I’d like to actually go to the gym and the pool there for a bit, then check out the casino.

So I got in on a Monday night, around 9pm. The layover was quite a quick flight out of Detroit for me, ended up having about 20 mintues to walk 15 minutes after the first flight was delayed twice. Once before the flight and another during the flight. Apparently it was a re-routed flight and crew, who knew? Anyways, I took the shuttle over to the hotel and they got me checked in quite prompty. The room itself was pretty nice, having one single king bed and having laminate throughout. Very roomy. I spent the night locating the pool and the gym. I had to let the fella at the desk let me in, and damn if that wasn’t the first time i connected that brisk Wisconsin accent to more than a few folks I’ve known through the years. Anyways, he let me into the gym because my card didn’t work to let me in there and I checked it out for suitability in the morning. The bike and treadmill were up to my standards, and so I went back to the room and fell asleep.

The next day I checked out Lambeau Field. The whole place itself seems to have just been originally an outdoor stadium that they put a massive operational facade on. It’s quite beautiful inside. In there was a massive metal football trophy, the entrances to the stadium and a restaurant or two. I saw a bunch of folks walking around with lanyards so I assumed they worked there. Anyways, while there I checked out the 1919 restaurant which was recommended to me highly by many folks at this point. The food there was wonderful, the cheese curds were some kind of orange cheddar. I had to ask the lady what kind of cheese they used for the cheese curds because they were great and she just came back saying it was an orange cheddar. I assume it had to be some local variety of cheddar because not too many cook like that in the deep fryer. Anyways I got the mango-something salad and it came with watermelon radishes, macadamia nuts, a very fatty vinegarette, crumbled feta, lettuce and of course bits of mangoes that appeared to have been pulverised into some uniform shape somehow. The salad tasted pretty good, but after a few bites I caught on to how fatty the dressing was and had to stop half way through the salad. Not that there was anything wrong with the salad – just that mine are usually consisting of just some lettuce, pepper and apple cider vinegar.

Anyways, downtown Green Bay was quite an event in itself. This direction being the one goes if they would like to get to the bay itself, in my opinion. While downtown, I was quite abruptly met with a full-pursuit police chase. A run down white van rolls past me, moving from left to right and I don’t catch on at first, but then there’s two full police SUV’s. These pass, but traffic does not move. So, I decide traffic is right and sit with it. Good thing I did because two more crusiers come barreling by, then I see the same white van only this time on the other side of the road traveling from right to left. It was at this time I realize that the driver was fleeing the police and was witnessing my first active police chase in over a decade. So in total there were 7 cop cars and they nailed that poor bastard about two blocks up. Anyways after this I headed over to a marina on the south side of Green Bay off Lake Michigan, because you can’t go to Green Bay without seeing the bay! The marina was neat, wildlife was abundant as some geese took refuge on a small island off the shore just out of earshot of most things but close enough to come back for food. There were gophers hanging out in some lumber by the breakwall. The breakwall was just covered in shells and drift-sticks (for reference – this is driftwood that doen’t qualify as driftwood, so it’s a drift-stick here). Got some nice photos of the day on this beautiful day and then came back to the hotel.

The jacuzzi was great – they actually let you run the thing in hour long increments! I also got to check out the gym and the bike there was really comfortable to run. After that Tuesday was about spent so I went back to the room becasue I had just found out earlier that day that I’d gotten accepted to Boston University for some reason only God knows and wanted to check out what that was all about. Anyways, on the next day I had some breakfast at the hotel. I didn’t realize at the time of me walking in there that it was apparently a fulls service restaurant and back which was not something I was expecting at this place at all. So I walk in there stinking like a gym and meanwhile the folks there are ready to start their day after breakfast. Anyways, getting back to the service side. I had some bacon and two over-hard eggs. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had taken the time to order anything other than sunny side up or fried eggs or not, but it’s not often that you’re going to come to a place that can cook an egg over medium or over hard. These are things I feel like people should do, because nobody really wants to eat that fried egg by itself, but sunny side up seems like such a waste when you don’t get toast with your egg. For this, the over-hard egg is the proper selection more than not. Anyways, it was quite well cooked and the bacon had an increible taste and texture to it and was delicious too. I had to get out of there so I had to prod the lady a little bit by standing up and letting her know to please bring me the check and I did this and then left.

After that later in the day I checked out a place called Parker John’s BBQ and Pizza. It was wonderful barbecue. One difference between carolina BBQ pulled pork and here is that in NC, it’s a bit more moist and I think this is due to the juice being re-added to the meat after cooking it. I don’t believe the cooking method at this place had this step in there, but re-adding the broth really adds a level to the dish I don’t think this place was looking to offer. They did seem to cook it at a higher temperature too, similar to the one you would use for carnitas. I very much liked their mustard sauce. This meal also came with a side of beans and some cole slaw. They also stashed a cornbread with a pad of butter on the tray and then let you go at it. It was overall incredibly high quality barbecue and I would definitely go back to this place. The scenery was well matched to the style of the place too, wonderful things to look at. The waitresses had shirts on them that said “Smoke meat not meth” which I couldn’t help but blurt out laughing at due to the audacity of a restaurant giving it’s folks a shirt at all that said anything in particular about anything was a welcome sight and I enjoyed this most of all. If, for nothing else, say you go there and don’t even eat barbecue – do go there for the folks wearing this shirt. Great lunch place.

After that, later in the day on wednesday I checked out the Oneida Casino here. The door on the entrance informed me that it was the select casino partner of the Green Bay Packers. Seemed legit. So inside of this casino connected to the hotel is a neat array of cheap slot machines. A lot of them would let you spin for fifty or sixty cents, I was not able to locate anything that lets you spin for lower. So I took out forty dollars from the ATM and paid $1.50 for the fee for the convenience of having the machine there. I fed a farmville machine 20 dollars, and within moments I found myself leaving the remaining 50 cents with the machine. I then continued on to a green machine, another slot machine but this one I could pull the handle. So I fed this machine 20 dollars, and played a little bit on my phone because its spins were a dollar a piece so i wanted to space out the spins a little bit. I walked away from this machine with more than I fed it.

The next machine was something with some pumpkins on it. I had cashed out from before and fed the machine 20 dollars. I then found out the machine was halloween themed and otherwise had the same face card draws other machines would have and its persona was prominently displayed as a halloween witch that I don’t recall seeing before having sat at the machine. I had been drawn to the machine because I had seen some meme circulating about a dog and some baby pumpkins earlier that day and it had made me laugh. So i sat at that machine on recalling that, and walked away from the machine with $59 and 8 cents. I decided that I was done gambling, cashed out and left the casino. You know they still do vending machines with cigarettes in them there? Then I went and spent the next few hours going to the hotels gym, jacuzzi and pool .. in that order.

So the next day I woke up, had some breakfast here at the casino and had to explain the the lady that a fried egg is just a broken egg yolk that you fry up like an over hard egg. She told me that she would just tell them to break the yolk. I can tell you right now that if I walked into the right restaurant and asked for a fried egg, they’d know exactly what I’m asking for, and understand that I’m not asking for an over hard egg and that if i wanted an over hard egg that they would give me an over hard egg. Also apparently ordering two orders of the delicious-sounding bacon from yesterday translates to giving 8 of the scrappy thin cut poor tasting bacon I got today and so I’ll have to admit that I got bamboozled there. God, they even put the egg in a round thing too – it was super pretty! Anyways, around the middle of the day I made my way over to a place called El Sarape West Tequila Bar and Restaurant.

This place is your typical, fantastic mexican food joint that people belong at when eating lunch. So I walk in and I was instantly greeted with a bench signed by a bunch of Green Bay Packers players. Bench like this would be a part of history at some point in the future, much like most things now. Anyways, they got me in a seat pretty fast as it was emptier than I feel like it should have been for the time it was. The place had gotten pretty crowded by the time I was done eating. So I ordered the beef enchiladas with mole sauce and I don’t think I’ve tasted such a nice silky mole in many years, it was quite wonderful and I did like to dig through the shredded lettuce on a scavenger hunt to find just one more bite of the enchilada with that sauce. I highly recommend the mole. But really, if enchiladas aren’t your thing – don’t even bother picking up the menu just order what you like at this point because they are going to have it! They are also really generous with the chips and I’d be quite impressed if any of the salsa had come out of a can at all. This had to be the single place in Green bay that I didn’t try the cheese curds at. I’m sure they had them though, everywhere here does. So I got out of there after a bit, the oncoming onslaught of folks pouring into the door was taking more and more of the lady’s time from me and so timing to leave was about as right as it could have been.

So a little bit after this I went back to the gym at the hotel and the woman at the desk helped me get the door open to the gym. There was a fella on the ellipcial machine that had been there before when I first tried to open the door, who got about half off his elliptical by the time she’d gotten the door open, when she had spotted him and said “You’d think he could have just opened this for you”, and walked off. The fella was still a little startled so just as the door shuts I tell him, “No worries, I just like making them walk back here at this point to let me in the room,” the door’s been “broken” since Monday night when I was told “Oh we just don’t want peoples kids in there,” and, “The guy that fixes those things was on vacation since last week and just came back”, and half a dozen other stories I enjoyed hearing but not believing either. Anyways, a bit later I ended up at a place called Legend Larry’s.

I’d decided to go to Legend Larry’s because the cheese shop I’d wanted to go to at the time was closed before I’d made my way to it. Their loss I guess. So, Legend Larry’s feels like a local, townie bar far enough away from downtown that the locals can go there to enjoy it, but close enough to downtown that at least a few non-locals would straggle in there. Legendary for that, at least, sure. The door is absolutely un-decorated, double metal doors with no windows, signage and you would not otherwise think this to be the entrace to anywhere other than the kitchen, very unwelcoming feel. Then you go inside and feel like you should have been there yesterday, or that you already were, or have been all along. Something like that, legendary for sure, yeah. I don’t think I’ve gotten that kind of feeling from anywhere else that’s a wing bar. So then, there’s nobody to tell you to take a seat – you just gotta remember that you should take yours! So you do, only to sit down and find there to be those order menus and pens at each table for folks to select what they would like and drop it off at the bar which you’re supposed to figure out for yourself, also. This whole process was actually the neatest part of the whole visit. So I filled it out, same as you would with one of those all you can eat sushi places – only with chicken wings and appetizers! They also had shrimp in place of chicken wings, I was there for the wings though. I grabbed the 12 medium wings and the cheese curds. This is a good place.

Anyways, I’m out of here at noon tomorrow and don’t have much planned that I feel like putting on here. Next week I’ll be headed over to Massachussetts. Check out various pictures below: