Saturday, November 03, 2012

Saturday Around Green Bay

As you read earlier, we’re in Green Bay for Sunday’s Packers-Cardinals game, and we like to come up on Saturday to experience a football weekend in Titletown. It never gets old. It was brisk today, and the forecast for Sunday is a high of 45 with partly cloudy skies. Perfect football weather.

No caption required. 

The Packers Pro Shop was doing a brisk business, as usual. 

They usually have some Packers alumni on hand in the Pro Shop to sign autographs and meet the fans. Today, it was the 1972-1974 backfield, John Brockington and MacArthur Lane. 

 Older, but still looking good! 

John Brockington signs the custom-made 8x10 we brought with us. 

This is a slightly distorted view of the signed card (sorry, we don’t travel with our scanner). 

For some reason, they scheduled a ladies’ craft bazaar in the Lambeau Field Atrium on a Packers’ home game weekend. It was near chaos with two large crowds mashing together in the tight space of the Pro Shop, the Packers Hall of Fame, and the Stadium Tours area. Someone in management needs to be disciplined for this gaffe.

Now it’s on to some construction updates on the new south end zone seating. Here are some views of the work from outside the stadium. This is the southwest corner of the stadium.

 Work continues throughout this season and is scheduled to be ready for the 2013 season.

The view from some parking land straight south of the stadium. 

The Packers have been buying up houses along Stadium Drive, tearing them down, and converting the land to parking space. The white fence with the truck parked behind it used to be the location of a few homes.

Here’s the view of the southeast corner of Lambeau. In the foreground is the entrance to the loading dock, with the new construction being added behind/above it. 

Backing up a bit, here‘s almost the same view with the complete existing east side of the stadium.

This view shows how the backyards of the remaining Stadium Drive homes back right up to the Lambeau Field property. 

The practice field along the Don Hutson Center on Oneida Street is obstructed from view for security reasons. This is so other teams can’t watch them crafting intricate trickery like the Tim Masthay pass.

Since we mentioned it before, we know you’ve been dying to see the Lambeau Field loading dock area — so here it is!

Another view of some of the land the Packers have expanded into parking. 

Now you can’t say that you were unaware of how you’re expected to act at a Packers game. 

We drove around the older east side of town this afternoon, and stopped to re-center our football bearings at Old City Stadium, former home of the team. 

This stone garage, connected to the old field, is the last surviving actual structure from the olden days. The wooden grandstands were torn down decades ago.

Lastly, here’s another part of Green Bay’s past that has ceased to be... the old Packer City Motel. What a great sign. Someone should buy it and preserve it somewhere.

We’ll be taking photos at the game tomorrow, and will share them when we return. Maybe Sunday night, maybe Monday. We’ll see.