Day 11 – Green Bay

I had a late start as I was staying in Green Bay for two more nights. The only thing I needed to do this morning was check out of the hotel I was staying in and move to a hotel 200 metres down the road. The rate for the Friday night was better at one hotel, but it was higher for the two weekend nights so I moved to another hotel which was actually a much newer hotel and as well as being cheaper I also received a $25 Shell petrol card for staying two nights.

I was able to check in early again and spent some time sorting out my paperwork I have accumulated so far. I then went out to get some lunch before travelling over to see Ken Treml and his wife Barbara at their home. Ken as I mentioned was the person who invited me to Green Bay to start with and I was able to visit them and have a look at his collection. Ken also has a basement under his home where he has his collection displayed.

He has a collection of favourite cans and his main specialty is sports cans and sports schedules. Schedules are the cards handed out by sporting clubs or sponsors listing all the games for the year for a particular team or sport. There is a chapter of schedule collectors in the BCCA. Ken has in his sporting cans sets of Australian sports cans including the XXXX 1982 Commonwealth Games set.

At 4pm Ken and Barbara took me to their local church for mass. The church was build 8 years ago and is a very well built architecturally. Following the mass we went to the Titletown Brewing Company building which is the old Green Bay Railway Station on Main Street in the city, next to the river. Ken had arranged for any members who were coming into town today for tomorrows show to come to the brewery for dinner tonight. We had 8 people for dinner and they were also able to try some of the 14 beers on tap. They also brew a non alcoholic root beer which I tried, it was quite good, only a bit sweet for my taste.

Following dinner Ken had arranged to take me to the home of Pete Vann, another collector to look at his collection and also see how he makes the “booyah” stew broth that is for lunch for tomorrow. Pete and his wife Claudia travel annually to Hawaii and have a lot of Hawaiian memorabilia as well through their house. We went down a set of stairs into the basement. Whilst going down the stairs Peter has lined the walls and the ceiling of the stairwell with beer tap handles.

Once in the basement the whole area was covered with brewery signs, mirrors and beer cans

and Pete had set his bar top with photos and other memorabilia of his family and poured clear resin over them to create a counter top. He even filled in gaps in the memorabilia and put more items on to of the first layer and poured a second layer of resin over the top.

We talked for quite a while about collecting, Hawaii, and about the Green Bay Packers which Pete like everyone else in Green Bay is fanatical about. He has a share certificate for the Packers, it is the only team in the NFL that is owned by the general supporters of the team not by a rich person or corporation. He also has a replica Championship ring from last year’s Superbowl win that was sold to Packers supporters.

We left the Vann’s and I dropped Ken off and made my way back to the Hotel. Once there I rang home to my Sisters mobile as she had sent a text saying she was going to visit my mother at the respite home and I would be able to ring and speak to mum. I was able to ring and get them so I had a good conversation with my mum and she seems to have settled well into the home. She said that she is enjoying it and that all the staff are real friendly.

Once I finished the phone call I headed for bed as tomorrow should be a good day at the Beer Collectors show.

Day 10 – Milwaukee – Green Bay

I was up and on the road by 9.30 this morning, heading north out of Milwaukee and driving up to Green Bay for the next three nights. It is just over a two hour drive and I stopped at Walmart along the way to get a battery for my second camera. I also picked up a few different Pringles cans I did not have from the grocery section. Then I had to get a screwdriver to use to bottom open some cans from the bottom that I want to send home next week.

I arrived at the Clarion Hotel where I am staying tonight and arranged to get an early check in. I also arranged for a return ticket on their shuttle bus to the Green Bay vs. Arizona Cardinals NFL game. I went up to the room and had a few hours on the computer to check the Sydney newspapers and the sports results from Friday night at home.

The shuttle left the hotel at 5pm for the 7pm kickoff at Lambeau Field, the Packers home ground. On the way to the stadium the bus had an accident and the police stopped the driver from taking us the rest of the way. Everyone on the bus had to walk about one mile to get to the stadium.

Once there I had to get my ticket from the Will Call ticket window at the northern end of the stadium before heading around to the western side to enter the ground. Inside the stadium I went to the Packers Shop to get some merchandise and get a jersey for someone else that I was asked to get.

I then got some food to eat before heading up to my seat. I was lucky to get a seat on the 20 yard line in the 26th row which is about one third of the way up the grand stand. It was a very good seat to watch from. Before the game they introduced a couple of the former players to the crowd. Then the national anthem was sung followed by the National flag being raised for the first time this season, also before the game started there was a fly over by a two air force jets.

The seats were only a metal seat without any padding or back to them, you could hire a cushioned seat with back on it to sit over the metal or a lot of the regular supporters have their own seats they bring to every game.

The game then started and the Cardinals took the lead after a field goal and the Packers failed to do any good with their first set of plays. So the Cardinals took 3-0 lead at quarter time. The Cardinals then scored another field goal to take a six nil lead before the Packers finally got a set of good plays together and finished with a two touchdowns and kicked both goals to take a 14-6 lead at half time.

The third quarter was all Cardinals as they scored two touchdowns to take a 20 to 14 lead to three quarter time. Within thirty seconds of the final quarter Green Bay was able to score a touchdown with the Quarterback throwing a pass from play on their own three yard line and the receiver ran 97 yards to touchdown. The crowd went wild as the receiver ran down the field chased by a defender that could not quite catch up to him to bring him down. The conversion gave Green Bay a one point lead and another touchdown five minutes later extended this lead to 8 which was the last score of the game. The final score was 28 to 20 in favour of Green Bay with the crowd of just over 67,000 very happy with the result.

I left the stadium after taking a some photos and walked back to the area the bus was waiting for us to go back to the hotel. We had a wait of about 30 minutes till the bus left for the return trip and I once back at the hotel I went straight up to my room and it was not long before I was asleep.

Day 9 - Janesville - Milwaukee

After a bit of a sleep in this morning I was offered a cooked breakfast which was a very good meal made by Barbara. Gregg & Barbara also gave me some peach pie and some home grown tomato's to take with me for today. We chatted for a while then it was time for me to move on as I had a ticket to the Milwaukee Brewers – LA Dodgers game in Milwaukee which started at 1pm.

I set the GPS to get me there and for the most part of the trip it was very quick as there was no traffic. Unfortunately as I came to the outskirts of Milwaukee there was a huge traffic jam that held me up. I would have taken close to an hour to cover the last 10 miles to the ground.

I finally made it to the car parking and was lucky as I was in the last row and there were still a lot of cars behind me, don’t know where they were going to park. The only problem was that by the time I got my ticket from the Will Call window and got into the stadium it was already the third innings.

The LA Dodgers had a run already by the time I got to my seat which was in the second tier of seating. The stadium has a opening roof which closes for bad weather but it was a sunny day and it was wide open. The section of the stadium I was sitting was in the sun and it was very hot.

The stadium was quite full for a Tuesday daytime game though it is more than likely because it is holiday period and there were quite a few families there

By the end of the eighth inning the Dodgers were leading 5 to nil and I had to get out of the sun so I watched the last inning from the rear of the stands where there was a nice cool area in the shade. The Brewers scored a run in the last inning but the score finished 5 – 1 to the LA Dodgers. Milwaukee has been on a hot run of wins and it was only their third loss in 22 games. They are leading their division by over 6 games which is very good at this stage of the season.

I got back to the car and it was easier to get out of the car park than to get into it. Plugged in the GPS and I was onto the freeway and headed towards the centre of the city to the only casino in town. It is a huge building and there were plenty of people already inside by the time I got there. I was pretty quick to get the chips i needed and left just as more people from the game were arriving.

It was now about 6pm and I than went looking for some accommodation for the night. I was thinking of heading up to Green Bay tonight but it is a two hour drive and then I would have to find a hotel so I decided to stay in Milwaukee. I have found that some hotels over here you can sit outside in your car and look up the wireless internet on your laptop. So I searched for local hotels on the GPS and found a Comfort Inn was nearby. I pulled up next to it and was able to put my laptop to work with their wireless internet.

Online I found a cheap Red Roof Hotel near the airport and made my way out there. They had rooms available so I booked in. I had stayed at Red Roof in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania so I knew although they are very basic rooms they do have free internet and reasonable beds.

I settled in and checked out my emails etc before making contact with another Can Club member Ken Treml to confirm our earlier conversations about my time in Green Bay this weekend. I have met Ken every Canvention I have been to and last year we shared a shuttle back to the airport after the show. Then I told him I was going to be in the USA for a few weeks before the Canvention. He told me his local chapter of the club The Packer Chapter was holding a meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin a fortnight before the Canvention. So when I made my plans and Ken also told me that there was a Green Bay Packer’s trial game on the Friday night before the local beer meeting. This made this part of my planning decision easy,

I then headed out to find a place to have dinner. I found on the next main intersection there was a place called the Branded Steer. It was a restaurant but also had a long rectangular bar that I sat at to eat. I had some chicken strips for appetiser (USA for entree) and then lasagna. It was a filling meal and I was able to watch one of the NFL preseason trial games.

After finishing dinner I went to a service station to fill up with petrol. ($US 3.69 per gallon) and get some milk to have with my cereal for breakfast. Back at the room I went to the ice machine to get some ice for my cooler and placed the milk and some bottles of water in for tomorrow before watching some TV and heading off to bed for the night.

Day 8 - Chicago to Janesville

I spent most of the morning repacking all my gear and catching up on news from home via the internet. After all the driving I had done until yesterday it was good to be able to catch up on some things and relax a bit.

Had some breakfast and then set off for Janesville which is my destination for today. I had one stop to make on the way though. I travelled to the town of Elgin to go to the Grand Victoria Casino. It is another riverboat casino built on the bank of the river that flows through town. I went and joined up for their players club and received a t-shirt with the casino logo etc, on it. The only game available to get a seat at was a Caribbean Stud poker so I sat and joined in the game. I only sat for 6 hands and walked away with 3x the money I started with. It was the best quick turnaround of the trip so far.

After leaving there I headed for Janesville. I have some friends from the can collecting club there, Gregg and Barbara Bozac. I met Gregg and Barb at the first Canvention I attended in Orlando. They wanted to know a bit about Australia as they were travelling over for a wedding in of their nephew later in the year in Gosford.

We spoke quite a bit and I gave them my card and said if they had any free time to contact me and I would meet them and show them around. Gregg rang me when they arrived but they had a full schedule until the day before they flew back to the USA. I arranged to visit them on that day.

I drove up to Gosford and took them up to Newcastle to see Adam & Shirley Murphy. they had also met Adam in Orlando. We had some lunch and showed them round Newcastle for the day.

In the years since I had met Gregg & Barb at all the US shows I attended and they have always said for me to visit if I come their way. Well that is Today.

They live about 2 hours from Chicago in a beautiful home. Their home is set right back from the road and surrounded by lovely setting of grassland, trees and colourful garden plantings. Barbara also has a large vegetable garden which provides them with plenty of different vegetables which she cooks or preserves as required.

It was hard for me to believe that in winter they can get deep snow falls and get snowed into the house occasionally and need to get help getting their car out to the roadway. I was shown to my room which is in the basement of the house with a lounge area, the area also has the laundry, the boiler room and a room that houses Gregg’s beer can collection. He only keeps steel cans, so therefore none of the cans he collects are current.

Gregg and Barbara are season ticket holders for the local baseball team the Beloit Snappers, which are a minor league team in the Mid Western Division; they are affiliated with the Minnesota Twins. Tonight is a Ticket Holders support night where they have asked me to join them for a free meal and drinks with other ticket holders from the club.

It was an early dinner and afterwards we went to the large liquor store in town and looked at the huge selection of beers that were for sale. I grabbed a six pack to take to the Canvention with me, I am sure someone will like to taste the local brew. We then drove around the town looking at all the older buildings and timber homes as well as the larger stone buildings in the business area. It is quite a large town of around 60,000 people.

We then went back to their home and had desert, one of Barbara’s home-made peach pie, it tasted wonderful with a bit of ice cream. Afterwards we watched the end of a baseball game on the television and chatted about their trip to Australia and that Greg and Barbara hope to come back again for a visit.

Day 7 – Chicago

After a late night yesterday I set the alarm for 10am and was out of the motel by the 11am check out time. I had accommodation arranged for this evening so I drove straight over to it and was able to get an early check in. I checked out my emails and looked at the Chicago White Sox website for details of the stadium and parking for the game which I am attending today. The game starts at 7.00pm but the parking opens a lot earlier and with it being peak hour traffic before that I decided to leave for the game at 3.30pm.

There was some traffic on the journey in and it did take quite a while to get close to the ground. I know if I do not have the GPS in the car I would have had a very difficult time finding the place. They organise the parking very well, the season ticket holders or sponsors parking follow red signs and the casual parking follow green signs and there are traffic control people at every intersection organising traffic and pedestrians.

It cost $23 to park but I ended up only 200 meters from the stadium. A lot of people were already there when I arrived about 5.40pm. Most of them were set up in the car park with deck chairs and were busy with cooking on portable BBQ’s. This is a popular past time to American sports fans and is called Tailgating. Tailgating is more important to some people than the game itself.

I had prearranged my ticket for the game and it was to be picked up before I could go into the game. This process is called Will Call and at this stadium they have an automatic machine that you walk up to and insert the credit card you bought the ticket with and the ticket prints out. It was very simple to arrange and took no time at all.

On entry to the ground I had a quick walk around the area behind the seating and looked at all the merchandising but did not buy anything. I had a seat on the lower level looking straight down the third base line and was just heading to my seat as the National Anthem was sung. Everybody in the area behind the seating just stopped in their tracks and was silent until the anthem was finished.

The White Sox were playing the Cleveland Indians and it was not long and White Sox were on the board with a run in their first innings. They got another run in the second before Cleveland got on the board with a run in the fourth inning.

By the ninth inning the Sox were leading 7 to 6 but Cleveland got a run to level up the game. It was getting late by then and extra innings would really drag out the night so I left then to get a break on the traffic. It was a good experience and I really had a good time there. Another reason I left was that I also had to go back to the hotel to do some washing as it was the first hotel that had a guest laundry I had stayed in.

I quickly stopped at the Rivers Casino which was only two blocks from my hotel and picked up the chips for my collection. I was in and out in 20 minutes breaking even on the tables.

The baseball game ended going to 14 innings with the White Sox finally getting a run to win the game 8 to 7. If I had stayed there till the end I would have had roughly an extra 2 hours at the game, so it was good I left when I did as I got all my washing and drying done and still got to sleep about 12.30am.

Day 6 - Ann Arbor - Detroit - Gary - Chicago

I was out of Ann Arbor by 7am and rang home to see how everything was there. Following that I headed east to Detroit to visit the three casinos in the city. Detroit is a big city and the area the three casinos are in is a diversity of buildings from new models skyscrapers to older brick buildings. There is a beautiful old church right next to the Greektown Casino and all around the casino are old style buildings that have been refurbished.

After getting the chips from the casinos with varying luck at the tables I jumped back into the car to head west towards Illinois. Having been to both the casinos near Kalamazoo on Friday night I was able to keep driving straight through to the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Indiana. The casino is owned and run by the local Indigenous Indian tribe. There is a lot of tribal markings and items within the casino and I received an interesting pamphlet on the local tribe to read whilst I am travelling.

From there I travelled further west to Michigan City, Indiana. I arrived there about 6.30pm after stopping along the way to have a nap at one of the rest areas.

The Blue Chip Casino is in Michigan City, it is another flash new glass covered building in an area that was once on the main highway heading west to Chicago from the east. Now the large motorway takes the cars around the area and a lot of the old motels and business are looking very dated.

The casino is actually owned by the same company that owns the Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas. So when I received my players’ card the attendant informed me I had a lot of points already on the card from two years ago when I stayed at the Gold Coast in Vegas. There were more than enough for me to get dinner from the Buffet. So after I went into the casino and picked up my chips I went to the Buffet and had a very filling dinner.

I had not pre-booked any accommodation for tonight and had intended staying in this area but as it was still early I decided to continue on into Chicago and visit some of the casino’s there before getting a room. I first stopped at the Majestic Star Casino and the Ameristar Casino which are close to each other in Gary, Indiana. Both are riverboat casinos where the actual casino is on a ship which is fixed to the land and you need to enter via large fully enclosed walkways.

I had a good time in both casinos, which for a Monday night were both very busy with not many empty spots for you to sit at. Leaving there I travelled into Chicago to the Horseshoe Casino. It is a huge casino which is very well set out and very well decorated. I played for quite a while there at various tables and only when I went to leave did I realise it was two o’clock in the morning.

This created a slight problem as I still had not arranged any accommodation. I got the GPS and looked up for hotels and found an Econo Lodge not far away. I drove over and was able to get a room quickly that had 11am checkout. It only took a few minutes to book in and I was straight to sleep.

Driving today covered around another 350miles.

Day 5 - Belleville - Ann Arbor - UP - Alanson - Ann Arbor

Today was an early start to get to Ann Arbor to meet up with Chris Taylor, who is also a beer can collector and is a member of the Rusty Bunch Chapter of the USA club. When I asked on the website if there was anyone who would be able available to take an Aussie out dumping for old beer cans Chris generously took up the challenge.

Chris is the Editor of the chapter magazine and is always providing stories of his dumping exploits and I knew he would be an excellent teacher and be able to show me the correct ways of doing things.

I arrived at Chris’s home just before 8am and he was ready to go. Chris is also a musician and spent last night playing a benefit concert for one of his band members who has some serious medical problems. Chris grabbed a couple of cans of caffeine as we headed off north on the I-75. The place we are going to is in Alanson, Michigan and Chris has been coming to the same block of land for over 20 years and with many other collectors is still finding cans out of the dump. The land is a large bushland that was used as a waste dump from the early 1900’s till the 1950s.

As we headed off it was raining and Chris said the forecast was for the weather to fine up around lunchtime. The constant rain and patches of fog were not an inconvenience and we sat on 75 miles per hour most of the way. We met up with another collector Dan Bora at a Burger King on the side of the interstate on the way up. Dan and his wife and 3 boys were away holidaying for the weekend and we spent about 30 minutes with them catching up. Dan is the webmaster of the Rusty Bunch website and is a magician on the computer. I catch up with him each year at the Canvention so have gotten to know him quite well.

Chris said he was going to take me to see the Mackinaw Bridge where the two sections of the state of Michigan are joined by this amazing engineering structure and that we were also going to cross over the bridge to stop at one of the casino/s on the other side. Dan suggested the one at Sault Ste Marie in the UP. UP is the local’s word for Upper Peninsula Michigan. When we crossed the bridge the ramp directly to the I-75 was closed and we did not see a detour sign so continued up the wrong road trying to find a way back to the right way. Even studying maps we could not find one so we had to turn back towards the bridge until we were able to find the original turnoff.

I would normally trust Dan with anything he told me but he told us that Sault Ste Marie was not a long drive. IT was in fact about and a three hour return trip by the time we got back to the Mackinaw Bridge. We also had a small problem finding the casino, we followed the signs which were only small ones at eye level on the road edges but one the final one was missing and we did not get to turn off correct. We eventually found it and even then we got it wrong and walked the wrong way when we went inside and had to back track to the gaming room. I was a bit luckier that the other day and was able to walk away with some extra money plus three different chips for the collection.

We then had to drive all the way back down the U.P. and coming towards the Mackinaw Bridge I was running low on petrol so we had to drive through the town before the bridge to fill up with petrol. Crossing the bridge again we headed to Alanson and Chris directed me towards the bushland where the dump is. This is a big wooded area where the locals used to drive into and dump rubbish up to the 1950’s.

When Chris was a young boy he and his brother used to collect beer cans they found lying around anywhere. Their father shared the pastime with the boys and during a holiday at Alanson they were told about the block of land that the townsfolk used to use as a dump.

Due to the roughness of the ground and the amount of bottles and shrubs on the ground we both wore trousers and heavy boots to ensure that our feet were safe. The ground was literally covered in rusted cans, bottles and fallen tree trunks. There was so many rusted cans that you just had to turn over the soil and you would find more cans sitting under the surface. Within 10 minutes I had found some cans that you could clean up to see the labels had plenty of colour.

Although collectors have picked over this site yearly for many years there is still plenty of cans still to be found. We were there moving around on the site for a couple of hours and I ended up bringing away six cans to clean up plus a rusted 1953 Ohio car number plate that Chris thinks will clean up well. It was tiring work with plenty of sweat in the afternoon heat.

We finished up at the site just before 7pm and after cleaning up and getting into some clean clothes we headed off for the long drive back to Chris’s place. We arrived just on midnight and it was not long before I was asleep.

I covered over 650 miles driving for the day on the round trip. I must thank Chris for his hospitality, his expertise, his patience explaining everything to me and also his generosity for putting my up for the night on his couch. He is a real great person and a great ambassador for our hobby. Thanks Chris.