Lambeau Magic

Residential Entrepreneurial Opportunities at it's best

As stated in last weeks post I was graced with 2 tickets to the Green Bay Packer's against "America's Team (that's debateable)" the Dallas Cowboys.  With a controversial call in the game, Dallas won it's first playoff game against the Detroit Lions to move to the second round at Green Bay's hallowed Lambeau Field.  The game was set up to be a great one with Green Bay having a perfect record or 8-0 at home and Dallas having a perfect record away, 8-0.  It seems as though I have been doing a lot of things with my brother Steve these days and when I asked him if he wanted to go to the game, there was no hesitation.  The plan was simple, I'd drive to Chippewa Falls on Sunday morning and meet him at the Walmart around 8:00 and he would drive the rest of the way to Green Bay.  Since they've redone Highway 29, it's clear sailing to Lambeau as our planned arrival time was 10:30.  With the game at noon this would give us time to get our warm clothes on, walk the half mile or so to the stadium, and have some of Lambeau's famous Wisconsin bratwurst before the game.  I like parking right off the west end of Lombardi Avenue, just after you turn off the freeway.  It's easy in and easy out, plenty of room and you basically walk along a residential street where it's a quite the scene seeing all the activity happening before the game.  I have talked about the tailgating that goes on at Lambeau and because it's location, everyone gets in the act. All the houses along the street that we walked down were full of entrepreneurs ready to serve the game time attendees.  Some, like the picture above took parking to the next level, offering additional services for the same basic parking fee everyone was charging.  I think a lot of these people have the

Green Bay Cadillac

same guests throughout the season and they all have a reunion every game, sort of like old home week!  It's definitely a party atmosphere and the below freezing temperature made no difference.  As we walked toward the stadium the craziness continued.  More people, more grills, more bars set up along the way on tables, the back of pickup tailgates, music blaring through loudspeakers, these people were having a great time.  The closer we got to Lambeau the more interesting it became as it looks like people must lease, rent, secure their spot to tailgate as it appeared as though they had been set up for a few hours.   Just before crossing the street to enter the stadium we came by a party setup around a custom painted Cadillac Sedan de Ville, complete with a bar set up in the trunk, a sound system on poles, a huge grill full of brats, and a much needed portable toilet set up behind me in the above picture.  One of these day I need to simply get there the night before and partake in the festivities yet one would probably need to make that a 2 day event!

Jordy Nelson's entrance

As you see in the picture I was dressed for the cold.  Along with my Sorel Boots were lined jeans, my Gortex snowmobile bibs, 3 layers of shirts, my cold weather camo hunting coat, a Green Bay poncho Welly at work picked me up in Mexico, a hand warmer muffler around my waist, a boat cushion for the aluminum bleacher seat, and plenty of disposable hand warmers.  All week the predictions were for the game time temperature to be 15 degrees, not a bad as the last time Dallas played Green Bay at Lambeau where that game was coined The Ice Bowl, where it was -13F, but enough to make sure one dresses warm. Well at game time the temperature had climbed to a balmy 28 degrees.  Now over dressed we shed some of our clothes and left them on the bleachers as we headed back to get something to eat and a beer.  It's quite stunning to watch the National Anthem being played as they unveil a football field sized flag for everyone to see.  A final flyover by 2 F18 Navy fighter jets, wing on wing set the stage.  I'd rank the game as one of the best I have seen there.  The Packer's scored first with Dallas scoring the next 2, with the momentum definitely on Dallas's side.  It looked like the Cowboy's were getting the upper hand in the game as Aaron Rodgers' calf injury was definitely affecting his play.  About the middle of the 3rd quarter a key play by Julius Peppers stopped a clear shot to the end zone by Dallas and forced a fumble that Green Bay recovered.  We didn't look back until the controversial (an correct) call at the 4 minute mark gave Green Bay the ball and all they needed to do was get a first down and hang on to the ball.  It was all over and the Packer's won 26 - 21 over the Cowboy's, the stadium just rocked.  A great game in a great city in a great venue with a great outcome.  I'm not sure what next week will bring and the odds maker's have the Pack down by 7 1/2 points but you know the story.....any given day!  I do know that I'm definitely going to enjoy the ample TX Whiskey I have coming from my Texas friends.  GO PACK

Friday I am heading back to Red Lake to pick up my wheel house and start fishing closer to home. It's been a lot of fun and this will be my 4th trip this year as the fishing tends to get progressively worse as the winter goes on.   As my previous posts describe, we have always gotten enough fish to eat and bring home, which has been the case for a lot of fishermen this year.  The fishing has been so good that the Minnesota DNR just announced a further reduction of the possession limit starting January 23rd.  Prior to December 1st it was 4 fish under 20" then changed to 3 fish under 17".  On the 23rd it will change to 2 fish under 17".  The lake has definitely been hit hard this year and harvest agreements are forcing changes to be made.  I'm not complaining as the season is already half way over and there's a lot of water I'd like to fish before the season closes on February 22nd.  Going with are my brother Steve and a friend from our home town, Eleva.  The strategy is to pull out the house on Friday afternoon while staying in contact with our friend Russ, who's going to be on Lake Winnibigoshish.  The reports have been good from there and if fishing is slow we will pack up the house and head south an hour to join his group.  Plan B is always good!  Although I probably won't get to see the Packer Game, after last week if I have to listen to it on the radio, I'll be happy, especially if they win!

Respite From Red

Pete's Medium Size Northern

After a full Christmas vacation spent at Red I decided to stick around home this weekend and try to find some crappies on Saturday.  My friend Pete usually has a handle on the local scene and there were some good reports coming out of Lake Sarah, just east of Rockford, MN.  Having a waypoint of interest, we met at the landing and headed to a small hump on the other side of the lake.  Drilling a bunch of holes on the top and along the edges, Pete immediately started marking fish that were more than willing to come up off the bottom.  It looked promising yet soon we were getting some 4 inch perch, not too encouraging.  After an hour Pete did get a nice northern pike considering the size one normally gets and I decided to take it home.  Although not the best at removing the Y bones, practice makes perfect and to be honest, northern pike taste pretty darn good as the meat is white, flaky, and firm.  After sitting another hour we decided to sit over a deeper hole hoping that the crappies would come through sometime.   It wasn't going to be our day.  We were fairly close to the landing and because of this we had some interesting conversations with fishermen walking back to their cars from what did you catch to a gentleman asking if we could help him determine if his recently acquired Marcum LX-3 flasher worked the way it should.  Using a lead depth finder you attach to the line, we were successful in acknowledging that he made a good decision, even though Pete and I were using Vexilar's.  The weather was due to change as the wind was already making the move to the north, we suspect that the change pretty well shut the fish down, or at least that was our excuse.  Bringing the remnants of a once full bottle of 4 Roses Single Barrel Bourbon and some ice, we toasted the new year and the promise that Pete would spend some time on the river with me and try to figure out the walleyes.  Pete runs River Run Guide Service out of Monticello, MN and does pretty well from Clearwater to Monticello.  Hopefully I can hold him to it as the walleyes are there, I just need to figure out the best way to catch them.

WOW!

One of the things I have been delinquent on commenting about is the incredible fall in gas prices lately.  It wasn't too long ago we were paying $3.79/gallon but it's been on a free fall for the last 2 months.  This morning I drove by the local Mobil station on Hwy 169 in Champlin and took a picture in amazement of the $1.79/gallon price however coming home tonight it was $1.73/gallon.  It now costs less than $20 to drive back up to Red and even with pulling the house back it is relatively cheap at 10 miles per gallon.  The latest predictions say it will drop even further but we'll see as it's pretty cheap by current standards.   It sure would be nice to buy ahead and if one lived in St. Cloud you can actually buy prepaid gas at the First Fuel Bank and enjoy stable fuel prices based on what you prepaid for and how much you bought.  It's a pretty novel idea and I suspect it will get a lot of attention at these prices.  Either way oil prices will really have to rise to get back to where it was this spring, and eventually it will!  Certainly a lot of people will definitely have a lot more disposable income to spend in the months ahead.

Thursday is our day to head to the annual St. Paul Sportshow, the first of the year.  Keith Holtan has his booth there and am looking forward to seeing him as tradition will have us catching up on the latest and greatest.  The week will finish off with a trip to Lambeau Field were a good friend and contact for our business has graced me with 2 tickets to the Packer/Dallas Cowboy game in Green Bay on Sunday.  It's going to be cold but is destined to be memorable, especially when the Packers win! It won't be as cold as the original Ice Bowl where Dallas came to Green Bay for a playoff game in 1967 and the temperature was -15F at game time.  Often called the greatest NFL game ever played, I hope the outcome will be the same as I have some well placed bets with my two friends from Dallas, Joe Stanfield and Matt Davis.  Either way I should have something to report next week.