Fall Family Travel Idea: A Stadium Tour

AMPR’s favorite travel agent, Jerry Lang at House of Travel, put together a creative family fall trip that we wanted to share with you. Jerry and his wife, along with their two teenage daughters, set out on an all-American stadium tour! Here, he shares his experience with Wanderlogue:

Our youngest daughter who by the age of nine had been to six continents always had a dream of going to Wisconsin. I can only think it had something to do with Ashton Kutcher and “The 70’s Show” but we finally got the trip planned. We left on a Friday afternoon for Madison where the University of Wisconsin is. Being political we stopped by the Occupy Madison movement (with the four of us we doubled the population) before getting some shuteye before game day.

The next morning we woke up, stopped by the farmer’s market and then headed to Camp Randall Stadium for our first game. I had never before seen such a sea of red as of the 75,000 people at the game maybe 25 were wearing a different color. The game itself was nothing special as UW went on to win 59 – 7 but the traditions were impressive, from the pushups by the mascot to match the points scored, to the jump around at the end of the third quarter, and the fifth quarter performance by the band after the game. One tradition I did not like was they sold no alcohol in the stadium, can you imagine in the state of breweries not having a beer at a game. This also means that since the game is at 11:00 AM the pre-gaming begins around 8:30 AM, which makes for a long day!

Sunday morning was big on the trip as now we had two more passengers in tow – Niece and her boyfriend – and we were off to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. This is the holy grail of pro football and is a shrine that any fan should go to. As the Packers are a public company everything here is about the fans, from the fresh made popcorn, to the lower prices at the stands. When you go there you become almost like family with the other fans who travel for hours to attend a game because really, who lives in Green Bay? Here we had another blowout game and it was if the fans just expected it, but we did not expect to be dancing a Polka at the end of the third quarter.

That game finished at 3:00 pm and then it was off to Chicago for a 7:30 pm kickoff at Soldier Field. I being a typical male driver does not listen to women giving me directions so I did not listen to the GPS and after an extra hour of travel we finally made it to the stadium. Our seats were in the upper deck on the top row so after having a mini heart attack we finally got to the seats. We knew we were back in a big city as that wholesome language and brotherly love was gone. The words were more explicit and the testosterone (some would call it passion) was off the charts. It was our third game and our third blowout by the home team but what made this interesting was very few people left the game because of the enjoyment of the game. When it was over we took a walk around and found out why it was called Soldier Field and saw the monuments and tribute to our men and women in uniform.