Appleton

Wow, we had a blast in Appleton! We arrived mid-day Wednesday and went to Dad’s condo for a quick tour. It’s in a good location, well-built, and furnished with all the mod cons (including a robot vacuum that was a big hit with the boys). Once the hotel was ready for us, we went there and dropped off our stuff, then Dad and I had dinner with Chris Vogel at the Black and Tan downtown. The food and company were both excellent.
Thursday morning we got up and made the short drive to Green Bay to take the Lambeau Field tour. The only other pro football stadium I’ve been to is the Superdome, and this couldn’t have been more different. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, and the history of the Packers and Lambeau really captured the older boys’ attention (Matthew was mostly interested in the elevators).
We drove back to Appleton, dropped Arlene off at a quilt store, and located The Big Picture downtown, a nifty little IMAX theater where the boys and I ate a huge tub of popcorn and saw Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag. There’s no such thing as a bad IMAX movie, this one more so because it was full of airplanes! For dinner, we went to Prime Quarter, where the deal is that you cook your own steak on their grill. This was fun; fortunately we got there just before the crowd hit.
Today once we get everyone together, it’s back on the road– through Oshkosh, where we’ll stop at the EAA museum, then back to Perrysburg.