Well, I guess I should start by giving everybody a little bit of a background about myself. I was born and have lived my entire life in the Empire State (New York). This would seem to lead to the simple question, "Why are you writing about the Green Bay Packers?" Lambeau Field is nearly 1100 miles from the house I grew up in, and NFL ticket was non-existent to my family and I. Yet, I have always been in awe of the green and gold, their history, and the city of Green Bay, my entire life. My mother was born in Green Bay and grew up in the state of Wisconsin. My father grew up on Long Island but was in middle school and high school during the dominant years of Lombardi's Packers, so he always rooted for the them. My grandparents had season tickets and were at the Ice Bowl. I mean, honestly, how many people can say they knew someone who was at the Ice Bowl? Well I guess maybe in Wisconsin the number of people who can is a bit higher, but I've grown up in New York and have been able to tell people this my entire life; and people have always been amazed, as am I. When I was younger we would take at least one yearly trip to Titletown and stay with family that lived in the suburbs, and I will admit that I developed a "man crush" towards the Pack. Yet, I've only been to one Packers game, and that was at Giants Stadium in 2007 when Brett Favre broke John Elway's career wins record for quarterbacks. Next year I will be finishing my undergraduate degree, so my time in the "not so real world" is coming to an end. I have always enjoyed traveling, especially driving. While I was back home, in January, I decided that I needed to do something crazy before I have to enter the real world. I've never made the typical college spring break trip, I haven't really made trips to visit friends from high school at the colleges they attend, and I have constantly wondered if I made the wrong decision by not going to a big time school with division one NCAA athletics, ie Wisconsin. My passion is for sports, and I want to work in the sport industry after graduation. And Ithaca, NY and Ithaca College's small-time division three athletics just have not filled my appetite for big time college sports. I decided what my "something crazy" during college would be: A roadtrip to Wisconsin over my four day weekend (Fall Break) in October, praying that both the Badgers and Packers have home games for me to attend in Camp Randall Stadium and Lambeau Field. How would an extremely poor college student like myself pull this trip off (considering I pay for all of tuition, rent, utilities, car insurance, repairs, etc. by myself)? Yes, that's right, piggy banks.
Over my winter break I realized that I had a collection of coin banks that I have been accumulating since I was a baby (one was even actually a blue plastic pig with my name surrounded by stars in teal, clearly something I got when I was very young). Another was Mickey Mouse. Another, a Green Bay Packers helmet. I would break all of these piggy banks, count the change, and continue collecting as much change as possible in order to finance my planned trip on the weekend of October 17th and 18th. And the schedules have worked out perfectly. Wisconsin's homecoming is on the 17th against Iowa, and I now know that the Packers host the Lions on the 18th.
According to Mapquest, the trip from Ithaca, NY to Madison to Green Bay and back to Ithaca is 1837.79 miles, so I figure about 1900 miles in traveling, through finding places to stay, hopefully with family. The calculated total estimated fuel cost, also according to mapquest, is $169.56 for the 1837 miles. However, I estimate about $225 to be safe (1900 miles, 23 mpg even though my car is supposed to get 25 highway, and gas at $2.75, while the national average is currently much lower). Because my best friend from college has agreed that this is something he wants to experience as well, splitting that in half means about $115 per person for gas. The next step is finding tickets to each game.
Currently on StubHub, the least expensive ticket to Wisconsin's homecoming game against Iowa is $111, which is more than I'd like to spend, but I have vowed to make this trip. While I will work on trying to find someone within my family, or a friend of the family who can get these tickets for cheaper, I need to assume for my own purpose that I will pay around $125 for my ticket. That raises the cost to $240 for the trip. Also on Stubhub, the cheapest tickets for the Packers vs Lions game are currently at $120. This increases the cost of the trip to approximately between $380 to be safe. Just like with the game in Madison, I will try to find a less expensive way to get tickets to this game, although I know that will be hard.
We have reserved two beds in a hostel in Madison for Friday night, and I plan to stay with family in Green Bay. The hostel is about $25 per person, so this increases the base cost to around $400. Adding in food and other assorted costs, the trip should be somewhere around $500 if paying full price for tickets to both games. But how much do I have set aside so far?
As of the last time I counted the change, I had approximately $450 between the few coin banks I have had. So if I assume I can amass together $50 more through saving all change I get from all purchases I make and paychecks I receive this summer, I can account for $500 to put towards this trip. Here is my breakdown of potential costs of the trip, moving from least expensive to most expensive:
More simply viewable (as a total cost, which will be split in two):
Gas - $225
Hostel - $50
Food/Assorted expenses - $180
Tickets to Madison (if full price) - $250
Tickets to Lambeau (if full price) - $270
TOTAL - $975
While that is the most that we should pay for this trip, we hope that we can find some gracious benefactors to help lower the cost for two poor college students with big dreams. If said help exists, we hope to knock the cost of the games down significantly, and if anybody who happens to read this has a way of getting tickets, please let us know.
Attending a game at these two venues has been a longtime dream of mine, and I am determined to make those dreams come true in October.
i bet i know where you could score a few free tickets! :)
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