Day 12

My final day with the group saw us drive from Chicago, Illinois to Green Bay, Wisconsin visiting some film locations in the morning and two parks in the afternoon.

First stop was Glenbrook High School which was the school from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The car park was where Ferris picks up his girlfriend.

Some photos from the film for comparison.

Our second stop was at the McAllister House which featured in Home Alone. This had a group of gardeners working in and around the house so we didn't want to intrude too much. I guess the new owners also don't like people taking photos as they've gone to the trouble of getting the house blurred in Google StreetView, which probably draws more attention to it.

Our final film spot was another from Ferris Bueller's and Cameron's house. In researching the trip I found the house but also found reports it was undergoing a lot of redevelopment, and when we got there it was still ongoing. In fact just as we pulled up the site manager also appeared and threw us a dirty look, a sign that we ought not to stick around longer than we needed to.

It's also a lot more overgrown than it appeared in the film but then it has been many years since it came out. 

OK, sightseeing over, time for some parks.

The first park was Little Amerricka. The pun is intentional as the owner is called Rick. It's another park that offered nothing new to me but I remember it as being a nice family run park, that opened for just the club despite having been flooded by a large rainstorm the night before.

The mad mouse ride was as good as I remember and it was nice to see we all managed to disembark properly this time. On the last visit someone tripped and faceplanted beautifully onto the station floor.

I didn't do the wheel last time. I'd make sure I did so today.

The wooden coaster Meteor, was running well, and had been commandeered by a group of school kids. The ride operators were allowing them to decide if they wanted to ride again, and the cheer made it clear they were more than happy to do so.

The Roll-o-Plane runs very close to the Meteor, so close in fact they've had to removed some of the handrail to allow it pass by clearly.

The Chance Toboggan. There was no way I was riding that one.

Nor did I fancy riding the Little Dipper. We broke it last time we did so.

A couple of photos from the wheel.

Little Amerricka was a quick stop but a worthwhile one. It's definitely worth a stop if you're in the area.

With the last two North American trips I've been able to locate a couple of home made backyard coasters and the owners have been more than welcoming in letting us visit. I had located one for this trip and reached out to the chap who built it, but didn't get a response and it wouldn't have been right to knock on their door unannounced so we had to let it slide, but I did find it.

So instead we stopped at my final State Capitol building. This time Wisconsin's in the city of Madison. It looks like they have a painted racoon thing going on so I was happy the visit was too short to try to locate them all.

So, the final park for me was at Bay Beach, a municipal park in the city of Green Bay. The park is home to The Zippin Pippin a clone of Elvis Presley's favourite coaster. I'm not sure if that's a good bit of trivia or not. It's worth calling out that this ride was only 50 cents a ride, so I'm hoping it's heavily subsidised by the city. 

The ride is really really good that's up until the final run back into the station where there's one hill that is one of the most violent airtime inducing element that is clearly not correct. The pacing had been incredible but that bit had me flying out of the seat and I was standing up not by choice. It made the ride completely memorable and on subsequent rides we knew to get ready for it. It was the one part of the entire trip that had me bursting with laughter from it's ridiculousness.

It's a very out-of-the-way coaster but one that's definitely worth a visit.

We took a ride around the coaster on their little train. Time it right and you'd get some nice photos of the coaster running. I failed both times.

The only other ride of note in the park was a Scat 2 machine which is a g-force machine. I'd ridden one of these in Kentucky.

Lambeau Field is home to the Green Bay Packers and a quick stop suggested by Christof. It was also marked the final stop for the complete group trip as 20 minutes later I was dropped off at my hotel and they'd continued off to a fair somewhere in Wisconsin.

My hotel was part of a casino complex owned by the Oneida Nation. They had a small display showing their history and some of the corn dolls that they're famous for. As with most reservation land they've constructed a casino

Checking suggestions for food and an Indian fried bread place came highly recommended. It's a local delicacy so why not give it a go. When I checked with the hotel they said there was a shuttle that could take me to it but it ran every 15 minutes. When I asked where it was (Google Maps had it wrong) it was just across the car park, so I chose to walk instead. I guess with the local clientele being those who look to spend their existence playing slot machines the idea of walking somewhere might be an alien concept.

What I wasn't prepared for was that the kitchen was at the back of the casino bingo hall. So that's where I sat for half an hour listening to the most lethargic bingo caller call out numbers for what felt like a much longer length of time.

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