October 6, 2009: Driving to Downstate Illinois
	October 4, 2009: A Day on Chicago's Near North Side
	Return to the Index for Our Midwest Trip

Our Drive from Chicago to Green Bay

We had breakfast at the Holiday Inn and then checked out. When we got the car, we headed south to Ohio Street and then west towards an entrance to I-90/94 North.

We took I-94 all the way to Milwaukee. There, the interstate heads west to Minneapolis, but we continued north on I-43 towards Sheboygan.

We had some lunch just south of Sheboygan at a little country restaurant at one of the exits, and then continued on into Green Bay.

Following my nose, we got off the expressway to Highway 172 and then exited at Riverside Drive and headed north into downtown Green Bay. Things began to look familiar (from my last visit here to see Guy) once I'd gone a little ways on Riverside.

Guy had told us that he would not be free to get together until early afternoon, so when we got downtown, we just followed a route by his church, so that I could point it out to Fred. We turned towards the Fox River, went past the Captain's Walk Winery, and then to the Quality Inn right on the Fox River. We checked in and gave Guy a call.

At Guy's Church- St. John the Evangelist

Guy came by our motel room when his meetings were over and the three of us walked over to St. John's to see the progress that had been made on the homeless shelter. Guy and his church have been at odds with the city of Green Bay over the shelter; the city seemed to think that "if you build it, they will come." The Church's position is that the homeless are already in Green Bay, and the shelter is just to keep them from being out in the cold. The shelter is in the school building that is no longer used; this is the same building in which Guy lived when he came here, before the rectory was available. It has now been converted into a pair of dormitories- one for each sex. Guy gave us a tour, and it was pretty amazing the amount of work they have done.

Next, we walked over to the church proper. The congregation of St. John the Evangelist is the oldest continuing parish in the state of Wisconsin, and the church has a long history. It is an old church, now, and in an area of the city whose churchgoing population is both aging and shrinking. Guy has to deal with many problems caused by these two factors; it is a constant source of worry for him and for his congregation how the church is to remain open, so great are its expenses relative to its contributing membership.

This was Fred's first time at Guy's church, although I had been here a few years ago when I came up to visit Guy on my own. You may already have look at that portion of this photo album. Below are thumbnails for some of the pictures that Fred took of the church exterior; you can click on them to view the full-size images:

Next we went inside the sanctuary. It is very pretty inside; very traditional. There are some thumbnails for the pictures we took of the church interior at left. Click on them to view the full-size images.

When I was first here, Guy had explained to me about the stained glass windows, and how they were leaking and needed to be repaired. I took quite a few pictures of them at that time. The church did not really have the money to repair them the way they needed, but in one of those fortuitous events, one of Guy's former parishoners in San Antonio donated the amount of money that St. John's church needed to have the work done.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

If my memory serves me, the windows look much better than when I saw them the first time and, according to Guy, the window surrounds have also been fixed to keep heat from leaking out of the building as much as it used to. Fred took a great many pictures of the windows; it was hard to winnow them down for this album. To make it easy for you to see his pictures of these beautiful windows, I've put them in a slideshow.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

When we were done inside the church itself, we walked over to the rectory where Guy now lives, and we sat down and visited for a while. We decided to have lunch at the St. Brendan's Hotel across the street from the Quality Inn, and then we went back to the rectory to watch a couple of DVDs that Guy had been wanting to see. Later on in the afternoon, we drove out to the shore of Green Bay to a nature preserve that Guy thought might be interesting for us to walk around in, but, unfortunately, when we got there it was just about closing time. Guy had a meeting he had to go to around six, so we dropped him off at the church and went back to the hotel to wait for him to have dinner with us.

The Fox River Trail

Since we had some time before Guy would be ready for dinner, Fred and I decided to walk across the street to the bike/jogging/pedestrian trail along the Fox River.

The last time I was here, Guy had told me that there was a fee for riding bikes on it, but we didn't see any signs of that. It was basically a curving sidewalk along the river, from the center of town upriver to the south. We only walked as far as the first bridge to the south of our hotel; we thought the trail ended there, but we later found out that it breaks at the bridge but picks up on the other side.

One interesting thing about the trail was the installation of a number of pieces of outdoor sculpture and art, so there was usually something to stop and see. As one of the signs indicated, "The Public Sculpture Walk celebrates the historical nature and natural beauty of the Fox River as it flows through Green Bay. These works reflect historical, natural or manmade elements, and the vitality of the Fox River and the inhabitants of our community." You can click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at the various pieces of artwork that we stopped and saw. Where I found a marker, I'll give you the information on it about the piece:

Green Bay had certainly done the walkway along the river very nicely. We discovered that it was still under construction further downtown, and we understand from Guy that it goes quite a long way upriver (south).

A little ways from the hotel, the walk passed the old Milwaukee Road Passenger Depot. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, later known as the Milwaukee Road, came to Green Bay in 1873. This depot was built in 1898 and was the only passenger depot located on the east side of th eriver. It served as a passenger depot from 1898 until 1938 (approximately 10 passenger trains per day) and again from 1945 to 1946 (about 12 trains a day). After the decline of passenger railway service, the passenger depot closed but continued as a freight depot.

The railroad had a monopoly on freight service for Green Bay's east side throughout the period of rail dominance in area transportation. Its "Alley Track," established in 1889, was a freight line that extended north along the east side of the Fox River through the central Green Bay commercial and industrial district, providing service to businesses along Washington Street (the street our hotel was on and the one bordering the river) and north. This building is an excellent example of Flemish Rennaissance (sic) Revival architecture and served as the office for the Association of Commerce (which later became the Chamber of Commerce) from 1957 to 2008. the building was placed on the National REgister of Historic Places in 1996.

On the lawn in front of the depot there were the only two statues that we encountered on our walk, and you can have a look at them here and here. We also passed the site of the first Catholic Church in Green Bay.

Guy came by the hotel about seven and we walked down through town and across the river to the Titletown Brewing Company, a local place he'd been to before. We had a great meal, and discussed our plans for the next day which, we hoped, would include a trip to Door County.

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	October 6, 2009: Driving to Downstate Illinois
	October 4, 2009: A Day on Chicago's Near North Side
	Return to the Index for Our Midwest Trip