THE FOURTH DAY

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin — I generally agree with the sentiment that you get what you pay for, but particularly in the area of hotel breakfast. As of last night, I’ve stayed in 21 hotels this year (mostly through work as a sportswriter). That, added to years in this job and traveling in general, give me a pretty good handle on the varieties of hotels. Upon arriving in the foyer of the Green Bay Hyatt on Main on Tuesday evening, I knew two things: 1) breakfast would not be complimentary, and 2) it would probably taste pretty good. Free hotel breakfasts are actually a complete waste of money. Because the hotel is giving away breakfast to a giant building full of people, they’re forced to skimp on the food. Consequently, no one is happy. The eggs are basically yellow air. If you put a heavy dose of salt and pepper on them, then it’s a little better. It’s heavily salt-and-peppered yellow air. A continental breakfast bagel with cream cheese is way more work than it’s worth. The coffee is lukewarm brown water that tastes like whatever flavored cream that goes into it. Honestly, I don’t mind the mediocre coffee so much. Conversely, I was happy to hear the hotel breakfast this morning cost $10. In my head, I set the over-under at $15, that being the number that forced me to make a decision about whether or not to eat it. I would have paid $12 for there to be sausage on the buffet, but it’s fine. The eggs tasted like they came from chickens rather than powder. The potatoes were crispy and delicious as they were doused with Cholula (as were the eggs). Bacon was served. Need I say more? Anyway, Tuesday was a work day. Work included posting a WacoFork blog, sending emails, driving across Wisconsin, transcribing the Adrian Peterson conversation and prepping for today’s interview. While driving across Wisconsin, I made a minor mistake by missing the northern route to Green Bay as I came through Eau Claire. As a result, I took a state highway that led me through pastoral scenery that made me feel like I was driving through a social studies textbook. I couldn’t look in any direction without seeing a green, rolling hill with a red barn on it and a grain silo in the distance. It rained for much of the drive, so I thought it would be perfect to listen to Bon Iver. That ended up being a questionable decision because it mellowed me out, which combined with my general lack of energy meant that I haven’t seen much of Green Bay. I ate at the hotel restaurant, then hunkered down in my hotel room to do a little work and watch Big Bang Theory and Modern Family.

Having read yesterday’s blog again last night, I realized it’s a little dinged up with grammatical and typo problems, but like I said on Sunday, I’m not going to spend time re-reading and editing. There’s too much to do for that. Golf didn’t make it into the schedule yesterday and editing the blog definitely falls below golf in the hierarchy of needs in this deal.