Things to Do in Two Rivers

Named for the mythical bird famous for its fiery rebirth, the Green Bay Phoenix shares its spirit with many esteemed sports programs, including a women’s basketball team that has been ranked as high as 16th in the NCAA Division I and a men’s squad that has made the NCAA Tournament four times. One of only four Division 1 schools in Wisconsin, the Green Bay Phoenix is a member of the Horizon League and their teams––including men’s tennis and women’s swimming and diving––have brought home a total of 29 league championships over the past decade.

Resting beneath natural light from the skylights mounted above it, the hulking figure of the 1.2 million-pound Union Pacific Big Boy cloaks visitors in a shadow that stretches for nearly 50 yards. As guests ascend the monstrous cab of this steam locomotive, they enter the centerpiece of the National Railroad Museum, a chamber echoing with more than 150 years of American railroading history.

After exiting Big Boy, guests can view a computer-generated porter that recounts how African-American rail workers formed the nation's first all-black labor union, and another stop invites passengers to view inside a portion of General Eisenhower's WWII command train. Elsewhere in the museum, various collections are housed with more than 15,000 photographs, archives such as maps and engineering drawings, and more than 5,000 artifacts including uniforms and tools.

The National Railroad Museum has over 60 pieces of rolling stock, including diesel, steam, and electric locomotives, and passenger and freight cars. Among these are some of the most influential and unique pieces in railroading history, including a number of items that pertain to the state of Wisconsin.

Other must-sees of the museum include General Motors’ experimental Aerotrain; the streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad No. 4890, a GG-1 electric locomotive; and the Frederick Bauer Drumhead Collection, the largest, single collection of railroad drumheads known to exist in the United States. Most facilities are accessible, except where rolling stock cannot be altered due to their historic nature. The Museum’s train ride is accessible, and a wheelchair lift is available.

A train ride is offered on a daily basis from May through September and guided tours are available from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Museum also hosts a variety of special events for all ages.

Films still gasping for air from their first runs stop by to grace the screens of Fox Cinema Cafe, a second-run theater with weekend matinees and evening shows. Like a deep-fried VHS of Citizen Kane, the theater combines the best aspects of food and film with servers who deliver handmade pizzas, popcorn, snacks, and sandwiches to patrons’ tables as they watch their movie. Private rooms host birthday parties and corporate gatherings where guests can spread out to play games, unwrap presents, and reenact climactic speed-reading battles from their favorite films.

The crunch of fallen leaves or packed snow telegraphs the motions of warriors hidden in the underbrush on the outdoor fields at Commando Paintball Sports. Paintballs whisper through the air, flitting out from the barrels of Tippmann FT-12 or Piranha markers. The projectiles splatter against two-story forts or hollowed-out vehicles on the three wooded fields, which stay open year-round in almost any weather. On the urban combat field, patrons take cover in any of 20 buildings, including a three-story bell tower perfect for getting a birds-eye-view of opponents. Those seeking tournament-style play compete in a hyperball field designed by expert players. Laser tag keeps clothing clean while still eliciting floods of adrenaline.

For more than 35 years, Village Lanes has hosted neighborhood bowling-league playoffs, birthday parties, and weekday bowling trips. Whether visitors are barely capable of keeping balls out of the gutter or able to clean rain gutters with a well-aimed bowl, they find their niche at this family-run alley. USBC Silver-certified coach Jerry Polarek encourages his students to achieve their best during weekend and after-school youth leagues, and birthday and corporate parties of all sizes share pizza and celebratory high-fives lane side. After knocking self-satisfied smirks off the faces of taunting pins, of-age guests can share celebratory sips of beer and cocktails at the comfortable lounge or chow down on pizza and buffalo wings at the snack bar.

Snugly situated on a historic 1881 farm once known as the Schwabenlander Homestead, Mulberry Lane Farm takes its name from an ancient mulberry tree that once served as a favorite playplace for the Schwabenlander children. In those days, the 100-year-old tree was so esteemed that the children were not allowed to climb it while wearing shoes. Because of this rule, it wasn’t uncommon to find Lawrence, Harry, Norbert, and their nine other brothers and sisters swinging from its boughs, their shoes respectfully lined around its base.

Today, children still play in the shadow of that mulberry tree thanks to the founders of Green Meadows Farm, the Keyes family. Close friends of the last of the Schwabenlander boys, the Keyes adopted the farmstead and its original brick farmhouse into their petting farm empire in 2005 but gave it its own identity to honor the legacy of the original owners. Guided tours lead groups around the farm on foot and by hayride, where kids and adults are encouraged to interact and swap salad recipes with the goats, chickens, sheep, and rabbits that call the farm home. Along the way, visitors can learn how to milk cows and ride ponies or practice catching a chicken, then swing by the barn to snuggle kittens and Otis, the 900-pound boar. Before departing, visitors each receive a free souvenir in the spring and summer, and those who come in the fall have the chance to pick their own pumpkins from the 6-acre pumpkin patch.