You’ve probably heard that saying: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And that’s kind of what happened this weekend. Oh, not in a bad way. It was actually quite good, but things didn’t go quite to according to plan.
(Side note: For those of you who may not have picked up on it, we are big American football fans, and fans of the Green Bay Packers. We live in MA, which is New England Patriots territory. We are not fans of the Pats, and this past Sunday, the Packers played the Pats at the Pats home stadium in MA.)
We wanted to go to the game. Of course, we did. The chance to see what are arguably two of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game on the same field? Oh, heck, yes. But- ticket prices! Holy $#^%@! Even the nosebleed seats were outrageous. Since we are probably going to be looking at getting a new car in the next couple months, and there are other things, we decided to be adults and not spend that much money on a luxury. Have I mentioned that I don’t like this adulting thing a lot? But, we were good, and were planning a nice relaxing day (it was a night game). I was going to get the blog posts done for this week, the BaldMan was going to smoke a brisket, and we were just going to chill for the day.
About 7:45 in the morning on Sunday, my phone rang. We hit the end of Daylight Savings Time here in the good ol’ USA, so clocks got set back an hour overnight. I hadn’t gotten up yet at that time. Hey, Sunday, relax day, get to sleep in a bit. I grabbed the phone and it was our oldest daughter. Now, being a Mom, my first mental reaction was : Uh-oh, what happened? The conversation went something like this:
Her: So, did you want to go to the game?
Me: Well, yeah, of course, but-
Her: Okay, well, Merry Christmas!
Yeah, they got us tickets to the game just then as an early Christmas present! It was awesome, but so much for the quiet, relaxing day. I called and arranged to take Lambeau to the boarding kennel overnight, since we would be gone for many hours. Our daughter works weekends as a bartender at a restaurant near Gilette stadium and they do parking for the games, so she arranged for us to be able to leave the car there without the parking fee. We drove to the restaurant, spent a few hours hanging out at the bar, had a sandwich and few beers, and then walked up to the stadium. It’s a bit of a hike, but better than trying to drive up and pay the ridiculous parking fees.
The seats were great! Lower section, at our end of the row we were on about the 10 yard line on the visitors side, and eight rows back from the field. Wow! It was an interesting experience. I’ve never been to a live NFL game before, so I was really looking forward to it. It’s amazing how fast the game actually goes when you are right there. And the perspective is very different from TV. There are big screens in the stadium, of course, so you get to see the replays from all the angles, but watching the players on the field is kind of surreal, in some ways. And, man, do those guys look BIG in real life! I know they are big, and they look so on TV, but when you see them right there- geez. Unfortunately, the game did not go the way we would have liked, and our Packers lost, but it was a great experience and we are very grateful to our daughter, our son-in-law, and our grandson for the excellent Christmas present!
That late night, though- it used up all my spoons for both Sunday and Monday. I used yesterday mainly as a recovery day, and took it pretty easy. Definitely worth it, though!
A few pictures, mostly from the pre-game warmups:
And a couple videos, the first of Mason Crosby, the Packers kicker, warming up before the game, and the second of the receivers warming up:
And So On... 