Have you ever been to a NFL game in person? They are a blast!
We watched a NFL football game yesterday between the Broncos and Dallas Cowboys. Wow! The score went back and forth...a total of 99 points were scored with the Broncos prevailing 51-48. This reminded me that I'd promised to show some pics from my visit to Denver the first week of September when I visited dad and went to the first football game of the season.
Dad drove us to the south end of downtown Denver so he could park in the parking lot of his gym. From there we walked all the way down the 16th Street Mall to the north end of downtown. Then we turned due west to walk to Mile High Football Stadium (I don't give a crap what corporate sponsor currently has their name attached to it. OK, it's now called Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium).
As we walked past the Auraria College Campus we saw these:
Now for some pics of typical Broncos fans. I asked the first guy if he had any rolls. He said he didn't. In the second picture we are waiting to buy some bratwurst hot dogs from a street vendor prior to entering the stadium. They are REAL bratwurst and half the price of those crappy hot dogs in the stadium. In the third picture below is my dad and a young women who was besides herself because she and dad had the same Broncos shirt on...which date back to 1965. She was given hers by her granddad. My dad has had his since 1965, of course.
There are these seven larger than life bronze horses that are running up a hill, over some water and jumping up as you walk up the south stairs to the stadium.
Once inside the stadium we each did the necessary lizard drainage, then made our way to the beer stand...then went to our seats. We were in section 106. My dad has season's tickets that he inherited from his dad. He will pass them onto me. This is how it goes. If you want to get season's tickets you can get on a waiting list which is currently over 67,000 (the stadium holds just over 76,000). The average waiting time is about 8 years and you never know what seats will be available. My dad's are on the 42 yard line 35 rows up from the field. This is pretty close to perfect. They've sold out every game since 1968!
We were going to be part of the opening ceremony. Section 106 was going to be draped by a giant banner for the New York Giants. It was going to cover all of us completely. We were to hold our hands up to hold the banner up. All the NFL teams were going to be represented in this way for the opening shot of the brand new NFL season. I wonder what it looked like on TV. These two women were our "leaders" in this. They were fun and sweet...plus I was charming and made them laugh a lot...so I got a great smile from them when I took the pic. Below that is a pic from our seats taken prior to the game. I took this picture from the 40 yard line in order to get the 40 yard line line straight in the shot. This is literally what the field looks like from my dad's seat!!!
Now things didn't start for 33 minutes. There was a delay due to a severe lightening strike warning. There are "active lightning rods" around the stadium. They proactively draw lightening to them. But the NFL decided to wait until the thunderhead had passed.
The obligatory half time festivities. While you watch commercials for Bud light and State Farm Insurance, at the game you watch a marching band from a college. This is the Colorado State University (from Fort Collins Colorado) marching band. Again this is what it looks like from our seats. Notice all the people NOT in the stands?
Well we won the game handily. In the second half the Broncos just blew the Super Bowl Champion Ravens away. The final score was 49-27 but should have been 56-27. Oh well. After the game we walked back from the stadium to downtown Denver along with tons of others.
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