When Nobody Wins

Last Wednesday night while we were cleaning up from supper, Erik got a phone call from a person he works with asking us to the Vikings game on Sunday. He actually talked to 2 different people from the group in a row, there was a big group heading to the game -- customers, and different salesman & other reps they work with. They said they were heading up on Saturday morning and coming back Monday morning. I thought this was a little extreme...most of their group was about an hour from MSP. We don't pay attention to the NFL at all but agreed it would be fun to go tailgating and go to a game for free (they were playing the Packers, which was news to me).

 

Later that night, I made a comment on FB to my hard-core Vikes fan cousin about going to the game and his response was something like, "that's awesome, I've never been to Lambeau." ummmmmmmmmmmm, WHAT? So I did a quick google search and then asked Erik if he was aware that the game was in GREEN BAY & not in MSP.  He did not as neither guy he talked to had mentioned this. Probably assumed we would know that little helpful tidbit. It did make a lot more sense as to why they were going to be gone all weekend though.  We decided that now we had to go, because it's Lambeau Field!! We arranged for the boys to go to the white farm & booked our hotel room since we were now facing a 5.5 hour drive instead of an hour :)

 

We left late Saturday morning and made a couple of stops on the way out there. Upon checking into the hotel we found 2 double beds. Erik asked the front desk if they had any king rooms left since that's what he (thought) he had booked. They said no, but then she upgraded us to the king suite!! I didn't want to do anything so we went out and picked up some beer & pizza & enjoyed a lazy evening of TV watching (ohhhh, cable!!!)

 

Sunday morning we were up annoyingly early for no reason at all. We found out that there was a shuttle from the hotel to the stadium and opted to do that versus fighting traffic and parking. We arrived at the tailgating lot around 8:45am. It.was.cold. I hadn't worn that much cold weather gear in YEARS so I was happy that my snow pants still fit. The group we were going with was slowly getting to the tailgating so after they got the tent & heaters going (they brought a U-Haul trailer of stuff...) it was nice. Hand warmers & foot warmers are legit.  Erik got to do his networking & relationship building while I grazed on tailgating food.

style is out the window when it's this cold

so many people

had to include this because I hate when you swap picture taking with someone and this is what you get...

luckily she did get 1 good one.

When the game started, it was a scorching 22 degrees. But the stadium was packed so it actually wasn't bad (said true Minnesotan). With everyone so bundled up it was very cozy in the seats - you'd see a little gap in the bleacher & then 2 people would come and try to fit in those spots. I actually did not get cold during the first half. At halftime the wind switched directions so it was a bit colder. But, with about 4 minutes remaining, my toe warmers were spent & then my feet got really cold. While the Vikings had a decent lead going into the 4th quarter, they somehow managed to lose that lead. We were just happy to see a good game and we didn't even really care that it went into overtime. But then it just kept on going, we were cold & we were ready to leave. BUT YOU CAN'T LEAVE IN OVERTIME!! I did not even know that the game could end in a tie....but it did. At the end of the overtime quarter everyone got up & left so that was a little weird. Packer fans are very passionate but we were lucky to only have 1 super annoying guy around us. If I had a $1 for every time he yelled "ONE TIME...." Ugh, so annoying. My favorite thing he kept yelling was "C'MON, IT'S THE VIKINGS!!!!" hahahaha.

marching bands at halftime

This guy had spirit.

 

First overtime drive. I was certain this would be the last play of the game. But they didn't score & had to kick a field goal.

over it.

We headed back to the tailgate lot to get some stuff we had left. I had Erik call the hotel to check on the shuttle & they said there were still spots on that van (not the most organized operation but oh well) so we trucked it over to the pick up spot only to find out that it had just left full. Traffic was dead locked & soon there were probably 20 other people waiting for this 11 passenger van to return. The hotel told us that a round trip was only 20 minutes but yeah, there was no way he'd be back in 20 minutes in that traffic. We decided to go back to the tailgate lot & get something to eat instead of standing there freezing. This was when I started to get a bit crabby too. We went back to the lot & waited for less than an hour (I took my sweet time using the restroom in a nearby hotel lobby) & then decided to just go and wait for the shuttle. It was actually waiting & had one empty seat but the driver let us sit in the back. I didn't even care at that point, it was 6:00 and we'd been outside for almost 10 hours.  We got back to our car & got ready to drive home. The drive home went surprisingly fast. I had grazed all day and wasn't even hungry so we only stopped once for Erik to get a sandwich on the way home. Erik made me drive the last 2 hours which wasn't fun but we made it back home around 11:30. It was such a fun day & high five for us being spontaneous. It was cold, but again, like a true Minnesotan I had to say "at least it's not raining/snowing".