The Football Season Has Arrived

It is always a wonderful time at the Blake house when the football season arrives. The last few years we have kicked off the season with training camp. This year I went to Chicago so kick off was last Saturday when we embarked upon our first bus road trip to the Metro Dome to watch the Vikings play the Steelers in a preseason game. As luck would have it, Tom (not me) managed to find the rowdy group on the bus (Steeler fans) and what could have been a dull 4 hour bus ride became an adventure. Here, let me show with photo's!



First we met our friends Teresa and Byron at the bus.

Then Tom met Super and became instant friends.

They had a lot in common like a cooler of beer. After

a few beers they became friends of everyone sitting

within 5 rows of us. This is good considering

the content of the conversation. A few card tricks

and dirty jokes kept everyone entertained.

As the cooler begin to quickly empty I noticed that Super

wasn't looking too super!! I explained to him that road

trips are like a marathon not a sprint and he might want

to pace himself. I don't believe he listened. Two hours

into the trip it was very obvious Super wasn't going to

make it to the Dome without incident. With his head

hung low I warned everyone around to watch out.

Almost on cue Super awoke and was only saved by the quick

thinking of his girlfriend Diane. She threw the lid off

their cooler and Super threw his head into it where he remained

for at least the next 10 min. heaving his guts out. I'm not to

sure about time since I immediately made an exit to the

front of the bus where I stayed until departure.

We arrived in enough time to be out in the tailgate area.

This is where the football energy lives until kick off. It

is wonderful to walk around and just look at all the different

ways people have decorated themselves with their teams

gear. The weather was awesome at about 75 degrees.

The Vikings played a good (not great) first half. The score

I believe was 10 to 6 at the half. By the end of the third it

became clear that the Vikings offense had stayed in the locker

room. Tom was not longer watching the game but he was

very glued to the other show going on.

As Viking fans will love to tell you, they are almost

always winners. So the Vikings being the Vikings

with a million opportunities to do anything did nothing

and in the closing seconds lost the game. Tom was so

upset and depressed that his Vikings lost I just had to

snap a quick photo for you all to see the sadness of it.

As they say in book land ~ that is the end of the story.

But, we aren't in book land so as we say in football land

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!