BRONCO'S VS CARDINALS (pre-season)

I put in a bid for a pair of Bronco preseason tickets earlier this week and found out yesterday at lunch time that I had won.  From that moment on everything had the potential of ruining my day.  For starters when I bid for the tickets I was under the impression that it was on Friday night... not Thurdays.  That would mean my husband wouldn't be able to go with me since he was in school.  But I had an even better date in mind... Rocky!  She was my 'Mini-Me' and was a teeny little die-hard Bronco Fan. 

Without any advanced notice I wasn't able to get any money off of Steve so we headed up north with just $40 in our pockets.  I tried to get off early but ended up only clocking out 15 minutes sooner than scheduled.  That was okay though because I was able to fill up the tank in that time.  The ride up there was fun.  Rocky was sooooo excited, she was waving her Bronco foam hand to all of the truck drivers we passed.  She nagged and back-seat drove the entire way, she wanted to make sure there would be no delays from police stops (gee, thanks kid!).  We had traffic getting out of town, and then hit more just inside of Denver.  The trip ended up taking 2 hours.

Parking was another trip in itself.  Stadium parking at Invesco Stadium is by permit only, so we had to find our own parking in the nearby neighborhoods of Denver.  And those crooks were charging $30 to park in the closer parking lots of establishments like schools, churches, offices... unbelieveable.  Parking in the residential areas were all by neighborhood permit only.  I wanted to cry.  We came all this way and couldn't find a place to park.  We were getting farther and farther away from the safety of the stadium.  Unwilling to walk the 2+ miles in a strange city at night with my 10 year old daughter I decided to pay the $30 to park closer to the field... Only to realize that I no longer knew the way back!

Fortunately the stadium is tall and well lit.  My instinct set me in the right direction and we were back in the safety of its proximity.  I came across a traffic police directing the luck few permit holders into their lot and I asked him where I could go to park without getting a ticket.  And that sweetheart pointed me in the direction of a lot, which to my relief only charged $10!

We finally made it in to the stadium with 4 minutes into the 2nd quarter only to find someone occupying our seats.  The young men look at us and ask if they were in our seats.  Yeah... I laughed.  Did we want them to move?  I couldn't believe them!  Yeah!  Bye!  I said incredulously.  The guys left and we finally got to sit down.  Our seats were really good seats, right on the 20 yard line, which was perfect for a little girl who had never seen a life pro football game before.

I think I had more fun watching little Rocky enjoying the game.  The Bronco's were down 20 to 0 in favor of the Arizona Cardinals... until WE showed up.  The team started playing better in the 2nd half and Rocky got to witness 3 touchdowns, and she just went ballistic, jumping up and down with her silly big orange Bronco foam finger.  The Bronco's lost, but it was a great game.  And a little girl's dream came true... (almost... she still wants to meet a team member).  I think watching Rocky enjoy the game was the best part of the night to me.  And her being the only kid in our section I know her antics were amusing more than just me.

On a down note... my truck did not like the drive back home.  I noticed something going wrong about halfway home, but decided to just keep driving.  Just outside of town the water temperature was up and the check engine light started to come on intermittently. When I finally pulled into our driveway close to 1am the engine was making some scary noises.  Be we made it safely home.  My husband had waited up and let me tell you... it was nice to see his face.  Naturally he had all kinds of 'could-a, should-a, would-as', as far as the truck was concerned, and no doubt I'll hear more about it today.  But at that moment it I was just happy to be safe at home where I could transfer the problem over to him.