Then Bill, Nancy's boss, picked us up at the hotel for dinner. We drove down to South Miami to pick up Bill's business friend, Preston and his wife Rosa, who were from New Orleans. Then we all headed to dinner at The Rusty Pelicanhttp://miami.therustypelican.com/ which was soooo good. It was a chilly night so we just had drinks around the fire pit and ate dinner inside. The Hollands and Brett and I took care of the bill since Bill had been so generous about the tickets.
After dropping off Preston and Rosa, our group headed to The Cafe Iguana http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/sports/colts_and_nfl/colts/colts-fans-celebrating-in-miami where there was a major Colts party. It was fun but it was also late so we didn't stay too long. We finally got back to the room about 1:30am. Whew.
Sunday morning we were up and ready to get to the Stadium. We were meeting Bill at noon at a hotel near the site. We stopped at the grocery store for some snacks and headed to pick up our tickets. The moment that Bill walked up with the tickets was so surreal. We were actually going to a Superbowl. Not just any Superbowl but one that OUR TEAM was playing in. Amazing.
So we get parked (Nancy had a free parking pass, it would have cost us $75 to park in the lot) and walk over to the stadium. There is a massive line for security. We were patted down, bags searched and had to go through a metal detector as well. Once we were in, there was so much to do and see! We had our picture taken with the Lombardi trophy, saw all the past Superbowl rings, threw some passes, stared at some Saints fans and ate lunch.
We headed into the stands about 4:30. We were surrounded by Saints fans. It was like 70% Saints. And they were loud, rude and crazy. Their team chant that we heard nearly every time we saw a Saints fan all weekend was "Who Dat? Who Dat? Who dat thinks they gonna beat da Saints?" They chanted that for most of the game. Drove us nuts. And they booed our players, even during the singing of "America the Beautiful". Just plain disrespectful. But the worst part was the plane flying round pulling a banner that read "Hey Indy - Katrina blew and so do you". Nice. Klassy.
Anyways, the game was very exciting but we lost. Once they kicked the onside kick to start the 2nd half and we didn't recover it, that just shifted the momentum of the game. Then we didn't score on a few drives. And then the interception that sealed our fate. We headed out with about a minute left in the game. The drive home was long and filled with "I can't believe we lost" conversations. But after the stunned feeling went away, I think we all were just happy to have been there.
My flight left early, I was at the airport by 6:30. The other's flights didn't leave until the afternoon. The kids were at the airport to pick me up - so wonderful to see their faces and see how happy they are to see me. Kylie made me a card and kept saying how sad she was that the Colts lost. She also saw a replay of the interception and said "Peyton threw the ball to our guy and their guy caught it instead, that's cheating!!" LOL. Matthew said "I don't like Saints". But I told them that we lost but we still love our team and we are good sports.
Bring on next season!
