View from the Super Bowl--1

The morning after. The emotions are too raw to talk about the game itself at this point. So a quick post on how I ended up at the Big Game.

My son, Mike, told me, before the Cards/Eagles game for the NFC Championship game that if the Cards won, we were going to the Super Bowl. The Cards won! So, we headed home from the game and threw a trip together. We got the tickets. We figured out the flights. Two challenges: 1) Jan and I were flying in from Hawaii on Saturday night at 11:59 pm--the night before the game. So...We got into Phoenix around 12:20. I headed home. Slept an hour. Then back to the airport for a 6 am flight. Our connection was such that we were able to take an earlier flight from Atlanta allowing us to meet my daughter and son-in-law in Tampa and head to the game. That gave us plenty of time to drink in the experience (without a lot of sleep!)

Second challenge--we had everything booked. I assumed I could use my hotel points to get a room near the game. Wrong! I had tickets, flights, and no place to stay. All the surrounding hotels were booked. Finally found a Holiday Inn Express about an hour from the site.

That lead to a 3rd challenge. What to do with our backpacks. We couldn't bring them into the game. So with the hotel an hour a way we needed a place to store them during the game. No storage at the airport. No hotel would hold our stuff. So we ended up renting the car early, parking it in the terminal and dumping the bags.

I spent most of a week putting this quick trip together. And, the Cards loss excepted, it all worked out perfectly.

By the way--I spent Saturday night sleeping on the plane from Hawaii. One hour in my bed before the flight to Tampa. A few hours on the flight. And finally, around 1 am Tampa time, fell asleep on the floor as we had two small double beds for 4 of us. I won the floor! But boy, did I sleep.

Next up: The sights, sounds, and impressions from the biggest game of the year.