Tonight I'd really like to talk about the most incredible football season KU has ever had, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow. Although it's been over two weeks since we took our wonderful trip to Colorado and attended the Steelers/Broncos game, I feel like tonight's a fitting night to tell the story, since the Steelers are currently manhandling the Ravens, 38-7. Even though the story is a little untimely, I still want to get the story "on paper" in case I forget someday what a great time we had!
I think we already established that we woke up the Sunday morning of the game to find it was snowing heavily in Denver. While we'd brought along lots of warm clothing for the game, we still weren't thrilled with the idea of sitting at the top of Mile High stadium in a blizzard! In the late morning we went over to our friends' Steve and Becky's house in Golden, where we enjoyed a lovely brunch and some time with their adorable kids. Thankfully, the snow stopped by the time we left Golden in the early afternoon, and the weather even cleared up enough for us to get out and walk a few a miles along the beautiful river hike/bike path near Glass House.
Soon after our afternoon walk, we started putting on all of our layers, preparing for the cold evening of football. We walked over to a nearby restaurant and met Steve and Becky for dinner, and despite the chilly weather, we happened to see a guy riding one of those crazy old-fashioned bicycles with the humongous front wheels (which are apparently called penny-farthings) right by the restaurant window. So completely random. I managed to sort of get a picture of the guy as he passed, but that really has nothing to do with the important events of the evening!
After dinner we started walking the almost 1.5 miles along the river path to Invesco Field at Mile High. Once we started walking and got our bodies warmed up, the cold night (it was about 32 degrees) wasn't too bad at all. When we arrived at the stadium, I was completely shocked at how many Pittsburgh fans where there, completely decked out in their Steelers attire! I had somehow imagined Chad and I being all alone in our black and gold, but my imagination wasn't even close! I'd estimate that 20-25% of the people in the stadium were waving their Terrible Towels! It was crazy!
After we picked up our tickets at will call, we rushed through the sea of people trying to figure out how to get to the nosebleed section, and finally found some crazy steep escalators to take us up to the top. Those of you who know Chad probably know that he's not fond of heights at all, so when this moving staircase came to a lurching halt when we were almost to the top, Chad's eyes just about popped out of his head (okay, I'll admit that my heart kind of stopped too--we were a long way up and there were a lot of people on that thing). Thankfully, the crowds rushed up the final length of stairs and we got to solid ground before further disaster struck!
We got off the escalator and made it to our section, and when I rounded the corner I found that we were somewhere around row 20, but still had to climb to our seats, which were somewhere around row 60--the second to the last row at the top of the stadium! You have never seen stairs as steep as these! I am not kidding when I say that if you slipped on these steps and fell, you'd go tumbling down flights and flights of steps because of the crazy angle. When we got to the top, I turned to Chad and said "I'm not even scared of heights and this is freaking me out!" Being that he is scared of heights, he didn't appreciate that too much!
Although the climb and view down was a bit unnerving, the view of the mountains from the top was gorgeous!!! We were so high up it felt like our heads were in the clouds--it was absolutely breathtaking. Since it was almost dark the pictures didn't turn out that great, but hopefully you can at least get an idea of the kind of view we had!
With our arrival at the top, I'll have to end the story for this evening. I'm tired, and I definitely can't afford to lose any sleep this week--I have a big weekend coming up! Hopefully I can tell the story of the actual game tomorrow!
I think we already established that we woke up the Sunday morning of the game to find it was snowing heavily in Denver. While we'd brought along lots of warm clothing for the game, we still weren't thrilled with the idea of sitting at the top of Mile High stadium in a blizzard! In the late morning we went over to our friends' Steve and Becky's house in Golden, where we enjoyed a lovely brunch and some time with their adorable kids. Thankfully, the snow stopped by the time we left Golden in the early afternoon, and the weather even cleared up enough for us to get out and walk a few a miles along the beautiful river hike/bike path near Glass House.
Soon after our afternoon walk, we started putting on all of our layers, preparing for the cold evening of football. We walked over to a nearby restaurant and met Steve and Becky for dinner, and despite the chilly weather, we happened to see a guy riding one of those crazy old-fashioned bicycles with the humongous front wheels (which are apparently called penny-farthings) right by the restaurant window. So completely random. I managed to sort of get a picture of the guy as he passed, but that really has nothing to do with the important events of the evening!
After dinner we started walking the almost 1.5 miles along the river path to Invesco Field at Mile High. Once we started walking and got our bodies warmed up, the cold night (it was about 32 degrees) wasn't too bad at all. When we arrived at the stadium, I was completely shocked at how many Pittsburgh fans where there, completely decked out in their Steelers attire! I had somehow imagined Chad and I being all alone in our black and gold, but my imagination wasn't even close! I'd estimate that 20-25% of the people in the stadium were waving their Terrible Towels! It was crazy!
After we picked up our tickets at will call, we rushed through the sea of people trying to figure out how to get to the nosebleed section, and finally found some crazy steep escalators to take us up to the top. Those of you who know Chad probably know that he's not fond of heights at all, so when this moving staircase came to a lurching halt when we were almost to the top, Chad's eyes just about popped out of his head (okay, I'll admit that my heart kind of stopped too--we were a long way up and there were a lot of people on that thing). Thankfully, the crowds rushed up the final length of stairs and we got to solid ground before further disaster struck!
We got off the escalator and made it to our section, and when I rounded the corner I found that we were somewhere around row 20, but still had to climb to our seats, which were somewhere around row 60--the second to the last row at the top of the stadium! You have never seen stairs as steep as these! I am not kidding when I say that if you slipped on these steps and fell, you'd go tumbling down flights and flights of steps because of the crazy angle. When we got to the top, I turned to Chad and said "I'm not even scared of heights and this is freaking me out!" Being that he is scared of heights, he didn't appreciate that too much!
Although the climb and view down was a bit unnerving, the view of the mountains from the top was gorgeous!!! We were so high up it felt like our heads were in the clouds--it was absolutely breathtaking. Since it was almost dark the pictures didn't turn out that great, but hopefully you can at least get an idea of the kind of view we had!
With our arrival at the top, I'll have to end the story for this evening. I'm tired, and I definitely can't afford to lose any sleep this week--I have a big weekend coming up! Hopefully I can tell the story of the actual game tomorrow!
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