I hope everyone did okay in our cold snap! I’ve experienced negative weather before but never the windchill factor bringing it down to negative double digits with ice to boot. I am not a winter person on the best of days. My birthday falls in August and I am a lover of heat and sunshine. I rarely complain about being too hot. However, when my best friend (Erin) texted me on January 10th asking if I had plans for Saturday because she was trying to win playoff tickets, there was never any doubt about braving the cold. If she got free tickets to the Wildcard Game for the Chiefs, then we were going.
She did not win the tickets…
Her generous husband won the tickets with a parking pass! He texted us both telling me Happy (way early) Birthday and that he knew we needed a girls night out. He’s on my good list for a good long while.
Saturday night, loaded down with borrowed Carhartt bibs and coat, winter boots, long underwear, scarves, gloves, fleece balaclava, stocking cap, blankets, battery powered hand warmers and cardboard we trekked into Arrowhead.
And we trekked down and down until we hit row 14 behind the Chiefs sideline with a beautiful view of the field. I am not going to sugar coat it, it was very cold. I snapped a couple pictures at the beginning and then shoved my phone into a pocket to get my poor fingers covered again. We took one trip to the bathroom and I promptly decided that was never happening again. All that was background to standing among fellow fans, screaming my head off and jumping up and down. Granted, some of that jumping may have been to warm up. I’ve only been to one other Chiefs game so to attend this second game in post-season was a memory I’m always going to have with Erin. We laughed over frozen drinks and judged people taking their shirts off.
We did bail a bit early to avoid the traffic and I’ve never been so thankful for the remote start feature of my car. It was a 15-minute trek to our parking spot and my body which had been starting to feel chilled during third quarter was ready to be done. The next day, we were both exhausted! I took an almost 3-hour nap in the middle of the day. It is amazing the amount of energy my body exerted to keep me warm the night before. I get it though, I understand why so many fans make the decision to go to winter games. I would do the whole thing over again. I’d go to any game in the cold. Just don’t ask me to go skiing or hiking.
Bonus: Bragging rights
