Secret Trip - Game Day - Pregame Festivities

Game Day ... one restriction we had on our visit to Green Bay was that we only received four tickets for the game.  Counting ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... hmm, there's five of us.  One of us will have to miss the game.  Max, do you want to stay at the hotel?  (As a matter of fact, his answer was "yes" as he is not a big fan of fireworks ... and most sporting events launch fireworks after the National Anthem or after a big score.  I had to convince him (not knowing for sure) that there would be no fireworks).  Shelly raised her hand right away and took one for the team.  "I'll just go shopping!!!"  (After she dropped us off at the stadium, I called my credit card company and told them my wallet was stolen while in Green Bay and asked them to deny all charges for the day.  Ha!  That would have been great if I actually did, but I wanted to get back to North Carolina in one piece and thought better of it).

So it was boys day out at the football stadium.  We arrived really early and walked around the parking lot and took in some of the pre-game festivities around the outside of the stadium.  Lots of excited fans looking forward to football season finally starting up for real ... on a gorgeous September afternoon. 

Outside the main entrance, we saw Kenny Mayne from ESPN.  He was filming a segment and was moving from location to location.  I told the boys to walk by and say really loud, "Hey, it's Dan Patrick.  Dad, dad ... can we get our picture taken with Dan Patrick?"  (Note: Dan Patrick is another ESPN personality).  Either the boys didn't say it loud enough, or Kenny was not amused and paid no attention to our tom-foolery.

Kenny Mayne (Grey shirt, sunglasses) outside the main entrance, trying to do his job.

A great part of the experience for the weekend was receiving field passes for pre-game warm-ups.  Well, not really field passes ... but field level, on the perimeter of the field ... which was pretty awesome, too! 

I had Charlie taking pictures ... and he took about 400 or so, while we were field-level ... but most were of players backs.  It would go like this ... "Hey, there's Frank Gore"  "Where?"  "Over there"  By that time, Frank has passed and walking away from us, but we got a great shot of his back!

The tough part during most of warm-ups is that the players did not have their uniforms on, so we didn't know who was who.   After a bit, I told Charlie to just take pictures of their front and we'll figure it out later by trying to match faces from the 49er website to our pictures. 

Charlie did a great job ... and when we passed the camera to Will and Max, you'll see what drew their interest (see below).  One thing to notice in the background ... scroll down to my previous blog post when we did the tour of the stadium the day before the game.  You'll notice the stands are metal bleacher seats.  In the pictures on game day, it looks like the stands are green or gold seats.  The Packers were giving away t-shirts on game day and placed them on each seat.  Everyone was supposed to put them on for a Tide commercial.  We saw them putting them down the day before ... then it rained Saturday night ... by game time, they were nearly dry, but we were already wearing green (our section was green t-shirts), so we didn't bother to put them on.

Colin Kaepernick, 49ers backup QB, greeting some friends in the stands

Vernon Davis, Tight End for the 49ers, had gold-bottom cleats.  Flashy!

David Akers, Kicker for the 49ers, warming up.  He kicked an NFL tying record 63 yard field goal just before halftime of the game.  I was pretty neutral throughout the game, but when that kick went through, I think I squealed like a girl and the folks around us figured out that we were 49er fans dressed in Packer green.  

 Max with the camera ... "Hey, Max, there's Alex Smith ... get a picture of Alex Smith ... what are you looking at? ... oh, okay ... make sure to get her friend, too.  Oh, and don't tell Mom"

This is funny ... while Will was taking a picture of the cheerleaders, walking past us was the owner of the 49ers, John York (front, left)

 Max was pretty impressed with the teamwork and practice of these cheerleaders.  If interested, we have about 200 more photos of them to share.

 Admittedly, I thought this was the owners son, Jed York when we took this picture.  But it is 49ers General Manager Trent Baalke.  Nice guy, too.

 Will:  "OK, on this one, signal a first down while grabbing your leg with your other hand"

 Backup QB Colin Kaepernick warming up

 49er head coach Jim Harbaugh actively participating in warm-ups with his QBs catching passes

 You know the replacement ref that missed the three clipping calls on the punt return by Green Bay during the game ... neither do we ... but we have your picture, dude.

 Field side with the boys

 Aaron Rodgers (Cal alum) and Donald Driver during warm-ups

 We asked a guy to take our picture ... this was the best of six pictures he took.  Two of them didn't have Max in them, and the other three were of my shoes.  Nice guy though.  

Boyz to Men sang the National Anthem.  I asked them if they were Green Bay Packer fans.  Their response was less than convincing (notice, no Packer gear).  Asked them if they've ever been to Green Bay before.  Nope.  I was going to ask them, "What are you doing here, then?", but I think I had already figured out that answer.