Meemo in the Mountains: We go to a Broncos Game!

The Broncos Skydivers. There were 6 or 7 of them coming down in a high wind! They landed pretty close to their targets for so much wind.

Sunday night was the Broncos vs the Steelers preseason game at Invesco Field at Mile High and we were there! Bob and I got half price tickets online for this game. We decided to come back to Denver a day early so we could go. We got a room at our VQ hotel right next door to the football field and were all set for the event.

The beginnings of the rainbow over the highest part of the stands.

We decided to go down to Denver pretty early so we could get a good room with a refrigerator for our weekly stay, so arrived around noon on Sunday. We had to go through a parking manager who had our name on the list of people staying at the hotel or we would have had to pay $40 just to park there!!!! Already when we went to register there were tons of people in the lobby. Most of them in Steelers shirts and caps! A shuttle was outside gathering people to go to the Rockies game which was starting in less than an hour. Things were really hopping at the VQ! Our room was not ready yet so we decided to go up to the Skybox for a little lunch. Our friend at the front desk, Daniel (who maintains we are "family" by now), said he would keep an eye on our stuff so we went up to eat.

Up in the Skybox where Bob and I had lunch.

To our surprise there wasn't anyone up there to eat! I guess everyone was at the Rockies or had other plans for eating. Bob had his usual--coconut shrimp with divine Asian coleslaw (I am going to attempt to copy this recipe when I get home!) And I had a caramel sundae. Elitches was going strong so we sat up there, enjoying the view and quietness of the afternoon. Shortly, Daniel appeared and told us our room was ready whenever we were. He had come all the way up to the 14th floor to let us know!

We got all settled in our room and I decided to go down to the pool for awhile. It was very hot outside (somewhere around 95 degrees). I sunbathed, swam and did some reading. Meanwhile Bob stayed in the room and watched the tailgate parties going on in the parking lots and monitored the filling up of the various parking lots we could see from our room.

Well, he also did some resting, too!

We decided to go over to the field about an hour early since that is our modus opereni for the Rockies games. It was a very short walk over to gate 4 where our seats were located. After going through security we were informed there was only one gate that accepted the type of tickets we had and, of course, it was on the other side of the stadium. It was really hot and windy out but we made our way around, got in and then walked back on the inside.

Here comes another skydiver trying to hit his target!

We knew there was an escalator somewhere to get us up to level 5 near our seats but couldn't seem to see it after following the signs. We started walking up the ramp and Bob had to stop every little bit due to tiredness (I think from his treatments). When we got to the second level, there was the escalator! We got up to the 5th level quickly, got our nachos and drinks and headed for our seats. Much to Bob's horror, we had to climb steeply up 20 rows almost to the top of the stadium! It was a difficult climb for him. We made it to our seats and were the only ones in our row! The hot wind was blowing so hard I thought I would lose my cap which was keeping the sun out of my eyes. I did see a man climb up the stairs from his seat way down near the front of level 5 trying to find the boy whose hat had blown down on him! We were glad we had bought our food and drink before finding our seats. Bob announced that he needed a seat belt to keep from falling out, it was so steep. I didn't feel quite that bad but we were way up there! We could not read the numbers on the backs of the players when they were on the 50 yard line or farther away.

Bob trying not to fall out of his seat way up in the "cheap seats"!

Once the game started, though, we decided we really had a very good birds eye view of the game when it was in our end of the field. We could see the play unfold much better than the quarterback and it was fun to see who was open and how the play developed. The wind died down, we had a tiny rain shower complete with a beautiful rainbow and best of all the Broncos won! This was not popular in our section of the stands as there were many Steelers fans among us!

Our birds eye view from on high!

We waited until most of the people had left from above us before us two old fogies tried to go back down those steep stairs very slowly! It was nice to be able to walk back to our hotel without having to deal with shuttles or parking lots. We were actually closer to our hotel than most of the parking lot around the stadium!