Our Super Bowl trip recap! :)

Here is a recap of our Super Bowl trip. It's a long one, but I hope you enjoy the ride.
My goodness...... where to begin?! We are Super Bowl Champs!!! I'm 2-0 in Super Bowls so far. I guess I gotta make it to the next one! Here is my whole Super Bowl experience of 2022 with my 13 year old son Will. He is a huge fan. He knows the game very well, knows all about every single player, and that makes for a fun time! This was his first Super Bowl, but also his first Rams game ever. We picked a good one for that. I was a bit emotional at the start of the trip, because my 16 year old daughter is a big fan too but she couldn't make it due to some complications she has been having from getting rear ended in a bad car accident a few months ago. Hopefully she can make the next one.

So, Will and I fly into LAX from PORTLAND on Saturday night and get to our hotel at about 9pm. The hotel was very conveniently located, but also a bit on the run down, sketchy, put a chair in front of the door and pray side of things. I didn't know this trip was going to be so educational, but I think Will saw his first hooker on the way to our room!
We survived the night and were ready to tackle Super Bowl Sunday!! Will kept saying "Dad, we are going to the Super Bowl!!" and I remember thinking to myself that my credit card company knows this as well! We finally took the plunge on StubHub and purchased the tickets for more than what my first car cost me in 1990! Gosh, I hope we win this game!!! I look out the window of our hotel room at about 10:30am and the parking lot is full of Bengals fans with a few 49er fans as well. I guess you just can't get rid of those pesky Niners fans!! No Rams at this point.
We are only a couple miles from the Stadium, but traffic looked ok down Century Blvd, so we took an Uber to the game! Turned out to be a bad move because it got clogged up at one point and he started going into the neighborhoods to get around it, but it just got worse. We did see some awesome new businesses pop up right before our eyes with home driveways turned into stadium parking for anywhere from $50-$200!!! After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to Sofi!!!! It's hot already, but we are so excited!! We just want to get in. "Please have your game tickets ready, your proof of vaccination ready and your masks on!!! You will need all 3 of these things to enter" This was bombarded into our heads for a good 15 minutes. I got to the gate, showed my tickets and we were in!! Not even a look at the vaccination or negative Covid test stuff! Lol! We are IN the Super Bowl!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!! We looked around and nobody was wearing their masks either. Kind of interesting after such a big deal was made of it. Getting around SOFI and finding our seats was a bit if a task. We asked someone at a help desk of some sort for directions and this lady looked at us and said "sweetie, you are a long ways from where you are supposed to be and it's probably too complicated to tell you, so how about you just follow me and I will take you there myself?!l What the heck?? Yessss! Our Guardian Angel took us up elevators and all the way across the stadium. What a blessing she was. Here we are: Section 438, Row 1. Now we have like 2 1/2 hours to kill, but who cares, we are killing them at the Super Bowl!!! We just sat there soaking it in, and then we walked around the entire concourse checking out all the cool stuff. We ate 2 burritos and 2 soft drinks which put us in the hole for $42. Yowza! Hope these burritos are good!!! They were just ok, but they were Super Bowl burritos so that made up for it. While walking around the concourse area I was able to plan our way out of the stadium for our walk back to the hotel. That definitely helped after the game.
Now it's almost game time. Our biggest fear before the game is that somehow we ended up with a bunch of drunk, Bengals fans around us. It ended up being the exact opposite actually. We were practically in a little Rams cocoon, completely surrounded by Rams fans from all sides. We were so excited about that. I will probably never see these people again, but they made the experience one of the most enjoyable experiences of our lives and we are forever grateful. The guy next to Will who is a Rams season ticket holder, put his arm around him and said "You are witnessing history today Will!" The lady behind us offered to take our picture throughout the game. The couple next to me had their awesome 10 month old baby who has been to every Rams game since birth! We were with friends now and we were going to win this thing together!!
Now it's time for the kickoff. Man, we are nervous. I quickly face time my daughter Kiana so she can experience the kickoff with us and the game has started. Getting that first touchdown on the board was huge and our section was rocking. It always seemed like the Rams were in control. That missed extra point was weighing on all of us though as we talked about it a lot, but we were still fired up. Then OBJ got hurt and you could just feel the air coming out of the balloon. It was gonna take a lot to get that energy that we had back after halftime. The halftime show was pretty good. Couldn't hear as well as I had hoped, but it did bring me back to my youth a little. One of the ladies behind us LITERALLY screamed the whole time and was having an out of body experience like nothing I've ever seen. Apparently she was a big fan of Snoop, Eminem, Dr. Dre, etc. Lol!
The second half starts and then wham-o, that balloon that was deflating when OBJ went down just got popped! That 75 yarder with no face mask call was just brutal. The tide had completely turned and was gonna take a special effort to get it turned around. Thankfully, we had one of those in us!! I was trying my best to stay positive and I was trying to keep the crowd around us into it as we rooted on our defense to make a big play. Stop after stop after stop, but the offense just couldn't break though. When the Rams are ahead and we are watching at home, time flies by slower than dinner with the in-laws, but when the Rams are down it flies so much faster. There is now only 5 minutes to go and you can just tell that a lot of doubt is in the air. But then came (Sorry Elway) the DRIVE. That 4th down running play almost killed me. I was so freaking nervous. Are we gonna come all this way and lose this game? Are we gonna take that walk of shame all the way back to the hotel?? No!!! First down, RAMS!!! Let's Go!! We are gonna do this. That long connection to Kupp was just like the one against the 49ers!! And then a hard nose run by Akers getting some extra yards. And then the penalty on Cinci!!! It's all coming together. Surely, we are just gonna run it from the 1 right??? Um, apparently not, because Cooper Kupp just scored the go-ahead TD!! (On a side note, why not practice having Aaron Donald going in as fullback on goal line situations? That would be awesome!) We are ahead!! OMG!! High fives and hugs everywhere. That deflated balloon just got blown back up baby!!! It's time for the defense to step up. I wonder who might just be up for that job. Of course Jalen wants to be that guy so he goes for the pick and lets Chase get a huge gain. Ugh! But then all of a sudden, it's fourth down. I didn't even realize it. It's 4th down!! We stop them and we are champs! Oh Aaron Donald.... you complete me my friend. Swinging around Burrow like a rag doll on that last play....... incomplete! Holy Cow Will, we did this!!! I stand there hugging my son while watching other grown men crying around me. The only one NOT crying was the baby next to me!!! Go freaking figure!! Lol! If you remember my poem, it ends with our quarterback in victory formation!! Now it was time to take a knee Mr. Stafford!!! What a beautiful moment in a thousand different ways. My mind is officially blown! It's official. Super Bowl champs. We hung out and watched the festivities and celebrated with our new friends around us. I'm face timing my wife and daughter. The guy next to me face timing his 49ers buddy talking smack! Lol! Glorious!!
Now we catch our breath and get ready for the walk back to the hotel. And what a walk it was!! Will said that it was the most awesome, the craziest and the scariest thing all at the same time. Lol! We made our way to Century Blvd walking against the traffic toward our hotel. Holy cow! This is a crazy party. The whole dang city is here, right now! I think people actually drove down here just to be a part of this mess after the game!! Everyone came out of their homes and into the streets to celebrate!! This thing is nuts!! Will was like, "our we gonna be ok?" I was like "see this hat I'm wearing? See this Donald jersey that you're wearing? These are our tickets out of here my friend! Enjoy the moment!" Ha ha! I thought I was gonna die too, but I can't tell my kid that!! So we start walking down Century Blvd and happen to behind these Bengals fans the whole time. It really sucked to be them! I mean, it really sucked to be them! Cars were honking their horns non stop while Rams fans were hanging out all of the windows and sunroofs. All of the corners (and there were a lot of them) were now full of Rams fans partying! This is what made it so crazy but so fun at the same time. EVERY SINGLE BLOCK, the Bengals fans would just get bombarded. At first, they were talking back but then quickly realized that they shouldn't. They would get booed and screamed at block after block after block and then we would subsequently follow along 10 seconds later and get cheered and get high fives, etc. It was absolutely hilarious! This went on for 45 minutes or whatever. I will never forget this beautiful lady screaming at the Bengals fans one minute and then when we passed by she just smiled at me and said "hey, Champion." It was awesome. My wife even texted me from work just now and said "hey Champion!" It was awesome!!! We finally made it through the chaos of horn honking etc and made it back to our hotel. We grabbed some Chinese Food next door and headed to our room to fill our bellies, smile at one another and decompress. What a day! What a night! What an experience with my son!!!
After watching all of the post game stuff and texting friends, it was time to call it a night. We had to get up at 4:30am to catch our flight. We took an Uber to the airport. We discovered that Super Bowl shirts, sweatshirts, etc were 50% off. Yes! Got me some of those and headed to the gate. Well, look what we have here...... a whole bunch of Bengals fans! Our gate was 34B for our flight back to Portland. Can you believe that I took a look over at the reader board for gate 34A and that flight was headed to Cincinnati, OH! Lol! Imagine that! Can't make this stuff up. I just sat there smiling across the way with my Rams hat on for the next 90 minutes before boarding. It was delightful. All the Bengals fans that I did meet were pretty nice though I must say.
Will and I made it home at 9:15am and I got him to school by 10:30am. He had to be there by 11:00am or he couldn't play in his school's basketball game which is very important to him. I know he was exhausted but he went out and scored 26 points and had a great overall game in his team's win! Then I had an 8:30pm reservation at an overpriced steakhouse called El Gaucho downtown to celebrate Valentine's Day with my lovely wife. What a crazy couple of days! We will remember it forever! Go Rams! (I want to attach a picture, but I can't figure out how to do it from my iPhone. Can anyone help with that?)


*****For any of you who didn't see my update about the travel situation a few days ago.... it is below.

Let's start with my well documented travel issues.. If you recall, I was going to try and run to the airport with my 13 year old son Will after the game to make our 9:10pm flight! I also purchased tickets the next morning as a backup just in case it didn't work out. Well, I got a text at halftime from Alaska Airlines saying that my 9:10pm flight out of LAX had been canceled and moved to SNA airport the next morning!!! What the heck??? It was like God was telling me "hey, the Rams got this. Enjoy the festivities at the stadium after the game and just relax and enjoy!! " We ended up getting refunded by Alaska Airlines for that changed flight and we took our backup flight on Delta early this morning! Thanks to all of you who responded with suggestions and hopeful thoughts.