Arrowhead Road Trip - 1999

By Jerad Hoff

December 11, 1999

Nate, my traveling companion, and I left at the pre-arranged time of 10am, right on the nose, a first for me. We prepared for the 6-plus hour drive by bringing along plenty of licorice, Oreo cookies and plenty of Purple chat subjects.

The only snafu we encountered, we experienced early. Nate managed to call the 613 area code (instead of our 612 code) which we later learned was Ontario, Canada. They didn't seem interested in our voyage.

The biggest item we learned during our trip we learned while in Iowa. Apparently they don't like parking on the highway in Des Monies.

After Iowa, we found a couple of different Minnesota caravans. A friendly wave was shared by all.

Once we traversed the confusing snarl of roads of Kansas City, we located Mission. While hard to believe, we managed to find Nate's cousin's apartment door without a single street name while in a foreign land. After meeting our ticket guy, we headed out to Westport, at the suggestion of Nate's cousin. Again, without street names, we reached Kelly's, our destination after several lefts turns.

Upon entering the establishment, we were immediately carded. Both Nate and I look younger, so I wasn't entirely surprised. But when we were carded ten feet later, it wasn't hard to tell our purple jackets were not being warmly received.

We were in hostile territory.

After ordering a couple of beverages we took in the atmosphere. The bar was comprised to two buildings that had the wall between them tore down. There was a pizza place that was connected to the bar which had a window open to the bar. There was a couple of TV's up, a couple of Chiefs jerseys and your normal beer signage. It was appeared it was a rather slow Saturday night, there weren't too many patrons.

Three gentlemen who had obviously enjoyed a few beverages before our arrival came over to chat. We endured some friendly ribbing, slightly slurred speech and peanuts. Our new-found friends had several pieces of advice for us; Get to Arrowhead several hours early (almost as if we needed to head there the night before), Missouri and Kansas are treated as separate countries, DUI's don't matter and that Minnesota has the best McDonald's hamburgers while the state itself is far too cold.

After our friends left the bar, Nate and I appraised the situation while finishing our excellent pizza. The amount of patrons began to raise, within 90 minutes the bar was packed. Purple colors out numbered the Red folks by 3 to 1.

It was a beautiful thing.

While I had been boasting to friends I would be the only guy in the stands with a Walsh jersey, I did find another Walsh fan who was actually wearing her Walsh jersey. She thought my hat was pretty cool. It was a learning experience for Nate and I. Being our inaugural road trip, we hadn't thought of wearing our jerseys to the bar. Granted, we hadn't anticipated outnumbering the local fans either. We also learned the greatest pick-up line from an obviously desperate guy. While striking up a conversation with a couple of young women who had come for a beverage, he asked them where they were from. One women replied "Chicago". Then, the greatest return line ever spoken in a bar while heavily hitting on a woman was spoken. The guy said that he was "from near Chicago - Iowa."

It was a festive time. There was a guy making awesome balloon hats (who was as surprised as anyone about the number of Vikings fans there - he ran out of purple almost immediately), there was a rousing rendition of the "Packers Suck" chant and right before we left, finally a "Let's go Vikings!" chant. We hit the oddly U-shaped urinal trough one last time and headed back.

We managed to take a completely different route back to Nate's cousins, and although we had no idea where we were, we managed to get home in less time than it took to get to Kelly's.

After munching on some really good cookies provided by our host, we hit the hay around 1am.

December 12, 1999

The reinforcements, consisting of Robin and Tony, albeit a little late, arrived from Minnesota. We arrived at Arrowhead around 4:30pm. As we were on the highway, preparing to exit, the aroma of lighter fluid nearly overtook me.

After being directed to our parking location, we exited the car and took in the scenery. The sheer amount of parking space is as amazing as the view of two enormous stadiums located next to one another.

Sprouting above the sea of red, the occasional Purple stronghold flew Viking colors. Ambulances and tow trucks were everywhere, discos headed in every direction. A team of Clydesdales had a route around the stadium.

I decided to snap a few pictures with the camera before it got too dark, so I headed back to the car. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite find the car. I have one of those panic alarms that sets off the horn and headlights. After initiating a search pattern and honking the horn from time to time, I did manage to locate my car. After dutifully noting the car's location, I headed back to the stadium and snapped a couple of quick shots.

As the gates opened around 5:30pm, we headed into the stadium. We walked down to the end zone opposite of the tunnel. We watched Robert Smith and John Randle warm up. Four guys wandered on by wearing Walsh jerseys. Turns out they are the folks who are in the first row in the north end zone back at the dome who display large photographs of Walsh and Carter. After a quick purple horn recital, they headed off to the other end.

We moseyed over to the Vikings bench. We tried to listen in as Andrew Glover stopped by and starting chatting with someone on the bench. How he holds a conversation with friends on the sideline and participates in interviews with the media are completely different. Mitch Berger also came over and appeared to be severely P.O.'d. I'm not quite sure at what, but he was not smiling.

We split up into our groups of two and headed for our respective seats. Most folks were friendly enough, there were quite a few complaints about the amount of purple in the stadium.

Before the game started, the announcer directed our attention to the big view screen where they flashed the press release from the Vikings claiming the dome is the loudest stadium in the NFL. The fans then made some noise in their best chest thumping effort. Although loud, Arrowhead certainly isn't louder than the Metrodome, even with the extra 25,000 people. Having a roof certainly makes a large difference.

Once the game began, it of course got tough as the Vikings fell behind early. The guy next to me was determined to hold a conversation with me for the duration of the game. When the Chiefs score, "Rock and Roll History Part II" blares over the loudspeaker (there's only one) and the fans chant along "We're gonna kick the snot out of you, you, you-you-you!" It's pretty cool, much like a high school or college game atmosphere.

Arrowhead can certainly claim superiority in crowd enthusiasm. Folks bang on the chairs, yell and scream constantly and rarely sit down (which could be caused by the horrible sight lines, at least in the "Field Box" where I was sitting). Although the same lack of basic stadium etiquette that is prevalent at the dome exists at Arrowhead. Folks head for the beer line pretty much whenever they want, whether a play is running or not.

After the first Minnesota touchdown, I noticed Red and Charline McComb's suite was behind us and to the left. Mrs. McComb's was at the window cheering so I started waving. She noticed, waved back and got her husband to the window who waved my way too. It became a ritual after each touchdown.

After surviving the cold game, we headed for the car. We sat around for a little over a half hour for the traffic to subside. We got in a line to headed out of the parking lot. I got in behind a motor home. Suddenly, the motor home headed up and over a curb. Since it seemed to be the thing to do, I followed suit.

We cruised out of the area without any trouble at all, though we wasted an hour looking for somewhere open to eat.

December 13, 1999

We loaded up the car and started the long drive back to the cities. All said and done, my car logged over 980 miles.

Nate has already decided a road trip next year is a certainty. I'm already looking forward to it.