Going to the Rider Game

So here is the second reason we went to Regina.  The first  reason of course was to see my Mom and Sister - they haven't seen me since my surgery.  Yesterday, Saturday, was a day of visiting.  Today, Sunday, is a football day.  So after my morning walk, Marla and I jumped in the car and headed down to Mosaic Stadium, I prefer Taylor Field, but its real name is Mosaic Stadium.  We had our breakfast at Trifon's just across from the Ramada hotel.  It hit a new middle of mediocrity.

then we were off to the stadium, we are going to try to use the handicapped parking so we went way out of the way to 13th Street so we would be on the right side of the street and not have to cross traffic.  We finally found a parking spot near the Rider Store.  I have to hand it to the Rider's organization for having good parking spots for people who have difficulty getting around at no charge.

We then joined a whole bunch of people going through the store.  I guess we were there about two hours early.  Which was really good.  We got a killer parking spot, time to go through the store, and when we bought yet another Roughrider T-Shirt I was able to deposit in the nearby car.  Then Marla and I went over to the practice field and have an incredibly mediocre hamburger.  It was edible but it was kind of sucked.

Then we walked into the stadium.  My absolute favourite moment of sports viewing is the few seconds when you walk into a baseball stadium and go from the darkness under the bleachers and see the green grass of the diamond, the lines of the bases and the blue sky above.  Taylor Field, a CFL football stadium, is up to snuff when it comes up to that same view.  we got these tickets the first day that Rider Tickets went on sale.    So they were pretty good seats.  They were on the first level, about 20 rows up from the field and at the 35 yard line.

So we found our seats and got comfy.  there was nobody around yet.  But soon it will be awesomely crowded.  And green.  the stadium hold 34,000 people and today it was sold out.  That means there must be 33,500 people there dressed in green.  Even Marla was getting lots of notice in her green wig.  She didn't want to wear it at first but once we were at the stadium and she got so many compliments she was beginning to like it.

The game was really good.  Made even better that the Riders won.  You can see a bunch of the pictures on my flickr site.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/56705607@N00/sets/72157631639545757/

It was a terrific day, lots of people and lots of fun.  We visited mom one more time and then got ready to go home.  We had to get everything ready early because we were flying out of Regina at 5:30am.  That meant we had to get up and get a cab to the airport at 3:30am.  It really wasn't that big of a challenge, I just pointed Marla in the right direction and we were off.

 It was an excellent flight home.  It was so early that nothing was open in Regina or Calgary so we just went from one plane to the other.  There was very little wait but everything went fine.  It was a really really nice holiday.