THE DRIVE TO THE CITIES!
The last two Saturdays I have driven to Minneapolis to cover the Minneota Vikings football team and broadcast their games on radio. That’s Minneota Vikings, not MinneSota Vikings, I think Paul Allen’s job is safe.
The state high school football games have been played at US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis and I blogged last week about it being my first visit to US Bank and how nice that new stadium is. The Vikings football games have been played in the mornings, 11:30 one Saturday, and last Saturday for the championship game, kickoff was at 10am. My work schedule prevented me from driving down the night before, like most people did.
So I needed to get up very early in the morning, leaving Madison and making the three-hour drive to Minneapolis. I get really nervous about doing that, because when you’re in radio and need to be in a certain place at a certain time you need to be there when it’s time to go on the air. So its way better to go the day before and that gives you some time, just in case something would prevent you from getting there on time. If you know me well, you know I am always early at events and I hate being late!
So each Saturday I left Madison at 4:30am to make the drive to US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Praying that the drive would be uneventful, no flat tires, no car trouble, no hitting deer, or a car accident or whatever else would prevent me from getting to the stadium on time.
Remember that most of my drive to the cities at that time of the morning it’s still dark out. So my eyes are peeled for watching deer running across the road. You guessed it, on both those Saturday mornings I needed to break to avoid hitting deer! I also missed a good sized raccoon and a fast moving fox running across the road.
I had a close call that could have prevented me from making it to US Bank stadium last Saturday morning, I almost ran into the stupid roundabouts they put on highway 7 going into the cities. One of the roundabouts snuck up on me while going sixty miles per hour. I didn’t realize it until I had to slam on the breaks hard to avoid from hitting the middle of the stupid roundabouts. I hate those things!
So my two Saturday drives to Minneapolis were uneventful, with the exception of stopping at a “fast food” place to pick up a quick breakfast shortly after 6am when I’m the only person in the place and it takes over 10 minutes to get my food! I’m not a patient man. That delayed me a bit! Like I said I’m not a patient man and I hate being late!
I did get to the stadium in plenty of time, got a nice parking spot, got my media credentials, went through security, got a phone line in the press box to broadcast with and went on the air right on time! My getting up early and driving to the cities both Saturdays was well worth it because the team I cover, the Minneota Vikings won the state championship!
