Road Tripping With The Steelers

No, the "road trip" in question was not to Dublin, Ireland to see the much ballyhooed "Dublin Game" between the Steelers and the Vikings.  Our trip was a bit closer to home, although it did involve being in a car for close to 24 total hours, going through four states, and covering 1,330 miles in eight days.

Yep, there we were in Foxboro, MA on September 21 to see the Steelers play the Patriots and deliver a 21-14 win to Steelers Nation.  The genesis of this trip was our cruise vacation through Canada last May and perhaps one too many cocktails with our new friends, Patti and Barry Rowe, who live in Boston suburb of Melrose.  The NFL schedule was released while we were on the cruise, we saw that the Steelers were visiting New England in September, when the weather would still be nice, and the next thing you knew, we were getting in the car two Fridays ago and headed towards Boston.

After staying in Scranton, the halfway point of the trip, where we visited the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and drove on the "President Biden Expressway", we were grateful guests of the Rowes for two nights. On Sunday morning, we piled into Patti's SUV and headed to Foxboro.

This was our first ever "road trip" to see a Steelers game, and, frankly, we weren't quite sure how we would be treated as we wore our Steelers gear and waved our Terrible Towels.  We needn't have worried, because it couldn't have been a more positive experience.  As we walked through all of the tailgating parties in the parking lots,  entered and sat in Gillette Stadium, and returned to our car through those same parking lots after the game, we could not have been treated more graciously by the New England fans.  We had countless conversations with many of them, all of them positive, and even the "derisive" comments were made with tongues in cheeks and smiles on faces.

Of course, it no doubt helped that we were far from alone in being Steelers folks in the crowd.  We have heard for years and seen on television how Steelers Nation travels, and we can now testify that it is a very real thing.  I would estimate that anywhere from twenty to thirty percent, and maybe more, of the crowd were Steelers rooters, all of them waiving Terrible Towels.  (Funny Story:  As we left the stadium after the game, a young guy and his date walked up to us and asked "Were they giving those towels away at the game today because EVERYBODY had one?"  We set him straight.)  Nobody gave us a hard time, nobody picked a fight with us or threw a beer at us.  It was just a terrific experience.

Everything you've ever heard about traffic and driving in Boston is true.  It was horrendous ("You learn to live with it" Barry told us), and this is true about getting to and from Foxboro on game day.  The logistics of how the police work the traffic patterns before and after the game are sheer genius.  It was truly amazing.

Here are some photos from our memorable weekend On The Road with the Steelers.

Tailgaters

Taking it all in

With Barry and Patti Rowe

Now THAT'S a big video board!

Bragging Rights.  

They earned them.

The only thing missing was "Renegade" being played

Post-game

I was also able to continue the tradition that I started with my Roberto Clemente jersey at Pirates games of getting photos taken with HOF jerseys from the other guys, which was pretty cool.

One photo that we didn't get was me chest bumping 

with a guy (not this guy) wearing a Jack Lambert jersey in the parking lot

At halftime of the game, Julien Edelman was inducted 

into the Patriots Hall of Fame.  That was pretty neat to see.

Like I said, it was one terrific experience.

When we decided to drive to make this trip, Linda and I made the decision to add time on to the trip and spend some beach time at Cape Cod, a place where neither of us had ever been.  I was going to write of that in this post, but it is long enough already, so that write up will take place separately within the next few days.