Saints are 2 and 0!!

Now that was a great game! Pretty scary there in the beginning when the score was 13-0. My FIL's best friends (a couple who are Packer fans) called his cell phone and left a message all giddy about that score, which we didn't get until after the game. It went something like: What's the score? Oh yeah 13 and 0. And then a bunch of other stuff I don't remember. So of course H Ditty called them back about it and said, "You asked what the score was so I thought I'd tell you, it's 34 to 27. Final" Ah hahahaha!

So on Saturday we got on the road sometime after 5. We went up in my FIL's RV. Stopped for some food a little over an hour out of Green Bay then missed our turn off. But then, we didn't have directions either. Silly us. H Ditty didn't print out directions because his father was driving. His father didn't print anything out because he was going to bring an atlas, which he forgot along with his IPod. At least H Ditty remembered his. Luckily it's pretty much a straight shot up there, just two turns to make in Green Bay.

There's a K Mart right across the street on the North side of the stadium that allows people to park overnight. It's $20 if you only take up one spot, we took up two. There were probably around 20 RV's already when we got there at 10:45. Maybe even more. Most had Packer flags flying. We thought about putting up our Saints flags, etc. but then decided not too. Figured it would just invite hassling throughout the night and we'd rather sleep.

I woke up to a lot of talking and music as early as 8am going on around the RV. Over night we were surrounded by other RV's, cars and trucks. There were some guys playing a ring toss game right next to us. H Ditty and his dad, who was wearing his Saints jersey already, went out and talked with them. They were friendly despite being Packer fans. Around 10 H Ditty (who had now put on his Saints shirt) and his dad finally put up our Saints flag. Others who hadn't seen them yet noticed the flag so they got more ribbing. But still all good natured. But we were definitely in hostile territory though.

I have to say, between the few stadiums we've been too, Lambeau Field is the nicest. Not the seating though, those are benches, as in high school benches, that sucks, I'd rather have actual seats. The "hallways" where the food, etc are is pretty standard. But at the main entrance there's an actual food court type area and it just looks fancy in general compared to other stadiums. Their gift shop is huge compared to the Saints shop. We didn't go in, just looked through the windows of it as we went past. It looked like you could fit maybe 3 of the Saints shops in there with a little bit of room left over.

There weren't many, nowhere near as many as at Cleveland, Saints fans walking around. But everytime we walked past them there were shouts of "Go Saints!" and "Who Dat!" There was only one fan that sat near us, only a couple rows ahead and just to the right. He had marked up a white t-shirt. I didn't see the front of it but the back he had written Geaux Saints!

This time we only had 2 guys that were a pain in the ass. Everyone else was nice. One guy was sitting two rows in front of us to the left a little. He kept telling us to go home as we were cheering. But not in a fun/ribbing way, it was in an angry way. The bad thing was that his son, maybe even grandson (he was around 7 or 8 at the most) was sitting next to him hearing and seeing this asshat.

The other guy was two rows back and to the right a little. His taunts were on the same intelligent level as guy #1 from Cleveland. Which is to say unintelligent. The first was right before half time. Saints were up 14 to 13 and we were standing and cheering because we had just got a 1st down or maybe stopped the Packers, I'm not sure. Anyway, this guy yells at us to shut up and sit down. But not just "sit down" he says, "Sit down you...fat guy." It took him a little bit to get the "fat guy" out, he made some noise like he was trying to say something but all that could/would come out was "fat guy." Then after half time when the Saints were stopping the Packers from scoring he starts yelling how "New Orleans has water in the basement." Said this more than once, this is just as intelligent as the guy from Cleveland yelling "Katrina" over and over. I don't remember how the exchange went exactly but he yelled something, H Ditty said something back and the guy responds that this is "Green Bay, get used to it, we'll say anything we want. Get used to insults." So I responded, "Fine, just make them intelligent. Otherwise they don't mean anything." I don't recall him saying much of anything to us anymore after that. But he did holler about water in the basement a couple more times.

H Ditty and I, we're good sports. If the opposing team does well we say it. We've clapped for the other team and high fived our seatmates when their team does well. We've never, at these away games or when we've been to New Orleans, ever heckled the opposing teams fans. It's just not in us to do so. So it's just all the more tiresome when it's done to us. Oh well, it's something that we'll always have to put up with.

I don't remember the guy who sang the anthem but he was good. Right after two jets flew over. They seemed to be bigger than the 4 at the Cleveland game. But then they were a lot closer than those too. They seemed to be just over the stadium and extremely loud. It looked as if there should've been one or two more though because they were pretty far apart. H Ditty got some good pictures that I'll post as soon as he downloads them to the computer. He's got a fancy camera that I'm not allowed to mess with, he's afraid I'll screw something up. Anyway, the pilots eventually made it into the stadium and there were 4 guys so who knows what was up. Although it did look like there was a guy in their suits standing on top of the stadium at the North end by the score board, which is the side they came from. The guy was there during the fly over and about a minute afterward, then he was gone.

Brees scared us a few times, not being able to hold onto the ball. Bush ran lateral too much. Although as H Ditty says, that's what he's better at, getting to the outside, finding a hole and running through. But the holes weren't there, I wanted to see him make one for himself and fly. But that's Duece's thing, making holes. He's the tank and Bush is the wind.

All in all, we got lucky in a few plays, played well in most. Imagine what it would've been if Brees hadn't gotten the ball stripped from him those couple times. More than likely the Packers wouldn't have had those 1st 13 points and the Saints might've been up by at least another 7. We were in the Southwest corner. Every score before the 4th quarter was done in the North end zone. H Ditty mentioned this more than once, which I said he needed to quit since the last quarter had the Saints going South. But they broke that fluke and made a touchdown and after that it was all over. The Pack just couldn't keep up. They tried, Favre looked good, but his receivers looked like shit.

After the game we headed back to the RV and put the flag back out and played "When the Saints go Marching in" while we waited for the roads to clear. Once again we were surrounded by just Packer fans but they were all cool. No one said or did anything. Finally we headed out and got home just before 10. We were all sunburned, it was supposed to be cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms but no clouds came until the 4th quarter and by then it was too late. We were already burnt. My right arm is as red as a lobster and it's quite painful right now. I think I'll go put on some more aloe vera.

Media quote of the day: "We're not going to win a game and start hoopin' and hollerin'. That's nothing. We have to keep on rolling." - Joe Horn of New Orleans Saints. Or as we like to call him Jiggedy Joe, although he doesn't jiggedy anymore like he used to.