Last night I had dinner with a good friend who shared his utter frustration of seeing where he wanted and needed to go to, but was unable to get there and what should have been a simple drive turned into a 2 & 1/2 hour ordeal. I cannot believe the very next night I lived that scenario.
A friend called me and said that they had two tickets to tonight's Charger game. Though it was last minute, just 45 minutes before kick-off and I would have to drive out to Clairemont to get the tickets, because they were playing my favorite team the Oakland Raiders I was willing to be adventurous.
I also had another motivation -- I rarely go to NFL games maybe three in my life time and this was a great opportunity to go and take my son, Rhett, to his first NFL game. So we went. I figured we would arrive sometime around mid-to late 1st quarter -- I could not have been more wrong.
I am going to spare you the details, but what should have been a round trip of 40 miles I managed to put close to 90 on this outing and we arrived at the beginning of the 3rd quarter when at that point the game was so out of reach for the Raiders. The clock and radio broadcast added continually our frustration. Understandably Rhett was growing impatient -- I would if were a kid and the time you were in the car was longer than when you go to Disneyland. At one point I asked we should just go home. But he really wanted to go. So all in all we spent two hours trying to find parking, being turned away at every gate. Very frustrating not one gate said lot full. We ended up parking at a distance and paying a premium to park there -- you don't want to know how much.
All in all we spent about 75 minutes in the stadium. We were out for four hours.
Yet what really matters is that I got to spend an evening with my son and that he had good time. Quite honestly at his age right now a 3-hour game would be too long. We were there just the right amount of time and now he can say he has been to an NFL football game.
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