One day till the Big day

Of course we do not have tickets to the big game but we have found plenty to do to get the taste of the big event in Tampa.

About a year ago though a website I signed up to volunteer somewhere in the city during the week of super bowl. My final placement was at the location of the NFL experience. This is a 1million square foot venue with interactive events, autograph signings from cheerleaders to Al Roker from the today show. Oh yeah and a bunch of football players. My shift was Thursday, it rained most of the day but it really didn't matter because most of the NFL Exp. is in doors. We were given credentials( after a long application process)which gave us access to just about everything. I love being a neb nose behind the scenes. The NFL provided us with a polo shirt, hat, rain jacket(this was a great thing)a preferred parking pass and two tickets for our family for the event. The two tickets were great because it cost about 10$ to 15$, so we would not have gone if we had to pay.

After my shift I went home and picked up the hubby and child. We returned and spent5 about 3 hours walking around. quite fun for no money. We saw the big VL trophy up close, lots of history stuff from all the previous Super Bowl games, a few celebrities, a bunch of football players we don't know(remember we are nascar fans, and we like football,but a lot of the time the two are on at the same time so the game would usually lose to the track.) Plus these are two teams pretty far away and we don't follow them much.

B loved the lights and the energy, at he risk of raising him in a little country town we try to get him out and about a little to see the world.

Out of all the cool things in which are going on down town and around the bay area I think the coolest thing I saw was the FBI bomb trucks (they look like tanks and Jeeps merged together(amazingly enough, I tried to pull up a picture of them from the Internet and access was denied! hummm) We watched a team of 3 separate trucks drive up and down the main road in front of the stadium. A 5 mile radius around the stadium and of course all around the immediate area have massive cement barriers. Shawn says they are there to prevent car bombers. The FBI guys just drive up and down the perimeter to profile or find anyone whom might want to be a suicide bomber. Wow maybe it is me who needs to get out more because once this was explained to me I was surprised they were needed at this event! Also another very cool thing we were able to see was the Goodyear blimp up close. The airport where is is docked is about 15 miles from our house so on the way back home after we were at the NFL EXP we drove back to the remote airport, after dark of course and could drive up next to it. Very cool. Its fun to see things up close then see them on TV(B man loves it) FUN FUN FREE FUN yeah!

We found lots of free stuff to do to help us have fun with one of the biggest single day sporting events in the world.