7th Annual Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party

It was the latest it could possibly be to have this party, Week 17, the very last game of the year.  The 7th Annual Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party was held on Sunday, December 29th.  The weather the day before was in the 40's and on the of the party, not so much.

We woke up to around zero degrees and it would continue to get colder throughout the morning.  It was the wind chill that was really bad.  Good thing I had long underwear on under my jeans and wind pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt and my jacket, two scarves, two pairs of gloves and two hats because I needed it all.  If we weren't all true Minnesotans already, we sure were after Sunday. Too bad the feet heaters in my boots didn't work very well.  That's what you get when you ruin your feet ice skating as a kid when it was too cold or you stayed out too long.  

I kind of laugh at the temperature now thinking about what we just experienced in the last several days

We got out to the lot right at 8 am and fortunately we had a couple of tents that we put together and tied sides on them to block the wind out as best as we could.  The tent attempted to leave the ground numerous times but our group is smart enough and parked a truck next to the tent and tied them down to it.

With the weather as cold as it was and the fact that this was the last game we'd be tailgating for at the Metrodome and it was a hard ticket to get, we just wasn't sure how many people would actually show up for our party.  Turns out, a lot considering the circumstances.  To my best guess, we had about 50 people come out. We did our best to stay warm with our tents, multiple sunflower heaters, layers and drinks.

Cherrie's siblings - minus one

Double the hat, double the scarf

Our Lions crew representin'

Our last tailgate and our last Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party at the Metrodome, ever.

It would obviously be our last game in the Metrodome ever as well.  It was a little hard for me to realize that since it was also the end of the season so it didn't seem odd or sad at first because I knew I wouldn't be coming back again this year.  Maybe it will sink in next season when we're not there.

We typically play great against Detroit at the dome and this day was no exception.  The Vikings won, 14-13 with Cordarrelle Patterson scoring both touchdowns, one rushing (50 yards) and one receiving. 

Last SKOL Line

All the security in yellow coming out around the field

Last game moment- Vikings win

After the game, there was a 10 minute intermission before Matt Birk, Robert Smith, Adrian Peterson and Bud Grant addressed the crowd and their final farewells to the dome and the fans in the dome.  

I'll be writing about my personal experiences at and with the dome later this month.

Goodbye, Metrodome!  

Special Access

As an appreciation to Vikings season ticket holders, we were able to visit the Metrodome the evening of Saturday, December 28th, the day before the last game in the dome, ever.  We were allowed to walk on the field, have our pictures taken next to the goal posts and on the 50 yard line.  You could sit on the Vikings bench and tour the locker room.  Besides having our photos taken, we did all of the above.  The locker room was the big attraction with the longest line.  They did not allow you to take any pictures in the locker room and there security people all over the room.  The room was very small and I can only imagine they will have a state-of-the-art new locker room in the new stadium.  Even the locker room in TCF Stadium will be a huge upgrade. Everyone's uniforms and gear were already in place for tomorrow's game.  Most players had two to three pairs of shoes in their locker space but Adrian Peterson had 12-13 pairs of shoes.  

After the open house portion, there was an interview with Vikings alumni including Matt Blair, Bob Lurtsema, Randall McDaniel and Robert Smith, hosted by Paul Allen.  

At the end of the night, we each walked out with a commemorative poster of the All-Metrodome Team.   

Vikings vs. Eagles

Sunday, December 16th was very cold.  Like minus 2 degrees cold.  Despite the weather, we tailgated in our usual lot one more time before our big tailgate party, The Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party which is tomorrow and will be even colder.

We spent a lot of time in the car warming up but we still spent time outside and cooked our food on the grill which took a long time.  Our menu was BBQ pulled beef and mashed potatoes.  Yum.

Construction taking place where the new stadium will be, just east of Gate B and C

It was much warmer inside the dome.  Adrian Peterson didn't play.  Toby Gerhart didn't play.  A barely known running back named Matt Asiata scored 3 touchdowns throughout the game.  Cassel also passed a nice 57 yarder for a  touchdown to Greg Jennings in the first quarter and would pass another Cordarrelle Patterson for a touchdown and Cassel would run another in himself.  I did not think this game was winnable for us going into the game but we ended up winning, in fact, destroying the Eagles 48-30.  

Like my impressions of the cartoon Viking and Viktor?

                         

At halftime, they had a ceremony for the All-Metrodome Team.  This was a team comprised of players throughout the entire 32 seasons of football in the Metrodome, as voted by the fans.  Many of the players voted on this team were in attendance and announced in front of us including Jared Allen, Joey Browner, Anthony Carter, Daunte Culpepper, Chris Doleman, Chad Greenway, Robert Griffith, Steve Hutchinson, Steve Jordan, Chris Kluwe, Ryan Longwell, Randall McDaniel, Adrian Peterson, John Randle, Robert Smith, Scott Studwell, Chris Walsh and Kevin Williams.  Others that were voted to the team but could not attend was Matt Birk, Cris Carter, Dennis Green, Percy Harvin, Tim Irwin, Carl Lee, Ed McDaniel, Randy Moss, Antoine Winfield and Gary Zimmerman. That's to the best of my knowledge...there may have been one or two that I named in attendance that wasn't there or vice versa.   

A Win?!

As of Sunday, December 1st, there were two tailgating opportunities left until the big one, the last one at the dome, the one and only, Cherrie Jones Tailgating party.  Because of this, we decided that we want to tailgate one more time in our lot and one more time walking around and in other people's lots.  We decided that we'd walk around this time so the first lot we went to was to our high school friend's parking lot.  Yep, M and I both have high school friends that have tickets together even though M and I went to different schools and we're 3 years apart.  It was kind of weird making that discovery many years ago.

We met up with my friends Chris and Scott and M's friend Todd, AKA Sea Bass.  Not sure about that one. We didn't stay too long with them but continued to walk around looking at everyone else's setup when M ran into another high school friend named Jesse.  At this time we were playing phone tag with M's other friend Wayne who happened to be out there too and in our usual lot looking for us.

We eventually made our way back to our regular tailgate lot and found Wayne and Tyler and didn't spend much time with them either as they had free beers coming their way on the plaza.  I did manage to get a picture and we did get time to play with the random dog that was hanging around. 

This dog was fun, playful and very smart.  He had a tennis ball and he wanted to play with anyone that would play with him.  He would catch the tennis ball in his mouth when thrown to him and then give it back to you to do it again.  M played with him until his glove was full of dog saliva. 

We played the Chicago Bears and in my experience seeing the Bears live, those games have been some of my favorite.  I'm not sure why but I almost always have fun at those games.  Maybe it's because most often, we win against them at home.  

I had a feeling that we were going to win this game as I had picked the Vikings to win in my Pick'ems league but as the game started and went on, it turned out to be a pretty boring game.  Ponder went out at one point with concussion-like symptoms, a reason we didn't know while we were at the game.  Cassel steps in and starts performing, at least more than Ponder did, which we all know that happens, besides the coaches apparently.  

The 4th quarter gets interesting when it's tied and we end up going into overtime, something we just did the week before with the Packers and ended up in a tie. It was a series of bloopers for both teams that kept giving each other's team another chance to score to win the game including a winning field goal wiped out by a face mask penalty and another missed one by our reliable Blair Walsh and a bad coaching decision on the Bears side to kick a field goal on 2nd and 7...and miss. The back and forth of each team having three possessions was really bizarre.  Eventually, Vikings end up winning with less than 2 minutes on the clock in OT, 23-20.  

Adrian Peterson hit two milestones that day.  He ran for a total of 211 yards, the 5th time in his career he's gotten over 200 yards in a game as well as passing the 10,000 yards mark in his career.  He did it in 101 games and is the 3rd fastest person to do it besides his two heroes, Eric Dickerson and Jim Brown.  I've seen multiple Adrian records being broken at home and I'm happy that he was able do it in front of a home crowd.

To celebrate the win, M and I had bear chops for dinner.  Take that, Chicago!