Superbowl Adventure! [Turn back the clock]

Okay, so I'm not a huge football fan.  I can't even remember the last time I actually watched a professional football game.  Honestly, I think the only games I've even partially watched have been Superbowl games and I really only watched the commercials.  However, it is easy for me to get swept away by the enthusiasm of my friends and family who do love football and are excited that the Seahawks are once again headed to the Superbowl.  We don't have cable TV, so we tuned in the old-fashioned way to hear the end of last night's game: AM radio.

This took me back in time to eight years ago...the only other time the Seahawks headed to the Superbowl.  I didn't have a blog then, so I'm going to have to tell the story so our adventure doesn't get lost in my memory....

We lived in Ferndale and didn't have cable.  Back then, waaaaay back in 2006, the only way to get regular TV in Whatcom county was to have cable because the Chuckanut mountains blocked the network station signals.  But down here, Grandad could get the standard stations via the antenna attached to his chimney (this was before all the TV channels switched to digital).  Because Grandad would be able to get the Superbowl on his TV, we decided it was time for trip down here to Twin Firs for Superbowl Party!

Grandad got all excited and bought two large coolers full of party food.  Laura decided to drive down in her own car and bring a friend.  The rest of us (Mark, Ami, Ian, Shane, Baby Evie, and I) would ride down in the minivan.  The day of departure, Friday, there was a massive windstorm that knocked out the power at Grandad's.  No power meant no TV.  No way to keep the party food cold.  And no water. Longbranch is the last place on the KP to have power restored usually.  But we persevered and kept on with our plans.

Original 1980's Seahawks Sunglasses! (Mark and Evie, 2006)

Then Ami had a fever, but she didn't tell us about it until we were getting into the van.  She didn't really want to go to Longbranch for the weekend, but she never wanted to go to Longbranch because she hated the car ride.  Once she was there she was happy.  Usually.  So we kept on.  But...an hour into our three hour trip she got sick.  Like, the kind of sick where I had to dump my knitting project out of a ziplock bag and give it to her sick.  Mark and I debated...head home? Or continue on and chalk it up to carsickness?  (Ami was the first member of the carsick club)  Carsickness won because we really wanted to go to our Superbowl Party.  So we kept on.

About the time we reached the SeaTac airport, Ian got sick.  And since he was not even four years old, he wasn't able to warn us.  And he was strapped securely in his carseat.  And he had eaten a peanut butter sandwich right before we left.  And he almost choked on the slightly-digested sandwich because he couldn't lean over out of his carseat.  I was quite scared.  We pulled of the freeway and tried to find a public restroom.  The guy at the gas station we stopped at tried to tell me the bathroom was closed to the public, but when I held Ian up for him to see, the two of us covered in peanut butter vomit, he felt compassion and let us clean up.  I left that bathroom cleaner than I found it, let me tell you!  So, Ami was sick and Ian was sick and we were headed to a place with no power and no water.  Not a good combo.  This was when we decided there was a tummy bug in our family and headed home to Ferndale (Laura and her friend were already there).  But now that I have all these years of experience, Ian was probably carsick too.  Because neither one got sick again and no one else in the family got sick either...

The next day, Saturday, the power was still out at Grandad's, so he sent Laura and her friend home to us with the two coolers of party food.  So we had our Superbowl party...at home.  Mark so wanted to watch the game that I offered to call all my friends to see if he could come over to one of their houses.  Anyone who knows Mark will know that my idea was a terrible one; he would never want to impose on people that were strangers (to him).  He brainstormed all sorts of crazy ideas including getting cable for one day (they wouldn't be able to install anything in a few hours) or trying to install an antenna that could receive a signal despite the Chuckanut mountains or just going to Best Buy and hanging out in the store for a few hours.  But instead, we just listened to the radio:

Mark and Evie, 2006

It just goes to show that a true football fan can listen to the radio and enjoy the game as much as someone watching it.  I, however, felt like I was listening to a foreign language.  Same as last night.  "What just happened? Is that good? Are we winning? Now what's going on? What's a down? I don't even know what a quarterback does!"