CHRISTMAS IN JANUARY

Does this man know me or what? Many years ago I told Lou that if he was gift shopping for me to forego jewelry & diamonds (not my thing) for travel or sports. He listened! My Christmas gift was tickets to see our San Francisco Forty-Niners play the hated St. Louis (formerly Los Angeles) Rams at Levi's Stadium.

Not only did we have a great outing but it gave me one more chance to see my Charley since we stayed at Darrin's last night to make our train trip to Santa Clara much shorter.

The train was a great way to get to the stadium since our two round trip tickets from Hayward to Santa Clara were less expensive than parking! And much less stressful. The train was packed with red & gold clad fans attending the game. We couldn't find seats together but I had a nice visit with my seat mate, a man from Auburn, who has been a season ticket holder for 36 years! Now that's a hard core fan!

The Great America Amusement Park is located next door to Levi's Stadium. They even share some of the same parking lots.

One entire side of the stadium has only the lower deck of seats. The rest is luxury boxes that I've heard start in the low six figures for companies or super rich folks to indulge in. Steph Curry (the NBA reigning MVP of the Warriors) was in attendance in one of them today. 

It was our first time seeing Levi's Stadium. This state of the art venue will host Super Bowl 50 in just over a month. We thought that the whole luxury box thing was overkill. I mean, come on, it's a football game, not some who's richer contest. My train seat mate thought that the new facility lacked "personality" - he may well be right. They could certainly use more stairways to the 4th deck & a few escalators wouldn't hurt either! We must have climbed enough stairs today to reach the top of the Empire State Building. 

Now on to the game!

The Forty-Niners starters are introduced one at a time as they run through this tunnel (notice the name on the side that changes for each player). My camera trigger finger wasn't quite quick enough to catch the fire that shoots from the red towers on the right.

The traditional coin toss which the Niners won. I do love my 35x zoom lens!

Couldn't resist this photo of "Joe Montana" & "Steve Young" two of the star quarterbacks from years past a few rows in front of us. Hmmm, they haven't aged as well as I would have thought. :-)

Unfortunately, the Niners are terrible this year & the Rams aren't much better. The two offenses were ranked 31st & 32nd in the league (which only has 32 teams.) Oh, well, we were hoping for an entertaining, competitive game. And we got that! Our Niners won in overtime! The fans in our Bob Uecker/nosebleed seats were noisy, spirited, enthusiastic & a bit sarcastic at times. 

Fortunately, the rain held off but we damn near froze to death. However, we stayed until the final field goal in overtime to clinch our 19-16 victory! I still can't believe fans who pay for tickets then leave early when the game is tied - that is simply not acceptable in my book. I have never left a sporting event before it ended & I never will!

The Forty-Niners sideline. Those seats in the back where the players are sitting are heated. We could have used those up in the stands.

I took lots of action shots & captured our quarterback, Blaine Gabbert (number 2) turning to hand off the ball to the running back, Mike Davis (number 22 on the far left).

It was a fun day & another great gift from my sweetie. The man knows the way to a woman's heart is through a ticket to a sporting event or an adventure to a far-away land - at least this woman's heart! Thank you, my love!