everything is bigger in Texas

Our adventure to see the new Cowboys stadium began with picking up our tickets. They were supposed to be ready by 4 p.m. at the Sheraton hotel. Well, parking at the Sheraton was an adventure because little did we know, it serves as one of the $40 game day parking lots. After circling around a few times, and much confusion, we parked by the front door with a swarm of other fans who were walking in with StubHub papers that looked like mine.

Actual ticket pick up was a breeze. Give them your printed confirmation, show some photo ID, sign, and voila, you have tickets.

Then we made our way to the Hilton to check in. We discovered that the only shuttle left to the game left at 6:15. We weren’t sure if that would allow us enough time before the game to see the sights, so we decided to eat at Boston’s and then catch a cab.

Here’s Kris in our fancy hotel room.

We waited and waited for our pizza buzzer to go off at Boston’s … we took pictures:

We talked about the bar tender who was wearing a pair of pants that showed her butt crack. Kris wonders if she did that on purpose. I’m quite sure she did. Better tips from drunk fans. Finally we went to check on our buzzer. Yeah, it wasn’t working. We were seated immediately and I ordered a whole wheat Florentine pizza that was guaranteed to have 15 grams of fat or less. I ate half and got wicked bad acid reflux. But it tasted good in the moment.

Then we caught a cab that took us to Jerry’s World. Every business surrounding the stadium offered a parking space for an outrageous price. We were glad to pay $12 for the cab that dropped us off as close to the front door as you could get.

Forgive the face. Kris was whining about staring into the sun.

Everyone was stopping to take photos like these … I guess this place really is a tourist destination. When we walked in the front door, some crazy fan LITERALLY fell to his knees in awe. I wonder how many $8 beers he had already consumed.

It is a sight to see. The big screen is just that … BIG.

After wandering around on the first level for awhile we found the escalators that took us up and up and up some more to the 400 section. Here was our view of the field. Not bad really.

Then we found out we were in the wrong seats. So our view got a little less obstructed by the stair well and the beer guy who wasn’t selling his $8 beer.

The cheerleaders are very larger than life on the big screen. I bet that big screen is a self esteem nightmare for them. Not only are they in HD, so every little flaw shows … but they are 72 feet tall. I wondered how many of them have hair extensions and how bad their hair is tangled after the game with so much tossing about of the head that goes on down there. It was also entertaining to watch fans react when they saw themselves 72 feet tall.

After the third quarter, when the starters weren’t playing anymore Kris decided he wanted to walk around. So we did. We walked and walked until we got to this view of the big screen:

Yep, I walked that far and only got a picture of a 49er’s rear end. A larger than life picture. That could be because we got kicked out of the section we were loitering in. But not after Kris tried to stand his ground. The little old lady section attendant let us stand there for a few minutes, but then she finally turned to Kris and said, “You can’t stand here if you don’t have a ticket.” Kris said, “What, a ticket to stand?” Ahh, my smart ass husband. I started pulling on his arm, not wanting to get arrested at 9 months pregnant.

So we kept walking and found ramps that would take us down to the ground level. No problem, I thought. Ramps, just like at Kyle Field. Well … it felt like about 20 levels of ramps and by the time we got outside I was exhausted. Only to realize we were now at the WRONG END of this monstrous stadium, and our cab pick up location (yes, there’s only one place the cabs can pick you up) was at the other end. I wanted to cry. My feet hurt. My belly was hard. My baby was protesting. But I walked. And walked. And walked some more. Finally after about an hour (ok, maybe only 20 minutes) we found the taxi pick up line. Yes, there was a line. Just like Disney. Hurry up and wait.

So we waited. And this old geezer who managed to flag down a golf cart to give him and his old geezer friend a ride to the front of the taxi line tried to CUT IN LINE in front of us. Um, NO. Sorry gramps. Lose weight and lay off the alcohol. I’m 9 months pregnant and just waddled a million miles to get here … back of the line you go.

We finally made it back to the hotel where I took a hot shower and collapsed in the nice king size bed. Overall, it was a really fun night, made just a little more challenging with me hauling a bowling ball around under my shirt.

I’ll leave you with a little pricing info about Jerry’s World. We left with a bag of cotton candy and a souvenir Cowboys soda cup. That set us back $11.50.

But here’s what we learned thanks to a little video about the gigantic coolers at the stadium that they showed on the big screen:

Price of bottle of beer: $8

Number of bottles of beer sold on game day: 150,000

A little cell phone calculator math told us that means SOMEONE is taking in: $1,200,000 in beer sales every game day.

What recession?