BW Blog

The Battle Wagon just returned from its maiden voyage to Arrowhead Stadium. Due to the distance of the trip we decided to tow it down instead of attempting to drive it 450 miles. We left the Twin Cities right on schedule at about 12:30 AM Friday morning, and after stopping in Clear Lake, Iowa for the night, made it into Kansas City late Friday afternoon.

Friday night we assigned ourselves a recon mission to the Westport entertainment district ahead of Saturday nights scheduled pub crawl. We ended up closing down Kelly’s a 3AM then walking the mile or so back to our hotel.

Saturday involved sleeping in and watching some college football before joining the pub crawl at the Dark Horse at 8 o’clock. There were probably 40 or 50 Vikings fans on the crawl plus we saw many others just out for the night, so there was significant purple in Kansas City on Saturday night.

The group began spreading out a bit around 1AM, with some people staying at Harpo’s, some continuing on to Kelly’s and a few light weights heading back to their hotels. With last call at 2:30, most were back to their rooms by 3 or 3:30.

We were up at about 6:30 on Sunday morning and read to head for the stadium at about 7:15. For reasons I can’t quite figure out, they don’t open the stadium parking lot until 8:30. Traffic backs up on all the roads around the stadium as fan just park in the street and wait for the gates to open. Once the gates open, people park everywhere: in the lot, on the grass, in the median, where ever. It’s kind of a strange dichotomy - No one can come in until exactly 3 and one half hours before game time, but once you’re in, anything goes.

We made it in just after 8:30 and were ready to tailgate shortly there after. It didn’t take long for the other Vikings fans to find us, and soon we had enough purple to make it look almost like a home game. Several Chiefs fans stopped by to check out the Battle Wagon. Most were polite and understandably impressed. The weather was hot, with temps forecast to reach the 90’s. Of course that made for a target-rich tattoo environment. Several tattoos were applied, a few on Chiefs fans.

Over all, it was a decent trip. Check out the photos here.

After a few years of steadily dwindling tailgating lots, it looks like we’ve finally got a legitimate solution. At least temporarily. Zygi Wilf acquired four city blocks near the Dome this summer and wasted no time in opening them up for tailgating. Read the Vikings announcement here. The lots may not be as big as the old Washington Avenue lot, but their big enough to get a decent tailgate party going. They are also right next to the stadium, which is a huge improvement over Rapid Park. Rapid Park was better than nothing, but there’s just something wrong when you need to take pubic transportation from the tailgate lot to the game. And all our tailgating pictures with the Target Center in the background just seemed a little odd. But now we’re back in the shadow of the Metrodome so all is right again. We’ll even be able to hear the crowd when we’re a little late for introductions.
The new lots are designated Purple 1 & 2 and Gold 1 & 2. The Battle Wagon has a season pass for Purple 1, which is the closest to the Dome. Mookie and Kansas also have Purple 1 passes, so we’re on our was to getting the whole crew back together. I think there’s a decent chance the lots will sell out, at least the closer ones, so a season pass seems to be the way to go. Passes are available here.

Hopefully this effort shown by the Vikings to accommodate tailgating indicates they are serious enough about this part of the fan experience to continue to provide for it when a new stadium is built.

Sunday’s tailgate kind of summed up the Vikings 2006 season. It was cold, wet, and not very well attended. The lot seemed to be only about 10% full, with most people parking under the bridge to stay out of the rain. The game? We’re picking 7th. Calvin Johnson, anyone? On a more serious note, the Rapid Park lot where we tailgated this season is about to be turned into the new Twins stadium. Stay tuned as we try to figure out tailgating for next season.

While Brad Childress didn’t exactly say Brad Johnson was done, a statement like “we have several options at quarterback” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for the old fellow. With Brooks Bollinger dropping faster than