Yes, this is another post about the Chiefs. And Wow, that was a 36-hour road trip. Read on!
Did you hear? The Chiefs made the Playoffs. If you didn’t hear that… THE CHIEFS MADE THE PLAYOFFS!
The Red Coaters chartered a bus to Houston, it was an invitation only bus, which means a Red Coater had to invite you onto the bus for you to have a seat on the bus. The bus left KC and picked up 9 of us in Joplin on their way through. We boarded the bus in Joplin around 10:30pm Friday night bound for Houston.
Early Saturday morning we had to switch drivers around Ennis, Texas, so we decided to stop for breakfast at IHOP in Ennis while the drivers fueled the bus and switched places. 
We made it to Houston. Please don’t ask me what time, because I don’t have any clue. 
Getting there was a bit of a debacle. We paid for a parking tag, showed up at the entrance and were told we needed to move to a different entrance. Once we got to the next entrance, we started getting yelled at by a policeman (sheriff I think). He wouldn’t explain what we needed to do, just kept yelling at us. Finally we got the head of parking on the phone and he explained we were where we needed to be while the policeman kept yelling at us to leave. We tried to have him talk on the phone to the head of parking but he wouldn’t hear it. Finally another policeman (city cop I think) came up and told us to stay, he’d heard it over the radio system that we were where we needed to be. The first guy who was yelling went and got a sheriff (possibly his supervisor) and he came and started yelling at us too while the other one who told us to stay was standing right there. It was a mess!
Then once gates were opened, we went in, tried to park and proceeded to get yelled at again. Not nearly as bad but still… oy! Needless to say, we got in, got to tailgate and all was good. 
I did not know this but Chiefs stadium has a reputation for knowing how to tailgate. Apparently we bring this reputation along with us. Our food for the day consisted of hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, chicken, and steaks. Steaks, say what? Oh and the grill man knew how to cook them too. Compliments to the chef!
Now I would like to also note that there were a lot of Chiefs fans that made the trip and a lot came by to talk to us even. We started documenting all our visitors via pictures. I would like to mention also that there was a guy from a fellow chiefs clan who came up and “stole” a steak from us, went back to his group and bragged that he got up there, got a steak, and no one noticed. Oh you were noticed all right. 
Another group of tailgaters were loners and asked if they brought their food, could they come tailgate with us. Of course you can! And they brought taco soup. Truthfully the more the merrier.
We even had people from the opposing team coming by to welcome us to their stadium. Now, not all the fans were that nice, but the ones who were, thank you very much! It can be intimidating wearing a jersey from the opposing team on their turf. Thank you for being so nice! 
Like I said, we noted visitors and one of them was Darian Thomas. Truthfully I can’t tell you who all came to visit us because there were so many. It was great. There were somewhere between 30 and 36 of us. Apparently we can’t count so we really didn’t know and the good news is we didn’t leave anyone at any stop! Woohoooo!
The weather you ask? Oh it was gorgeous! The wind was a bit chilly so if you caught a gust brrrrish but otherwise the weather was great. Many different Houstonians told us that the weather was cooler than normal, but it was snowing back home so a high of 56˚F was great.
We had to go through metal detectors to enter the stadium. There was a sign up front that said remove cell phones, loose change, belts, and cameras. I started taking my belt off and they laughed at me when I got up there and said I didn’t have to. Ok… whatever, but I would have set off the metal detector. Trust me, I’ve done it at airports forgetting my belt is on because I wear it all the time.
I learned something about Texas I didn’t know… I didn’t know their theme song was “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” And I loved the dome stadium… we were in t-shirts/jersey’s and comfortable.
So if you’ve never been to a Chiefs game or follow Chiefs football… when the Star Spangled Banner is sung, at the end when it says “home of the brave” Chiefs fans yell home of the “Chiefs.” So when the national anthem was sung, all the Chiefs fans that were there yelled Chiefs. I heard that people who watched it live on TV could hear Chiefs yelled. Go Chiefs Fans! I heard there were roughly 1,000 Chiefs fans in attendance. The stadium holds around 71,000. 
The Chiefs started out the game right too… 11 seconds into the game, we had a 106 yard touchdown. At halftime the score was 13 nothing Chiefs. 
I also thought it was funny too, being a Chiefs fan I get this… that they were wanting to be loud to throw the Chiefs off, when the Chiefs are known for having the loudest outdoor stadium in the country. Houston Texans, don’t get me wrong, I love you and you played an awesome game. 
A few people from our group looked over to their left and noticed that Knile Davis’s mother and sister sitting beside/in front of them so they gave his mother one of our Chiefs Kingdom flags to wave. 
By halftime Texan fans were leaving by but 4th quarter they were leaving in groves. I felt sorry for them as going into 4th quarter they still hadn’t scored. 
Mark and I were able to move seats and get closer to some of our group. Nancy asked if we wanted to go down on the main floor with her just behind the Chiefs players. We said we were game so we took off running down to the main floor. We got to the VIP section and the guy told us to go to the next section down, we could get in there.
When we got to that section, that guy wasn’t about to let us in. Nancy did some sweet-talking and a guy behind the usher was like she’s with me, grabbed her arm and pulled her past. The usher shook his head, said whatever and let us all in. We were less than 10 rows away from the field. It was awesome!
Then it was all over. We won with a score of 30 to nothing. 
We headed out for the bus, loaded up and headed home. Yup, 2 night spent on a bus. The best part is we had quite a few Houston Fans enter our bus at the end while we were waiting on the rest of our group, congratulate us, and wish us well on our return trip home.
We got back to Joplin around 7ish Sunday morning to 9˚ weather. Brrrr! I’m just glad we weren’t going to watch the Viking’s game. They said their high for the day would be -3˚ with a windchill at -20˚F. Ouch!
The Chiefs go on next weekend to play the New England Patriots. As we were getting off the bus, they asked if we were down for a 21-hour bus trip to New England. We all said, win the lottery so you can fly us there :).
Go Chiefs!