Miami Re-cap

Well, well, I'm finally back home. What a week that was.

After the gigs I headed to Miami Beach to the boss's condo. Our keyboardist and his bro were hanging with us. Saturday, as reported before, we hit South Beach. We went back later that night and the place was hoppin'. There was a huge private party on the beach that Mark Anthony was performing at, you could see and hear it from the boardwalk. Afterward there was a fantastic fireworks display. But it was hard to hang out anywhere or get a beer, the place was just packed.

I heard some disturbing things from Bears fans including, "Peyton Manning sucks a dick," "Indiana is just a bunch of white trash," "I used to live in Indiana and it sucks", etc. (we all know who got the last laugh there).

Sunday was game day and I was pretty excited and anxious. We took a bus to the stadium with bossman's friends. We even had a police escort that cut a lot of time off of the trip (natch). When we arrived at the stadium I was impressed by the amount of Colts love everywhere, the team's fans really traveled well. As we walked to our seats on the club level I started to get really stoked. Our seats were by the suites , there were concession stands and lounge areas everywhere and it wasn't nearly as crowded as the rest of the stadium. And the seats, as you can tell from the pictures, were fantastic. After a burger and a briefly interesting pre-game it was game-time.

Colts lost the coin-toss, bad sign.
The rain really started to come down, bad sign.

When the Colts kicked off and Devin Hester caught the ball I could see him clear as day. He caught the ball on the opposite end of the field from me and as he broke through the first line of Colts defense it was if he was running directly toward me. He burned right down that field and stumbled in to the endzone right beneath me.

Bad sign.

But you know what? I never let it bother me. For whatever reason I wasn't nearly as nervous for this game as I had been for games past. It was this team's destiny to win. Destiny the Colts run defense that the media had touted as the worst in the league shut down the best between-the-tackles tailback in the NFL against Kansas City. Destiny the Colts beat the team in Baltimore where this team is hated and the quarterback was Manning's first big rival. Destiny that the Patriots came to the dome only to watch the Colts win the AFC Championship for the first time. Destiny that Peyton Manning would have to win the big game outside in the rain where it was popularly thought that he couldn't win.

I never lost hope. The Colts came clawing back. And by the time the second half was in full swing it was obvious that they were in control of their destiny. The game is kind of a blur for me, it went by so fast. With 20 seconds left on the clock I finally started to say to myself "is this really going to happen? Is Indianapolis really going to win a World Championship?"

And they did.

I was overcome. I was screaming. I was hugging strangers clad in white and blue.

After the game we went out to eat at a fantastic Cuban restaurant where I had a Scotch and we toasted the game. Monday I was so drained I didn't do much besides souvenir shop and watch highlights of the game. Yesterday I flew home and crashed early. I've watched highlights from the parade on TV, I really wish I could've been there. But I'm not going to get greedy, I had the perfect weekend, a football fan couldn't ask for anything more.

So as the glow of the game slowly fades all of us Colts fans can relish in the fact that we are World Champions for the next year. Ain't it great.

Here are some more pics: