I kinda got off-track here and forgot to finish of my chronicle of my Texas adventure, but I figure I better get it done soon because I'm heading out of town again here in about three weeks...
When I last left off, we were in Arlington, TX, which was once just a bump in the Turnpike between Fort Worth and Dallas until 40 years ago when the Washington Senators relocated to the Metroplex and became the Texas Rangers. Now it's a bustling suburb that houses the Rangers Ballpark and Jerry Jones' multi-zillion dollar Cowboys Stadium, which is far and away the biggest damn sports venue of any kind I've ever seen in person. Photos don't do the place justice--you really have to see it in person to grasp the enormity of it. As I was driving in from Fort Worth, I caught my first glimpse of this behemoth from over SEVEN miles away! In the words of Eddie Murphy: "The shit is big!"
I had two choices for touring Cowboys Stadium, the guided "VIP Tour" or the cheaper self-guided tour and I chose the latter, quite wisely. I enjoyed roaming the field and the locker room areas far more than I would have if I had to stick with the crowd just to see the press box, hoity-toity luxury suites and such. The only real disappointment was not being able to see the massive video screen in action, but as you can see, the big black elephant in the middle of the room was down for maintenance, but it would normally be in operation during daily tours. The damn thing is like ten times bigger than my house! It's literally a six-story building in and of itself.
These are the field level suites that you can mortgage your home to obtain tickets for. They look pretty worthless to me for watching the actual game--they're too low to the ground and all the people on the sidelines would block your view. The floors in them (as well as the rest of the stadium, for that matter) looked clean enough to eat off of, and I actually saw several illegal aliens--er uh--Mexican cleaning ladies dusting and wiping the chairs in one of the suites, even though there were no events in the stadium that week.
...as Dandy Don Meredith once exclaimed on that "Monday Night Fooball" telecast in 1982 when Tony Dorsett ran all the way across the Metrodome in Minneapolis to set the NFL record for longest run from scrimmage. This gives you an idea of how far TD had to run--I'm standing at the goal line while snapping this pic. Kinda cool to now be able to say I've strolled on the same field that a Super Bowl has been played on. I'm generally a football purist and would prefer to see everyone play on real grass, but I have to admit that the fake FieldTurf is the next best thing. It looks and feels like real grass, and doesn't look near as painful to get tackled on as AstroTurf did. And if the players are okey-dokey with it, then I am too.
...the Party's Over" And you're blinding Coach Landry too! More Dandy Don here, as he interviews the man in the fedora in a cool photo that hangs in the Cowboys press room where post-game interviews and news conferences are held. The self-guided tour allows you access to not only this room, but the Cowboys locker room and even the Cheerleaders locker room (minus the cheerleaders, natch). The tour staff was also quite friendly and fun to chat with along the way.
To give you an idea of how tall this effing stadium is, there are points on the field near the corners and sidelines where you literally cannot see the seats in the upper deck! You also now see why the big video screen is so necessary--it's the only way to see the damn game clearly from upstairs! I've walked to the top row of Toronto's SkyDome, which was the previous tallest stadium I've ever been in, and the Cowboys' joint dwarfs it easily. I can only imagine the vertigo in the upper reaches here--perhaps this one should be called "Mile High Stadium" instead of Denver's place...
...to include embossed Port-A-Pottys for his big playplen! Like Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal Jacket said, "Even the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to go in there and take a dump!" I still think Jerry Jones is a bit of a crap-weasel--he's good buds with Dubya Bush, after all--but If nothing else, the man spared NO expense in building this thing. The dudes in the Cowboys locker room even told me that the wood paneling that frames the players' lockers is the same stuff they use for dashboards in Bentley cars. As Wojo on "Barney Miller" would say, "Well, whoopity-doopity-doo!" Then again, even though I hate the Dallas Cowboys with a passion and always have, even I have to give it up to Jones' largesse--this place in unreal, and totally worth the visit if you're down that way.
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