FanPost

Who Dat - Burgundy and Gold Style

Don’t you just love hearing about and seeing pics of your co-worker’s lame vacation? Well you may want to give this one a quick Tom Glancy being this one is Redskins related.

When the Redskins dated schedule came out earlier this year I said to the girlfriend "The Skins’ opener is in New Orleans on September 9th." She replied, "We are going, right? We can go for my birthday." Girls from the Mid-West are awesome.

We booked flights early and the girlfriend, LN_Skins (HH FF league K…don’t lose to a girl anyone), locked in some cheap rooms in the Warehouse district using her employee discount. My one buddy was planning on going as well and thought he could get us free game tickets through Harrah’s where he gambles in AC. That didn’t work out and I’m sure he totally regrets bailing now. I ended up getting seats using seatgeek (the site rates ticket prices based on location/price) on the 50 yard-line, 9th row for about $50 over face value. Best purchase I made in a long time.

We left Friday night out of Dulles on United. I hate both Dulles and United, but the flight was cheap and everything worked out. There were lots of Redskins fan on the plane. James Carville was even on the flight which was a good omen. One no talent ass-clown on here tried to suggest that it was a bad omen, but he was wrong as normal (just kidding pas, I’m a fan).

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We went to Drago’s for broiled oysters when we got in, they were fantastic. All of the food in New Orleans was amazing and the service was superb, they were great hosts. I don’t want to bore you with all of the details regarding the food down there, but it was that good so I have to mix it in some. It was a little spicy and rich though, and I may have over-done it somewhat. This has lead to me crop-dusting my buds cubicle a few times today already…he is a Steelers fan. He likes it when I ask him if the Steelers won.

We ended up having night caps at the hotel bar. I wore a Harper t-shirt and had a few locals ask about it and tell me how much they liked the way he plays. Just about everyone thanked us for coming to the city and was genuinely friendly. But they do love their Saints. Saints gear everywhere and I got a few ‘who dats’ now and then…they would find out who Bob is a little later.

We headed out to the ¼ after a quick breakfast. We cut through the Riverwalk Mall which extends from the Warehouse district to the French Quarter. It was basically a mall selling daiquiris and Saints gear. We then hit Mr. B’s Bistro for the BBQ Shrimp, which is basically boiled shrimp in a spicy, buttery broth. So good. I ended up eating most of the French bread that came with it for a good drinking base. Also had some vodka lemonades. Then it was up into the ¼ for bar hopping.

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Bourbon Street was littered with Redskins fans, at least half of the people had Skins gear on…lots of Nats gear too. We did touristy stuff and had bloodys on a balcony and took in some local music. I ended up getting a sweet pic of a male Saints fan in a bikini that I’ll try to post. I’m not sure what pics I can legally post so I’ll let you reporters take down as needed.

There was a Redskins rally at Johnny White’s at 6pm. We got there early and it was jacked. I got lucky and saw one of my tailgate buds at the bar. He is like 6-7, 300lbs and easily cleared us some room. We sang HTTR like 100 times and drank plenty of beer. Larry Michael and Doc Walker arrived at 6pm and thanks to my buddy we had perfect seats. I tried to say hi to Doc, but he zoomed in on my gf and gave her a quick hug like he has done every time we see him. Doc likes the ladies.

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They gave away some game tickets and other prizes. It was loud and the crowd over-flowed into the street. Easily a few hundred Redskins fans were there. A few more tailgate people showed up and we hung out drinking more beer. Things were getting a little blurry so we headed back as we wanted to get up early for the game.

I grabbed some Red Bull, coffee, and some Advil the next morning. It is game day, bro. I got the three s’s done and we headed out. I put on my burgundy throwback Monk jersey (thanks for the site link tiller) and Taylormade Skins cap. (I didn’t get approval from Travis on the jersey color, but I think burgundy is okay for home and away.) We had a few drinks in the ¼ and started walking to the dome with a few hundred Skins fans. As we got closer to the dome we started merging with Saints fans. The entire city is basically in Saints gear. I got a few compliments on my Monk Jersey and a few more people thanked us for coming. One guy gave me a friendly Who Dat.

I made sure to get us tickets behind the Skins bench thinking that there would be a lot of Skins fans there and they were. It was probably 20-30% Skins fans in my section. My row was all Skins fans and we were dead center of the row looking out right on the 50 yard line. 9th row. Holly shit. There was RGIII in front of me warming up. I snapped a few pics and it was on.

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The Dome was loud as all hell at the start of the game, but it got pretty quiet as the Skins took control early. The TD pass to Garcon seemed to happen right in front of me. I was jumping up and down yelling as I thought he would score once he caught it. I could see everything from the seats. It was flippin awesome, yet still pretty surreal. It seemed like we scored every possession. By the end all of the Saints fans were saying good game, asking us where we were from, and saying RGII and the Skins were unbelievable. We went back to the ¼ for drinks and to watch the end of the remaining games once it ended…and of course celebrate with the skins fans there.

The next morning the hotel was kinda dead and we got some breakfast in the hotel restaurant before flying out. I ordered a crawfish omelet and the gf had a shrimp boil one. It was easily the best omelet I ever had. The chef came out to talk to us and let us know that he did not skimp on anything and thanked us even though we were Redskins fans. He even sang us a little Cajun song. What?!? Yeah it was that kind of trip. Thank you New Orleans.