I've never gone down to training camp before and neither has my wife so we figured we'd take a day and head down. We picked Saturday to head down and it turned out to be family day so they had some events for kids going on.
We got up and left the house around 6:30 and made it there by 8:40. The last 30 miles were pouring rain and when we got there we figured practice would be inside so we went into the field house and got in line. Practice was supposed to be at 9 AM and by then the line was very long to watch it. My wife went and asked why no one was getting in at about 9:15 and was told practice had been pushed back till 10:30. Great, had our four year old along and we weren't sure how long Lizzy would make it but she was awesome the whole time. At 10 AM we were told they changed practice to the outdoor fields as the rain had stopped. They had the entire line follow each other out and down the couple of blocks to the entrance. We were a few hundred people back in line but were on the first block of it. That line was very long, close to three blocks. Took a while to go anywhere, we saw the Vikings come out and head across to the field. After a little bit we were moving in and in about ten minutes we were to the gates.
We got in and got a seat on the bleachers right where the QB's were working out.
There are three fields there and you sit on the side of the first one, then there's one in the middle and then one farther down. A lot of the team was practicing on the middle field where you can't see much. After a while of watching the QB's they brought out some offensive personal for some route running and passing.
Sage running it.
Joe Webb taking the snap.
T-Jack back and lofts it up.
On the farther end of the field the D was warming up. You can see Allen there and Pat and Kevin are in it too.
Visanthe Shiancoe after running a quick route.
Adrian came over and made an appearance. He didn't work out much but got a couple of reps.
They then did about an hour of drills with Offense against Defense. Problem was that they did it on the middle field. If you look where the scissor lifts are, that's how far they were away, about 70 yards. All the fans were a little PO'd that they didn't do those on the first field near us so we could see better. I got no pictures of that as I don't have a camera with a high power zoom to get to it. I did a little walking around at that time as Lizzy was getting antsy. As we walked she carried the football I bought her in case we could get some autographs. We happened upon Chuck Foreman who had 50 anniversary cards with his signature. She asked if he would sign her ball and he said he wasn't signing anything but the cards that day but he would like his picture with her. She went right up to him and sat on his lap. He was very nice to her, commented how cute she looked in her outfit, tickled her a little and was an overall great guy.
Practice ended about 12:30 and Lizzy kept talking about cheer-leading. It was family day there and another reason we chose that day was because they had a cheer-leading camp for kids from 1:30 to 2:30 and we had her signed up. So we killed some time at the Vikings Locker Room Store and then walked to the field where the camp was going to be.
Can you tell she was excited for it?
They took the kids out on the field and the MC got things going.
Teaching the girls how to cheer. (My wife wasn't sure why I took these pics as they don't show Lizzy. I can think of a few reasons though!!)
Lizzy group of under five getting ready for their cheer they worked on. (She's the one in the middle in the cheerleader outfit, second row)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O08ddz-d3iE[/youtube]
All in all we had a lot of fun. Learned things that you can do different down there and how and where to go to get autographs of players (learned that too late). We are going to plan a trip down again next year. Lizzy really loves it so that makes it even better!!
After we left the camp we went to the restaurant that Loos15's Dad owns. Rui was work, we ordered some takeout and ate it when we got home. It was excellent Chinese Food. If you are ever down in Mankato stop by Yu's Chinese Cuisine just a couple of blocks from training camp.
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Topic: Family Trip to Vikings Training Camp (Read 1459 times)
