I’ve been to a few NFL games now, and as much as I enjoy the simple act of watching the sport live, it’s also quite an American cultural experience. Nowhere is that cultural experience on display more than in pregame tailgating.
Four years ago, my wife and I traveled to Chicago to see an early season Bears-Packers match up. With a wee bit of research, we found a tailgating group who welcomed us to hang out before kickoff. If you’re not familiar with tailgating, it’s basically a group of people who meet up in the parking lot prior to a football game, usually to grill some food, have a few drinks and talk some football before heading into the stadium. In Chicago, it looked like this:
This tailgating lot for Bears games is located about a 20 minute walk south of the stadium and, as you can see, it is cars and grills and plumes of delicious barbeque smoke as far as the eye can see. Through this maze, we found our specific spot nestled over to the side of the parking lot:
Bluenose Traveler 