Jacksonville, Florida 11-23-08

When the Minnesota Vikings come to Florida (Jacksonville, in this instance), it's time for true Tallahassee Vikings to go support their team. All four are native Minnesotans and police officers with the Tallahassee Police Department. From left, Investigator Laura Gereg, Lieutenant Jim Martinez, me (Lieutenant Ken Bergstrom) and Officer Jamie Martinez at our tailgating party.

The Vikings are warming up prior to the start of the game.

Our crew eagerly awaits the kick-off.

I hate to tell the Jacksonville fans this, but the Jacksonville Jaguar does not scare a true Viking!

We are anticipating the start of an NFL game with our favorite team.

The pre-game national anthem...........

accompanied by a fly-over from the Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

The Vikings picked up a fumble on the opening kickoff and returned it for a touchdown. The first play from scrimmage after the next kickoff resulted in a fumble that the Vikes also recovered. They scored three plays later on this hand off to Adrian Peterson.

That made the score 14 - 0 only 1 minute and 40 seconds into the game.

Even in Florida, Vikings MUST dress for the cold weather.













When all is said and done, Vikings 30 and Jaguars 12 is a great way to spend an afternoon with good friends, watching your favorite team play.

Tallahassee, Florida 11-12-08

When fall weather hits Tallahassee, it's time to take the grandchildren to the fair. This was the first roller coaster ride for our youngest grandson, Dillan (red shirt), and he was a little apprehensive, to say the least!

This is our grandchildren's "close encounter" of the dinosaur type. Mike is on the left and Neil on the right.

Our "twins", Melina (Rosie) on the left and Emmie on the right.

Here is the oldest, Auburn, with the youngest, Dillan.

Mike, Auburn, Emmie and Melina all standing in line, eagerly awaiting the next ride.

Hopefully, this is not an indication of Melina and Emmie becoming "motorcycle mama's" in the future.

Dillan and Neil think they are hot stuff on this cycle.

Sometimes as a grandparent, you have to deal with the emotional impact of someone being rejected for a ride due to height restrictions, as Neil is dealing with here.

It is a Bergstrom family tradition to stuff your face with corn dogs at the annual trip to the fair.

Prior to leaving for home at the end of the evening, we MUST feed the animals.

Atlanta, Georgia 11-01-08

It's fall....and that can mean ONLY one thing to a red-blooded American male - COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!! Mike and I made our annual father/son football trip to Atlanta, Georgia for the FSU v. Georgia Tech football game. FSU was ranked 16th and looking to coast into the ACC championship game.

We arrived early in Atlanta and after some souvenir shopping and lunch, it was time to head for the stadium.











Our team came out fired up, but didn't play as well as expected. We found ourselves down by two touchdowns late in the second half.

The Seminoles fought valiantly and with this TD catch, were within 4 points of Tech. After an interception with less than 4 minutes to go, we drove down to the 3 yard line with 45 seconds to go, but fumbled on the 1 yard line with Tech recovering in the end zone. Which............

Touched off this Tech celebration at the end of the game. Of course, this made for a long trip home for me and Mike. This is the third year in a row that the Seminoles have lost when Mike and I made our annual away game road trip, and four of the last five. Maybe we could help out the team by not traveling to their games in the future!