Blackout Bowl! (The Big Day!) Part Two

Now we're close to game time!  Here come the Ravens!

Now the 49ers take the field!

Jennifer Hudson and the kids from the Sandy Hook Elementary School perform "America the Beautiful".   This was extremely touching and brought tears to your eyes!  It's amazing how much these children have been through, yet they're in front of the world to sing.

We had the National Anthem performed by Alicia Keys, but it doesn't appear we got any pictures!
Next comes the coin toss! 

Then the game finally gets underway!

Here's a cool panoramic shot I took with Wanda in the picture-

The game started out well, with the 49ers getting a great play down to almost mid field.  However, it was called back and I think it killed their momentum and they couldn't make much progress on the field from there.  The Ravens possession got them into the end zone, putting them up 7-0.  The 49ers kicked a field goal to make it 7-3.  Then the game started falling apart for the 49ers.  A fumble later on killed a great drive they were having.  With the Ravens finishing the half up 21-6, the game looked like a blowout.  One thing I noticed that surprised me was we had a good mix of Ravens and 49er's fans around us and they were very civil towards one another!  It was funny watching the rivalry between an older Caucasian woman that was a 49ers fan sitting next to a younger gentleman of Asian heritage rooting for the Ravens.  It was so friendly between the two and they delighted in pointing out to the other when their team made a great play!  It's terrific when fans from two completely different backgrounds can get along so well! 
Next was the big half time show!  Here's what it looked like as they were setting the stage up-

Each person in the dome was given a pair of small flashlights to wear on the fingers of one hand.  They weren't supposed to be turned on until two certain songs were played, but everybody activated them anyways!  It still was a very cool effect!

Another panoramic picture I took made it look even cooler!

Here's some shots from the show-

I'm not really a Beyonce fan, so the show didn't really appeal to me, but it was still a great experience to be there in person and see the show!

The game got back underway, with the Ravens about to receive the second half kickoff.  I thought this was the time where the 49ers could reclaim the game and make things interesting by stopping the Ravens at this point.  Instead, the Ravens return the kickoff for a touchdown!  To me, the game seemed like it was over.  No team in Super Bowl history had ever came back from this kind of deficit.  I could see the Ravens racking up the score from here on out and the game would be a Super Blowout!  Nobody would have ever guessed what would happen next...
The 49ers had the ball when all of a sudden some of the lights start going out in the stadium and the scoreboards went off!  The field itself looked almost dark!  This was the scene-

Play had stopped!  We communicated with friends and family on Facebook and found the Superdome had suffered a partial power outage!  We didn't realize the extent of it, but heard later that areas, like restrooms and concessions were dark!  It was hard to believe what was going on!  We all started making jokes in the stands, like "Beyonce shorted out the power with her hair dryer" or "They spent so much on the dome renovations, they couldn't pay the electric bill"!  After around 40 minutes, play got back underway.  The game then started turning completely around!  The 49ers were playing with a passion and the Ravens didn't seem like they could get their act back together!  All of a sudden, the 49ers were right back in the game!  The 49ers had the ball with two minutes in the game and right down in the Red Zone!  They had four plays to score a touchdown!  Everybody was at the edge of their seats not knowing what would happen!  The 49ers wound up not scoring, but had one last chance after the Ravens couldn't move the ball down.  A very rare Super Bowl safety gave the 49ers two more points.  There was only time for one more play, with the 49ers ready to receive the punt!  Four seconds to go!

The 49ers tried to run the kick down the field, but didn't make it!  The Ravens win, with the final score 34 to 31!  Then the celebrations started!

Unfortunately, we couldn't stick around to see the post game events, since our bus was leaving an hour after the game was over and we wanted to be sure we made the bus on time.  We went back to the hotel, got everything packed up, then went to bed.
We got up the next morning, had a great breakfast at the City Diner with our friends Leah and Patrick!  Then we went on to the airport for our flight back.

(Our flight to Houston is on the lower left, at the very bottom).
We made it back home with no problems!  It was really late, but I had took the next day off from work to allow us to rest for a bit!  We picked up the girls later that day, who missed us alot! (Or so we hoped :)  They loved the souvenirs we brought back!
Thus ends a trip that we'll remember forever!   It was something we never thought possible!  We are thankful to Frito Lay and Pepsi who provided the trip for us, Annie Cummins of Genesco Sports Enterprises, Inc. who was a big help in getting everything together for the trip, and all of our friends who helped us out in various ways!  We'd like to make another Superbowl some time (but maybe not next year in the open aired stadium in New Jersey!)