If you listen to the weekly SD Sports Scene podcast, you will more than likely hear me complain about the weather almost once a show. But what if I told you that I voluntarily drove 8 hours to go to the fourth coldest game in NFL history?

Here is a recount of that experience:

It’s NFL Playoff football, and the playoff bracket just got released. I just got back to Aberdeen from spending Winter break back home in California and had been in Aberdeen for less than a week.

It’s Friday night and I remember looking on Instagram and seeing a post about $40 game tickets to the Chiefs-Dolphins game in Kansas City because of the record cold temperatures. I showed it to my roommate Wyatt Block and said half jokingly “What if we went?”

To which he gave me a look and said “I’m down if you’re down,” so we looked into it a little more. I filled in our other two roommates Clayton Randall II and Nathan Olmes. Nathan was in from the get go, but unfortunately, Clayton wasn’t able to go because of prior plans.

After doing some research and planning, we found field level tickets for $100 each, and totaled the entire trip out to be about $300 per person, which included a rough estimate for gas, tickets, parking, and a sketchy hotel for the night.

The only problem we had was we weren’t sure if either one of our cars were going to make the eight-hour trip driving through a literal frozen tundra. And the only one who had a car reliable enough to make it was Clayton, who wasn’t going to be able to go.

We went to bed with little hopes that we were going to be able to go, but we looked at it as a sign that if it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be.

Wyatt, Nathan, and I had woken up early to make the final decision of whether to go or not and put our cars through a huge test. As we were talking about it, Clayton came up to us and handed us his keys and said that we could take his car. At that moment, we got as many layers as we could, packed the car and left for the eight-hour road trip.

Our first stop was actually at our locker room in the Barnett Center. Both Wyatt and I had ski masks, and layers that we use on the field that we thought we would put on first to help prepare us for the cold. We ran into a couple coaches who were very curious about why we were grabbing that. Once we told them what we were doing, we got some crazy looks, and then they wished us a safe trip and a good time.

We made a stop in Sioux Falls to fill up on gas, grab food, and get hand warmers, toe warmers, and basically anything that we could find to help keep us warm. We hit the road and made another stop to fill up on gas one last time and eat dinner before the game. If I remember correctly, I had eight total layers on. I felt like the Michelin Tire Man.

We finally made it to Kansas City on time, but the line to get in the parking lot was all the way out to the freeway. We made our way to our seats about halfway through the second quarter, and Arrowhead was filled to the brim with fans despite the temperature being -4°, with a wind chill of -20°.

It was all Kansas City as the Dolphins always struggled to perform in cold weather, especially in one of the top five coldest games in NFL history. The Chiefs advanced to the divisional round after defeating the Dolphins 26-7, and we got to witness the fourth coldest game in history, as well as the infamous “Swag Surfin” that was played as the game was nearing the end.

We took our pictures to show proof that we survived the game and exited the stadium just absolutely electric that we just pulled off this trip. We made our way to the cheapest hotel we could find, and it happened to be a little closer to Aberdeen which made our trip the following morning a little shorter.

We probably should’ve looked at the reviews of this hotel before we booked it, but being two college students and a missionary at the Newman Center, we were balling on a budget and chose the cheapest option.

There were two beds as promised, and I had brought my air mattress to sleep on, so that was all we really needed. However, I didn’t realize my air mattress had a huge hole in it, so it deflated almost immediately after laying on it. So, I grabbed all the extra blankets and towels from the bathroom and made that my bed for the night.

We woke up early, and hopped back on I-29 all the way until Summit, turned left and made it back to Aberdeen.

Considering that I am writing this with all ten fingers and toes, the trip was 100% worth it.

If the opportunity presented itself again, I wouldn’t hesitate. By the way, the final temperature of the game was -9°, with a feels like -28°.

My buddies agreed that the trip was well worth the adventure.

“Oh 100 percent. I think we netted like $300 for that. It was worth it for the price, and it being a historically cold game,” said Block. “Especially considering we were watching one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time (Patrick Mahomes), Travis Kelce, and one of the highest-powered offenses of that year.”

Olmes also said the once-in-a-lifetime experience was well worth it.

“Oh, dude absolutely. Holy smokes. I would run it back easily. That was totally worth it. No legit, that was one of the coolest things I have ever done,” Olmes said. “Spontaneously taking a trip down to Kansas City. And not to mention it was my first NFL game ever.”