In the faded light of a pewter dawn, the old girl is definitely showing her age. She's not an antique by any means, but at 53 she's clearly past her prime. And she looks even older compared with the young hottie that's moved next door. The one with undulating curves, the one that not only means to replace her, but steal her name as well.

But before Mile High Stadium is turned into twisted girders, broken glass, crushed concrete and memories, she still has at least one more Broncos game to host, still has one more day left in her battleship-gray body.

And what's a day in her life like?

Well, this, based on the Dec. 10 game between the Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks:

7:12 a.m. Armand Trujillo watches his breath turn into miniature cirrus clouds in the 18-degree morning. He is posted in front of one of the permit-only stadium parking lots.

"You'll see, people are gonna start driving up and asking if they can tailgate," he says. "I'm here to tell them they can't."

7:34 a.m. The corridors of the stadium are dark and frigid, like a refrigerator without a light bulb. Inside a beer kiosk, Nathan Kimple, a "draft technician" for Budweiser, hooks up one of the 300 kegs that will be available for the stadium's thirsty. Kimple isn't worried about the dark, he's worried about the cold.

"That last Monday night game against the Raiders, the lines froze up. We had to use hot water to thaw them. Friday feels colder."

8:09 a.m. Jose Palma, the head groundskeeper, is a merry 32-year-old who laughs a lot. He's not laughing now. He's wondering whether to lay the tarp over his 82,076 square feet of football field. Frozen needles of snow and ice are swirling, and the weather report is dropping hints about a lot more on the way. Palma, who has tended to the field for seven years, has been stung in the past by criticisms about its condition.

Several games ago, a TV announcer blasted the surface. "That was like a kick in the gut," he says. "My guys give up weekends and holidays to make the field playable. Then someone comes out dogging us when they don't know the full story."

He frowns and sighs. "Maybe it'll snow 2 inches Friday and cover the field and then no one will complain about the grass."

8:15 a.m. Gary Jones hopes not. He has worked at the stadium for 33 years, most recently as director of operations. He remembers the infamous Oct. 15, 1984, snowstorm game against the Green Bay Packers when, along with every other available body, he shoveled snow off the field between plays.

Arctic temperatures, conversely, don't bother Jones. "You don't have to shovel cold."

8:21 a.m. Jones and Jeff Mosgrove, the stadium's event coordinator, shovel away a small pond of slush and water that has collected outside Gate 9.

"Job titles don't mean much around here," says Jones as he heaves a shovelful of gunk. "Whatever it takes to get the stadium ready, we do it."

8:45 a.m. Angie McVicker has staked out her seat. The stadium won't be open for three-plus hours. But McVicker, one of 400 Jazzercise dancers who will perform at halftime, has laid a blanket on one of the metal bleacher seats set aside for the performers. Wedged deep in the southwest corner, the seats are the worst in the house. But they're free.

9:52 a.m. Bryan Vaden and Garland Crowell of Great Falls, Mont., have driven 782 miles in 12 hours to attend their first Broncos game. They arrived at 8:30, hoping to look around and take some pictures, only to find the gates don't open until noon.

"Luckily, the store was open so we went in and bought some souvenirs," says Vaden. They had discovered the Broncos Stadium Store, a separate building near Gate 5, which opens at 9 a.m., and where you can buy all manner of team paraphernalia, including a Bubby Brister helmet marked down to $400.

At least Vaden and Crowell will see the game. That's more than Carol Gibbons can say. A clerk in the store for 14 years, she has never witnessed a football game in the stadium. And she never will. "Kinda sad, huh?" she says.

10:01 a.m. Dave Rathjen and his two sons, T.J. and Scott, sit near their maroon GMC Ranger pickup drinking cans of cold beer, getting ready to fire up the grill for bratwursts. As they do a couple of times a season, they have made the 500-mile drive from Shelby, Neb., to watch the Broncos, a team they began to love when they lived in Colorado.

Once, when T.J. was 6, Dave tried to sneak him into the stadium at night so he could try to kick a field goal. Didn't work, so they went to the team's old practice field and snuck in there.

"We'll be back in the spring for our seats," says T.J. The stadium seats are being sold for $195 a pair.

"We bought six, four blue and two orange," says Dave proudly. "Wanna beer?"

10:21 a.m. It is toasty and warm in the lobby of the Penthouse Suites where the well-heeled walk past Frederick Remington bronzes before taking the elevator to the top of the stadium to watch the game from altitudinous rooms that cost between $50,000 and $80,000 a season.

It is even warmer and toastier in one of the penthouse kitchens, where Epicurean Catering chefs Jerry Beatty ("like Warren") and Sean Reed are preparing roast sirloin with scalloped potatoes.

"We got a great view of the field from here," says Beatty. "Look."

And he didn't pay 50 grand.

10:46 a.m. Deep inside a windowless room in the basement, the Denver Broncos cheerleaders warm up under the watchful eye of Teresa Schroeder, their director. Schroeder, a former cheerleader, is none too happy about the cold weather. Her charges probably will have to wear their ski outfits in the second half.

"They're pretty cute, but they're hard to dance in," she says. More to her liking are the blue spandex pants and white leather chaps and jackets with fringe the women will wear in the first half. "They'll also be wearing about 10 layers of clothes underneath."

11:05 a.m. Up in the scoreboard control room, Gary Tischer and Dave McWilliams get things ready. Tischer, who hasn't missed a game in 26 years, was once awarded a game ball by the Broncos because his scoreboard messages had so incited the crowd to make noise, the team won the game. Not that everything is always so copacetic with the team.

Earlier this year, McWilliams dutifully flashed one of the personal messages that cost $50 for 15 seconds. The ad had been approved by the city, but the Broncos took sharp exception to having the message read, "Happy 60th Birthday, You Old Fart."

"You aren't going to print that, are you?" asks McWilliams.

11:19 a.m. Outside, in section 109, it's orientation time for the ticket takers, ushers and security people who work for Contemporary Service Co. Outfitted in bright yellow Event Staff jackets, they listen intently to the news that, because the weather is cold, people will probably be even more intent on smuggling in liquor.

11:43 a.m. Rusty Anderson, one of four people in charge of security for the Broncos, walks toward the team locker room under the south stands. Anderson has been at this job for 17 years, and while most of his days are pretty ordinary, there have been, hmmm, moments.

Like the time after one game when John Elway was trying to drive away. A particularly persistent fan — "who must have weighed 350 pounds, was drunk and had a trumpet" — wanted an autograph. He wanted an autograph so much he jumped on the trunk of Elway's car as the startled quarterback was driving away.

"John's eyes got this big," laughs Anderson, who remembers the fan alternately shouting and blowing his horn. Anderson finally managed to grab hold of the guy's trumpet and yank him off the car.

11:57 a.m. Gail Stuckey waits patiently on the field for the referee to show up so he can test the PA system and the game clock.

Stuckey has been the Broncos' stadium operations manager for seven years. Before that, he spent 18 years as the team's ticket manager. Aside from Gary Jones, no one knows the 780,000 square feet of Mile High Stadium like Stuckey, a puckish sort whose blue eyes maintain their preternatural twinkle despite the fact that he arrived for work at 5:45 a.m.

Stuckey looks up at the ominous sky. "We call three different weather services on a game day. Jose calls one, Gary calls another and I call the groundskeeper at Dove Valley (the Broncos' practice facility.) Then we take a consensus." Stuckey pauses. "And, normally, none of the three are right."

12:00 p.m. The gates open to fans who, presumably, are being efficiently patted down for alcohol.

12:09 p.m. Craig Oswald, the director of maintenance, is about to turn on the 432 halide field lights.

But before he presses the buttons to start the lights Oswald concedes his thoughts are on danker concepts.

"If it keeps getting colder, we may have to antifreeze the bathroom stools," he says, alluding to the 463 toilets in the stadium.

Come again?

"They can freeze up," he says. "It's not like the stadium is heated. We have to flush them all, then put a cup of environmentally safe antifreeze in them."

12:08 p.m. The stadium lights are aglow. Above them, the colorless sky takes on a surreal cast.

12:36 p.m. The press box is wall-to-wall with media people, schmoozing, ready to consume a lunch of chili, hot dogs, bratwurst, chicken, mashed potatoes, salad and green beans.

Dave Logan, the Broncos' radio play-by-play man and a former professional football player, sits at a table. He remembers playing here with the Cleveland Browns when the crowd was so loud "we literally could not hear in the huddle. I had to read the quarterback's lips to figure out what the play was."

Dick Enberg, one of the most recognizable voices in broadcasting, sits nearby. He will call the game for CBS from the booth in Mile High.

"There's no stadium I know of that shakes the way this one does," he says. "Boy, when the crowd gets going, you can feel it in the booth. It looks like the camera has a tic."

He watches the crowd starting to file in.

"There's something special about a stadium hours before the game," he says. "You go from zero people to 76,000 people; it's like a watching a flower starting to blossom."

1:15 p.m. Down in the corridor that rings the first level, the stadium feels less like an unfurling flower and more like downtown Bombay during rush hour. An armada of people wrapped in jerseys, hats, insulated jumpsuits, parkas, blankets, gloves, earmuffs and furs from luckless animals plods painstakingly.

Most are preoccupied with finding their seats, but some heed the call of Daryl Trujillo, who, from behind the counter of Franks A Lot, barks out, "Get your energy food — nachos!"

1:31 p.m. Inside the white, blue and gray cinder block bunker that is the Stadium Emergency Action Team room, Sgt. Marcus Fontaine and Detective Bob "T-Bar" Tabares are reminiscing. They are two of the approximately 80 off-duty police officers who will try to keep order.

Friday, their job will be easy, if only because the Oakland Raiders aren't playing.

"We average about four or five fights a game," says Fontaine. "Except when the Raiders are here. Then it's more like 70."

2:05 p.m. The Broncos kick off and the crowd creates a tsunami of sound that rattles molars and concusses eardrums. Thousands of flashes from cameras erupt strobe-like all over the stadium as fans seek a Kodak moment.

2:19 p.m. It is 15 degrees on the field, but there is no sign of snow.

"I prayed to Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Jehovah — you name it," says Palma, smiling as he sits in the ground crew's cramped lunchroom. "Just don't let it snow."

2:35 p.m. The Broncos score their first touchdown. More eardrums tremble in fear.

2:36 p.m. Thunder, the team's equine mascot, makes his traditional post-TD celebratory gallop across the field. His rider, Ann Judge-Wegener, waves to the crowd.

As soon as Thunder is resting at the back of the south end zone, his owner, businesswoman and philanthropist Sharon Magness, hustles up and drapes two blue and white blankets over him. Nobody drapes a blanket over Judge-Wegener.

2:45 p.m. Palma looks out at the field. "We have to watch the field for any big divots — especially after the horse runs out."

2:57 p.m. Broncos defensive back Jimmy Spencer intercepts a pass and returns it 79 yards for a touchdown. The line for the men's room near Section 104 — 30 deep, for the record — erupts in cheers. Strangers high-five each other.

Nearby, oblivious to the excitement, a member of the custodial staff diligently sweeps the corridor floor. A stranger congratulates him on his work ethic and asks his name.

"No English," he replies.

3:24 p.m. There is an Everestlike feel to Allen Taffet's seats, which happen to be located in Section 544, Row 16. This is as high as you can go in the stadium without climbing the light towers.

"We call it mile-and-a-half-high stadium," jokes Taffet, who splits four seats with his business partner. "You can see Kansas from here. Actually, the view of the field is great. You can see all the pass plays developing."

A penthouse view without the penthouse.

3:30 p.m. Much closer to Earth, the Stadium Club is filling up for lunch as halftime approaches. About 600 people will help themselves to the sirloin, chicken and blintzes, to say nothing of a heating system. Such warmth and victuals do not come cheaply, however. To join the club you must be a season ticket holder. Then you have to ante up $1,100 for the initiation fee. Then you have to pay $500 in annual dues. No one is complaining.

3:33 p.m. The Barrel Man makes his way along the loge level, seeking the private box of United Airlines. The bare skin around his back and shoulders looks as if it will start cracking at any second.

"To tell you the truth, the wind Friday is a little bit hard to handle," he says.

A man emerges from a private box with a camera. "Barrel Man, you are the man!" he shouts. "Can I take your picture?"

3:42 p.m. The temperature inside the stadium is 15 degrees. The wind chill is minus 3.

4:10 p.m. Thunder, swathed in blankets, stands forlornly on the sideline. Judge-Wegener, sitting atop him, looks pretty uncomfortable herself.

4:25 p.m. The Broncos cheerleaders prepare to do their big fourth quarter routine for the crowd in the south stands. Proving they are no sissies, they have not changed into their ski outfits.

4:28 p.m. Field security men John and Mark Mills bust a fan trying to leave the stadium with a chunk of plastic bleachers from the south stands.

"He stuffed it down his overalls. Here, look, Section DD, row 50, seats 25 and 26," says John. "He had a tool to undo the bolts.

"I guess we'll have to change the announcement before the game to 'No cans, no bottles, no tools,"' says Mark.

5:09 p.m. Broncos 31, Seahawks, 24.

5:46 p.m. The custodial crew starts picking up the post-game detritus in the seats: pizza boxes, newspapers, tamale skins, pretzel wrappers, peanut shells, nachos on plastic trays, soft-drink cups and — the best efforts of the ticket takers notwithstanding — an assortment of empty schnapps, whiskey and beer bottles.

6:39 p.m. Stuckey sits in his office, eyes twinkling, taking slow sips from a can of Coors Light. He and most of his crew will stay until 9, tending to loose ends.

6:43 p.m. A soft drizzle of snow begins to fall, lit to incandescence by 432 halide lights.

7:01 p.m. The old girl doesn't look so old. Tired, yes, but then she's had a long day. Somehow, the ordeal seems to have energized her. For now, rising out of the dark, wreathed in shadows, wearing the incandescent snow like a tiara, she looks strangely regal. A dowager queen still proud, still presiding in the waning days of her reign.