During our First Anniversary trip to Gatlinburg a couple weekends ago, I got my wife tickets to the Alabama Mississippi State football game. This would be the first time either of us had been to a college football game.
Now, I am not a big football fan at all. But, my wife is into it, and since I love her, I thought it would be a good gift. Well, she was excited about getting the tickets and had no idea I had gotten them.
Saturday came. We had my parents baby sit Brayden and Shayla went across the street to spend the night with some friends. We headed out around 1:30 PM and made it to Tuscaloosa in a little over 2 hours. Not bad, considering Google maps told me it would take almost 3 hours. We had no problems whatsoever. Well, save the fact that my GPS told us a LoneStar steakhouse was located at our exit which we were both looking forward to eating at. However it did not exist.
We settled for Arby's and crammed our faces with Roast Beef sandwiches as we drove to the free parking lot Bone wanted us to meet him and his sister at. We found that with no problem and waited a few minutes until they arrived.
We began our 20 minute walk to "the area". The weather was a little chilly at this point.
One thing that amazed me was all the RVs lined up side by side... packing parking lots. Each one had their satellite dishes out and their 40" Flat Panel TVs on the side, surrounded by semi circle of chairs with a BBQ grill in the middle and lots of coolers all around. I guess this is what they call "tail gating" and wasn't quite what I had envisioned with that phrase.
I guess I've always seen big stadiums with big parking lots and you know, parking places with people on their trucks with their tailgates down and what not. This was completely different.
We walked around for a while and then headed over to the stadium to find our seats. Of course, our tickets were on the very very top of the stadium. We hiked around these giant sprial walkways up up up and up. Finally we arrived at the very last exit and walked out onto the concourse. We were greeted by vendors who were selling things like a 20oz coke for $4.50... the same thing would be $1.25 at the store. Jawana wanted a funnel cake so we finally found those and it was like $3 and surprise, COLD and mushy. We ate it anyway, and got in line for hot chocolate. When we got to the window the guy was like "we're out of hot chocolate", after we had waited about 15 minutes in line. Not happy. Oh, and the temperature by this point was dropping rapidly.
We took our seats about 6:30 and tried to find Bone on the other side of the stadium. She found him with the binoculars. Not sure if they could see us or not.
The game got off to a slow start but picked up in the second half. We left with about 7 minutes to go in the 4th quarter. [ I would write about the game, but since I don't know anything about football, I don't have anything to write, other than we froze].
We hurried to the car and followed the police directions to get out of the area. No problem. We got in the interstate where we heard on the radio there had been a wreck and to be ready for delays. By this point it was 10 PM. We hit the jam. We got home 1:30AM. We were both exhausted.
Overall it was a very long day but it was fun, even if it was freezing. I was glad that I could take my wife to an event which she had always wanted to go to. Next time, we'll have to go a little earlier in the season when it's not so cold... or get tickets to sit inside those rooms with the glass fronts and comfy seats.
One thing that amazed me was, a lot of the people in RVs didn't even go to the game, they watched the game in the parking lot on their TVs.... Umm... that made no sense to me. You drive this big vehicle miles and miles, getting like 5 mpg and you don't even go in to see the game live?
I'll tell you what some people take this way to seriously.
Just imagine what people could accomplish if they would put as much effort into their lives, learning, working, seeking new things... as they put into college sports.... the level of accomplishment would be amazing.
At the alabama game.
Originally uploaded by java boo boo
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