On Friday K called and said he had just found out that Notre Dame was playing at the Rose Bowl against UCLA the next day. His Mom told him he should try to get tickets if he could. He called and there were "plenty" of seats left, he found out, so he bought two for us.
My Dad is a big Notre Dame fan (don't ask me why, but I grew up to his singing of the ND Fight Song), so I told him we were going. He laughed. The team was so bad this year that it took them about 3 games to score an offensive touchdown! They hadn't won a game, and it was their worst season in I don't know how many years. It doesn't help that they play such tough teams, but that's the way it is.
Anyway, if you're a fan, you don't just go to games you think they'll WIN (see last year's game against USC in November.)So my Dad laughed and told me to have a good time anyway.
The Rose Bowl is not that far from us, and we knew at least there would be places to park w/out getting towed!
On Sat, however, I started to doubt the wisdom of going to the game and spending so much money only to get teased by fans of the other team. But I told myself we'd have fun, and we left about 1 hour before game time.
When we got off the highway, we followed the traffic into a residential street that wound it's way to the Rose Bowl. There was a lot of traffic, and it was slow going. Finally we got close, and it was only $10 to park! Yay! Well, after we paid, we followed the path as instructed, and we were being parked on the golf course! Near a sand trap! We went ahead and parked, and tried to look for markers so that we could find our way back. We were parked near a sidewalk, but other than that, there was only a large 8 floating in the air in the general vicinity of our car. I called it "The Ocho." (like in Dodgeball)
We started to walk as fast as we could, but it was about 20 minutes before we even saw the stadium! We missed the kickoff, but only a few minutes of the game.
I'd been to the Rose Bowl before, but not for a game. The colors were impressive, and it was fun seeing the blimp float by. We had seats pretty close to the field (row 13) in the end zone. It was mixed crowd, with mostly ND fans in end zones, but plenty of UCLA fans mixed in. The sides were almost completely blue with UCLA fans. We were sitting right in front of the ND cheerleaders, which was pretty fun, too.
The food was too expensive, though. A kabab with rice cost $10, a soda $4.25, and a water $3.50! I decided to wait and hopefully get nachos and a margarita after the game.
The game started pretty much as expected - UCLA scored first, with a field goal. By halfway through the 3rd quarter, they were tied 6-6 with 2 field goals each. I was pretty happy, as ND wasn't getting creamed, so I even called my Dad to give him the good news. It was so tight that one of ND's kicks actually was low and hit the goal - but luckily bounced the right way - into the goal.
After that, though, the improbable began to happen. ND was able to intercept a pass and pick up a fumble, and next thing you know they acctually scored a touchdown! It was 13-6! Then, somehow they actually scored again! UCLA only had about 5 minutes left, which is a lot of time in football - but luckily ND held them off!
On of the best moments, though, was after a rumor started going around that Stanford was beating USC with about 1 minute left. A few minutes later, they flashed the final score on the big screen, and the whole staduim cheered USC's loss together. It was the one thing both team's fans could agree on. The whole staduim was unanimously happy for a few minutes.
After awhile, though, time started to run out. ND was doing their best to use up clock time, and finally seconds ticked toward the end of the game. ND ran onto the field, and then over to our section to celebrate. The team was jumping up and down and yelling along with the fans. Some players even started throwing arm bands and things into the crowd. We were all so happy together, and that was honestly one of the best times I've ever had. There was just so much joy from the fans and team!
I'd just bought a little gadget for my camera, and I had fun taking lots of pictures of everything. Eventually we started the walk back to our car. We headed in the direction of the Ocho, and we were VERY lucky we even had that marker! It was a REALLY long walk back, and luckily we were able to find our car because it was near a walkway. Then it took about an hour to get out of the parking area. I'm not kidding! We saw an older couple standing and looking for their car, and I felt bad for them. Another time a group of guys came running in front of us, shouting "Victory!" because they'd found their car.
On the way home we stopped at a local Mexican restaurant. We had wondered if they would still be open at 10:30, but it was still going strong. The street was closed for an Octoberfest celebration, so we parked in the back. We ordered Margaritas and nachos and ate chips and toppings to our heart's content.
When we finally got home, it wasn't that late (11:30?), but we were exhausted. That walk really did us in! Our legs were dead tired, and for some reason the next day our shoulders hurt!
Maybe I'm getting too old to have this much fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment