The drive went relatively well, I did get a speeding ticket in Colorado while driving more than a mile high, the officer was nice but it was still a bummer. We made it New Mexico and that was far from exciting. They call it the "Land of Enchantment" but there was nothing enchanting about the landscape or the drive. One thing that I noticed was about every five to ten miles there was a road sign that said, "Don't Drink and Drive, Report DWI dial #394," these were everywhere! I think this is a clear sign of a local problem considering I saw two signs in Arizona, two in California, and none in Utah, Texas, or Nevada.
When we made it to El Paso we checked in the hotel to realize that it was in fact the hotel forGeorgia Tech. We were checking in amongst a sea of white, gold, and blue as the marching band was in the lobby. El Paso was a lot of fun and a neat place to visit. Saturday finally came after a rough night of sleep and it was game day! We headed to the stadium early and parked a fair distance away. The Sun Bowl Stadium wasn't huge but was fun. We had really good seats on the 8th row, 35-yard line, and right in the middle of the Georgia Tech fans. The Utes got off to a decent start and had a 10-7 lead at halftime but came out flat in the third quarter. They got beat 17-0 in that quarter and began the fourth trailing 24-10. The first few minutes of the fourth were uneventful until Utah turned it on. The rallied and had two beautiful and exciting late-game touchdowns to tie it up at 24-24. Georgia Tech had a chance to win it with a last second field goal attempt, and truth be told this was a dream because they had missed two previous attempts in the game, as before this one missed wide! A couple from Georgia thought that it went through the uprights and started to flip out, but we knew it was wide and flipped out even more. In overtime Georgia Tech did make a short field goal to take a 27-24 lead, but Utah would not be beat. On 3rd and 9 the "Wolfman" John White IV ran it up the middle and into the end zone for the game winning touchdown! We went crazy and stayed for the whole trophy ceremony and later ate wings to celebrate. This was New Year's Eve and being so tired and having an early start to a long day ahead we went to bed and slept soundly during the changing of the calendar.
On New Year's Day we hit the road at 4:00am and headed to Los Angeles. The road was a delight to Nathan and me because it was mostly through Arizona which is our home away from home and holds a dear place in the hearts of our family members. I was more than pleased to drive through Tucson and snap a photo or two. Nathan drove through Phoenix where we stopped to see an old friend of his and that was a lot of fun. We rolled into L.A. around 3:30 in the afternoon and it was warm, the thermometer read 88*F, it was only mid 60s in Texas. We stayed at the J.W. Marriott overlooking the Staples Center and wouldn't you know it, just like in El Paso it was the opponents hotel. Wisconsin logos were all over the lobby and everywhere we looked was a sea of red; we of course were rooting for Oregon to win the Rose Bowl as the representative from the PAC 12. We met up with my dad and little bother who flew into L.A. earlier that day and that night we had a delicious prime rib dinner at Lawry's and then toured the Tournament of Roses properties with our good friend Dennis Laursen who had procured us our tickets to the game and VIP passes to the Rose Bowl Parade in the morning.
The Rose Bowl Parade was both awesome and beautiful and was a pleasure to be at. After the parade we had a few hours and so we walked to the Rose Bowl Stadium and purchased some Oregon tailgating tickets along the way. Tailgating was fun, the food was good, and we even saw Bill Walton and boy was he tall! My little brother was even able to get a photo with one of Oregon's cheerleaders and he loved it, as he should. The game was fabulous and was full of offense, it was in fact the highest scoring Rose Bowl in history and was always close and almost always a one-score game. We were fortunate to be seated by a family from Oregon amongst a section of Badger fans and when Oregon finally won it was fun to celebrate and to see this family of die hards finally see a Rose Bowl victory for Eugene, OR.
The drive home was good and we had the pleasure of finishing The Hunger Games, which was a great book and very intense, I'm excited for the next two books. At the end of it all Nathan and I drove well over 2,600 miles and spent over 40 hours in my car, traveled across seven states, two time zones, two different years, all in five days. We were tired. It was a wonderful journey filled with good times, fun people, and great football!
Happy New Year!
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