We were up early on Friday morning since the game was that night and we wanted to get to Atlanta in time to do some tailgating. The McGuires rode with us in Jared's truck, while Matt Davenport and Christian Shenk followed us in Michael Boden's truck. The 5.5 hour drive to Atlanta was pretty painless. In the middle of our drive, the boys came up with the idea that we should get Chick-fil-A party platters for our tailgate, since we were going to the Chick-fil-A Bowl and everything. Cheesy I know, but I really love Chick-fil-A so I thought this was a wonderful idea. We managed to locate a Chick-fil-A right off the interstate in South Atlanta (what did we ever do before iPhones), and we called ahead to place our order.
Once we arrived in Atlanta, we picked up our Chick-fil-A, as well as some beer and champagne at the sketchy gas station. I think that iPhones need to have an app where you type in an address and when it finds the location on the map, it will pop up a little warning notification if the address is in a sketchy area. I mean, I just like to be prepared.
We stopped by our hotel for a quick check in and we were on our way to the Georgia Dome. We found the lot for our parking pass and apparently all the other Kappa Sigs from FSU just so happened to have the same parking passes, convenient. We set up our tailgate and Christina and I immediately got out our brandy slush which had been melting in the cooler for the last 6 hours.
We enjoyed some delicious Chick-fil-A in honor of our bowl game :)
Perhaps the most exciting part of our tailgate for me was unexpectedly running into so many Phi Mu loves that I never get to see!
After a few hours of tailgating, it was finally time for us to make our way to the game.
Our seats were up super high, but we still had a great view of the field. This was my first football game in a domed stadium and it was awesome because it was really cold outside, but nice and warm inside the dome. We were sitting in the FSU section, but a few South Carolina fans still managed to sneak in. In the end, I think this proved to be more painful for them, than for us :)
All the FSU fans sitting around us were really cool; however, the South Carolina fans were not. Maybe they were just upset because they were getting beat, but they were not pleasant human beings. At one end of our block of seats (we had 12 seats total), Austin and Boden were having problems with some South Carolina fans being rude to them. However, I am sure that Austin and Boden wouldn't have dared do anything that might have provoked or pissed off those USC fans, even though they probably deserved it :)
At my end of the block of seats, everything was fine until a little beer spilling mishap in the heat of the moment. Something happened in the game (now I can't even remember what it was) that was good for FSU and so Mark, Matt, Christina and I stand up to cheer and hug, and Mark accidentally hits Matt's beer in the process of their cheering and the beer goes flying into the air. I was on one side of Matt and Mark was on the other, so we fell victim to the beer along with the South Carolina fans in front of us. The beer only got on my jeans and I was so excited about the game that I didn't care. However, the USC fans in front of us were beyond angry. They turned around and started yelling at Matt and Mark. The boys apologized and offered to buy the USC fans something to drink or eat, but the people were just rude and wouldn't accept their apology. They proclaimed that we were just a bunch of amateur rednecks and whined about us for the rest of the game. We had a good laugh about this and continued to enjoy the game. Our goal for the remainder of the weekend was to graduate from amateur and become professional rednecks :)
Our Noles played a great game and pulled out the victory with a final score of 26-17. We had a great time at the game and after the game we were ready to head back to our tailgate to celebrate our win as well as ring in the New Year.
This year was probably one of the best New Year's Eves I've ever had, and to think that I rang in the New Year in a parking lot. After the game, we went back to our tailgate and got our champagne ready for the New Year celebration. We got out of the game around 11:15, meaning we didn't have time to make it anywhere else before midnight. So we opted for Andre in solo cups in the parking lot, classy.
New Year's Eve ended back at our hotel with pizza in our room; we were exhausted. The next morning, we got up and headed to Taco Mac for some lunch and to watch the New Year's Day bowl games. Rick joined us for lunch and we enjoyed the wide variety of beers at Taco Mac for a few hours. Finally, it was time to head back to Jacksonville. We made it all the way to Macon on the interstate before the real adventure began. Of course, we had to stop at the Bass Pro Shop in Macon...heaven forbid you drive past a Bass Pro on a road trip and not stop at it, that would be sinful. So the boys bought Christina and I some gummy worms to shut us up and we wasted some time in Bass Pro.
At this point, we discovered that all the South bound lanes on I-75 were completely blocked due to a big accident and the traffic was dead stopped. So Jared mapped us out a new route home on his iPhone, via the backroads of Georgia. We embarked on our little journey through the middle of nowhere in the dark and the rain. For about 3 hours of the drive, we had no cell phone service and there was literally nothing and nobody around. Every now and then we would pass though a town with one flashing light and a Piggly Wiggly. Plus, Mark and Jared made us listen to football on sports radio with bad reception for the entire drive, which was terrible. Finally, we made it to Waycross and I was so excited to actually recognize the name of the town we were driving through. I had never been more excited to get home than I was at the end of that drive.
Overall, we had a wonderful weekend at the Chick-fil-A Bowl! Now that football season is coming to an end, I guess we'll have to take up some other hobbies until September rolls around again. This was a great way to kick off the New Year and I can only hope that the rest of 2011 is just as amazing!
Happy New Year and Go Noles!
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