Road Trip

Earlier this year, Randy and I decided we were going to fly back to Athens to see a UGA football game in Sanford Stadium. Those plans were all fine and good until I got pregnant. So what was the alternate plan? Let's drive to Stillwater, OK to see our Bulldawgs play in person. Better than nothing, right? Sure! I'm a good sport and who can't handle a 10 hour drive when they're 32 weeks pregnant? Well well well...we left at 2pm on Friday and got home Sunday at 11pm. In case you don't want to do the math, we logged 1400 miles in a 57 hour time span. Yep, we are dedicated fans. We made it to Ponca City, OK the first night (no, we had never heard of it either but there is a Fairfield Inn there with a great staff in case you're ever in the area), drove an hour into Stillwater on Saturday morning, walked around campus and watched the game, drove another 1 1/2 hours to Tulsa Saturday night, met some friends for breakfast on Sunday morning, and then got back in the car to head west again.

And though we didn't win on Saturday, we really had a great trip. Randy loves to drive and we always have the best conversations and most fun when we're stuck in the car together for hours at a time. Randy likes to play this game where you have to name the first line of the song on the radio before the lyrics start. We didn't keep score but if we had, it would have been roughly 20-1...in his favor. He's just so good at music and lyrics (whereas I'm lucky if I get the words of the chorus correct) which is fun until he started singing some Neil Diamond song called Cracklin' Rose or something like that. (Thanks to Marvin for that influence. Side note: Randy does know other music too in case I've caused you to doubt his coolness.)

Also, I must give props to Oklahoma State fans. They are by far the nicest fans we've experienced. I had women let me cut in front of them in the bathroom line and I was given a free comfy seat for the game. Admittedly, the 8-month-pregnant sympathy factor did help!
We had fans wish us luck in the rest of the season and tell us how much they respect Mark Richt. The people we were sitting around said "Good game" and "Have a safe trip home" as we left the stadium. The most haggling we got was due to the extremely warm weather....like "Hey did you bring this humidity with you from Georgia?!?! Hahahaha" (To which we responded, "No, we definitely left that behind when we moved to Colorado.") They were all beyond kind to us Georgia fans sitting amidst their sea of orange. And yes, we were wearing red and black and cheering at the top of our lungs for our boys. (The only thing that wasn't cool were some of the Tshirts we saw that said "Beat 'em like Vick" but I highly doubt they were OSU-sponsored....more like the ingenuity of some fraternity guys.) Even Mike Gundy and the commentators of the post-game radio show spent most of the time complimenting our team and our coach. Classy folks in Stillwater. (Apparently the fans in Norman aren't quite the same...so we hear.)

Baby Everette's first UGA game

The post-game prayer led by Mark Richt (yet another reason I love him).



(And though these people are wearing trash-talking shirts, they are the ones that gave me a free, cushioned, back-supporting chair for the duration of the game so God bless them!)

So would I do it all over again? Even with the ankles the size of softballs from sitting in the car for so long? (Sorry, Kathryn, I started my ankle pumps too late. I could have used your skills Sunday night when we got home!)

In a heartbeat. It was my first non-television watching UGA game since 2003 and definitely worth every moment!