Friends With Connections Pays Off!!

"Got my ticket!!"

After the Ducks blew out FSU in the Rose Bowl, I got a text from an old friend from high school saying she had connections to free tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to go!  With about 3 days notice I was on a plane headed to Dallas for 5 days!  Our flights got in late Friday night and by the time we found our way to our hotel (a feat in and of itself) grabbed something to eat and got settled into our hotel it was 4:30 a.m. so we slept in the first day before heading over to check out the stadium.

We were excited to see that the Cowboy's Pro Shop had turned into Duck/Buckeye country and we did a little shopping getting matching shirts...I can't believe we never got a picture with us wearing them.

Did I mention she was an Ohio State fan??  It was a lot of fun being around town together and all the comments we got as we each sported our fan gear.

The entire town had football fever!

It took us FOREVER but we finally found the hotel in down town Dallas that we had heard about that was in on the action too..

 One of the evenings we headed back to downtown Dallas to check out The Grassy Knoll where JFK was assassinated.  We didn't realize that the museum closed so early, so we didn't have time to take a tour, but walked around outside and read all the plaques instead.

Our second night while hanging out at our hotel (The Westin, so not a crappy hotel by any means!)  Brenda thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye, but we thought nothing of it...until the next morning when we noticed that "something" had chewed holes in all the creams and sugars in the coffee station in our room!  We called the front desk and asked for a manager to come up immediately.  The on duty manager came right up, switched us to a different room a few floors higher, and gave us vouchers to eat all of our breakfasts in the hotel restaurant.  While we were down eating we were approached by another manager who was called in on his day off to deal with "our situation," who said he left this note under our door before he realized we were down stairs eating...

A minor inconvenience to get a limo to take us to the game and breakfast on the house each day... so I thought, until I found this the morning we packed up to leave... 

 ...our "visitor" had found the piece of candy I left in my Columbia Oregon Duck fleece pocket and chewed a hole in it to get to the candy!  Oooo did that piss me off!  I had the fleece draped over the chair next to all the coffee stuff he snacked on but only brought it to wear on the plane, so I didn't notice until way later.

 The night before the big game ESPN was filming "Countdown to Kick Off" from Sundance Square in down town Fort Worth...we found the set and hung out for the taping!  It was so fun to be there and be part of it all since neither of us have been to a College Game Day taping.

Now you get to play the Brenda and Nicole version of "Where's Waldo" to find us in the crowd.  This was when we first got there, but eventually we made our way up to the front row along the fence right in the middle.  Do you see us?  Still makes me mad that I didn't think to bring my Oregon beanie to wear, especially since it was soooo cold there!

Here we are if you needed a little help!  (These were pictures we got on their FaceBook page)  Brenda is the one with the stripped Ohio State beanie and I have a purple jacket on.

It was a lot of fun but us Ducks were DEFINITELY outnumbered!  There were only a small handful of us for some reason, which made the cheering a little difficult during the taping.  We made it on TV though a couple of times!  I got a picture texted to me from my brother-in-law while we were there saying he saw us even!  Here is proof...(Make sure you click for the videos to be full screen)

Here I am waving my "O" above Mark May's shoulder on the left!

 I took my coat off by then and have Blake's sweatshirt on with the big yellow "O".  There I am under Lou Holtz's elbow! 

And here we are in the crowd looking silly because they didn't tell us ahead of time we were on camera!

The day of the game we did a lot of shopping and then hung out in the hotel to relax until our driver came to pick us up to head over to the stadium!

 It was the first time either one of us had ridden in a limo...we were a little giddy!

 We were amazed at the size of the stadium and hung out in one of the beer gardens in the entry way to take it all in for a few minutes.  Here we are at our seats...in the Duck section!

And here is our view...

..,that jumbo-tron is INSANE!  Even though we were (2nd row)  in the 400 level we still were able to see really well since the stadium is so steep.  We were able to follow what was going on without having to watch the jumbo-tron without any problems.

Everybody is WELL aware of how poor the Ducks did, not even making a game out of it.  It was pretty funny for Brenda to be the lone Buckeye in the crowd...the worse we did the louder she cheered, which made a lady in front of us REALLY mad!  She turned around and yelled all kinds of expletives at us...but I yelled right back at her that Brenda had just as much right to cheer for her team that she did.  For some reason the lady didn't agree and we got in a few arguments during the game!  She posted this  picture on Face Book during the second half of the game... 

"Gosh...so awkward to be screaming like a crazy nut among these sad Ducks!" 

 Too funny especially since a buckeye is a nut!  And of course she was the one who won all the bragging rights that night, because boy did our boys choke!

Too bad as a Duck fan that this card board replica, as part of a Dr. Pepper display, would be the only National Championship trophy we see this year!

 It still was an AMAZING experience to be at the First National Championship Playoff Game and get the chance to hang out with an old pal from high school!

 Thanks Brenda for thinking of your Hermiston pal when you got the tickets...and an even bigger thanks to Rick for holding down the fort while I was gone and not being grouchy that he didn't get to come along!  It was an awesome trip!  They announced that next year the game will be in Arizona...who is up for a trip to Arizona next January?