Every trip to Alabama is an adventure, and this one seemed to have a larger portion of fun during the day. The Boy Scout troop planned these out much better this year, and we had much more participation from other parents, so instead of 3 games like last year, this should be our only game to have to work. But since we had only one game, it had to be the Mississippi State game. As the weeks came down to this one, I held my breath for this to be the CBS 2:30 game, but that did not pan out, and we were left with a 6PM start. So our day began that morning at 4:30AM leaving the house with Sam and Grant Dabbs riding down with us. I can't remember any "Grantisms" for the day, but maybe Davis will remind me of some.
After grabbing the radios for each of our 3 stations, and getting everyone else set up, and grabbing some Jacks for breakfast, I came back to the Campus Deck to get started with our day. It was a chilly morning, but quickly warmed up, and while we had to be there for 12 hours, the weather was nice and enjoyable. Prior to noon, we probably only had about 15 cars show up, so it was really really slow. The boys played a little football in the parking lot, and Davis rode his skateboard a bit.
Our first crazy encounter was a man running down campus drive with earbuds singing "Don't Go" as loud as he could. I don't really know this song, but that man knew it, and sang it for everyone. Yes, Sam brought his laptop, and got some homework done while sitting there. We kidded him about being the best clicker ever, while Davis and Grant were the bathroom relievers for the team at Shelby MacMillan lot...and apparently the dad there was having some stomach issues, so Davis and Grant kept having to go relieve them. Davis was very happy about this.
We later found the pair of pants right next to a can of beer at the corner of the campus parking deck. There is a story in pictures like these, and those stories are typically not very good. We later had an actual party van enter our parking area, and they had some 30 year olds reliving some college days dancing in the parking lot...perhaps even seeing the lost pair of pants and remembering a strange night. Anyway, this crew was entertaining, and even woke Davis up from his sleep in the van.
Another fun thing with this lot is the people. Our lot was a handicap lot last year, but now it is a Tide Pride lot. So this makes it fun to nicely tell handicapped folks that have parked there for years that "No, you have to go back out to Peter Bryce and park in the general lot A. Don't worry the buses will pick you up". Most were pretty nice about it. Some folks are students that park here during the week, and somehow seem oblivious to the fact that it is a game day, so they are looking to park here and go to the library. And this is also not the spot for faculty, but they expect us to just let them park here. My favorite lady of the day was a faculty member and local hospital worker. I explained that this lot was only pre-paid tide pride, and she looked at me with squinted eyes and said "I just hope you don't need my services one day at the hospital". Wow, she definitely took that up a notch. I politely gave her directions to the general parking lots.
We do have a special list of people that do have permission to park without a permit here, and that typically goes well. And it works even better if you have confidence, and just wave and pass right by us, yep that worked. I am not going to chase you down. One lady was not on the list, but she said "I am supposed to be on the list, I am just going to have to call NICK". This is where I played the confidence card and said "Oh, you know NICK?" She said yes, so I said, Ok, just come in and park anywhere that is open. Sam looked over at me and said, "Who is NICK?", I replied, "I don't know, but he apparently is someone in the know". And later we met Nick, who one of the directors of the UA parking.
I gave two people directions down the wrong way of a one way road, because it was the only way to get to the lot they were trying to get to ... once roads close, it is very difficult to navigate certain streets. But I watched them, they made it, just had to go a little rogue down a street. We did get to see homecoming, and I loved seeing Miss Alabama texting on her phone when she passed by. And our last adventure was one car that completely passed us by and parked in the last open spot outside. I walked over, but the rest of the team stopped me, and said, only 30 minutes left, don't worry about it. So I didn't . They had the confidence. And when the drivers got out, I could just think one thought that I shared to get a laugh out of Sam..."That car would make Kip happy". He got the reference immediately, and I was awarded with a big laugh.
So, for the game...I was excited, thinking this may be our year to take Alabama down, as they don't seem to be as dominate this year. But I was not thinking the prior week getting beat by Tennessee would help, and it did not. They starting scoring and by halftime, it was over. We were planning to stay thru the whole halftime, but it was homecoming, and the band was not doing their normal routine. So we headed back to the car, with my knee aching the whole way with old man aches. We did see as we left the stadium that Kay Ivey was elected as homecoming queen. I think that is what happened.
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