The whole Gator Bowl experience started for me on Dec 23 - the Monday before Christmas. I had one minor last-minute Christmas gift to get out and buy. Since I was already in town (where the rest of my family lives) I stopped by to see my brother where he works (a Toyota dealership). And then I proceeded on my merry way. About 20 minutes later I get a call from my brother on my cell phone. "Hey man, do you wanna go to the Gator Bowl?". Thank goodness I was sitting at a stop light at the time. You see, my college alma mater was in the Gator Bowl this year. The North Carolina State Wolfpack. NOT those light blue Tarheel panty-waists. The Wolfpack. Wolfpack football has pretty much sucked wind since I started there waay back in 1981. Sure, we went to a few no-name bowl games. But this year we had our first ever 10-3 season. By a bizarre set of circumstances, we were playing Notre Dame. People were saying we didn't deserve to go to a well-known Bowl game because of our weak schedule. But damn, we had a good team this year.

On the other hand, the game was on New Year's Day. I had to work on New Year's Eve Day, and return on the second, too. Also, me and my cohorts have a tradition: We get together on New Year's Eve. Have dinner downtown. Rub the Acorn (it's a Raleigh thing). And then retire to one of the homes and drink ourselves senseless. Add to that it's a 6 or 7 hour drive to Jacksonville Florida, where the game was being played. Oh, and I had a major part of a project that I thought was to start on Jan 2nd and i couldn't really lay out of it.

As you can see, I had a lot of issues to balance. Initially I told my brother "no", but quickly followed that up with a "Let me think about it". I then finished up my shopping and went home. I mentioned it to my parents. They both said I should go, if I could arrange it. Then, later that day, my brother shows up and lays a damn ticket right in front of my face.

After that, Christmas proceeded fairly normally. But I was still thinking about it. Who wouldn't? Saturday was my birthday and it was quite sedate. The most exciting thing I did was go out to my brother's place and admire the night sky. He lives out in the country, so it was pretty spectacular. I took my friend Smokey out there with me. She's a big sports fanatic. There was some discussion about going to the Gator Bowl. I have to admit, by this time I had decided that I was going, and to hell with whatever was going on at work. I just had to work out the wrinkles around the New Year's Eve tradition.

Monday, the 30th came around and I went in to work. At the first opportunity, I double-checked on the 'major' project. It had been moved out to Jan 6 so it was no problem. Then I checked with my boss to see if he would mind if I came in late on the 2nd. He had no problem with that. I am going to the Gator Bowl!

I got up with my attorneys about the New Year's Eve festivities. I volunteered to be the "sober" one. Considering the circumstances, they didn't mind if I bolted from the party at 12:30a.m. So, everything was good!

New Year's Eve comes around finally. I get home from work and gather together a small bag of stuff to carry to the game. Smokey calls me at 6p.m. and asks me a big favor: "Leave now, leave early". "Why?" I ask. "Check the weather channel" she says. There's an ugly orange and yellow line of weather, roughly parallel to I-95 and moving slowly eastward. I tell her not to worry, and I'll handle things as they come.

I get over to Ed and Vickie's house at the scheduled time. Sure enough, Scaldeddog calls and asks us to meet him at the agreed upon restaraunt downtown. Tir Na Nog if you must know. So off we go. We arrive to find S.D. at the bar with a Black and Tan in hand. By the time I remember that I wasn't going to drink, I already had one in my hand, too. Oh, what the hell, one beer won't hurt. And, I made it last all the way through dinner. Dinner was great. Beer cheese soup and some kind of beef stuffed potato cake. I can't recall the exact name of the meal. We tried to get our waitress to sit on my knee for a picture, but couldn't quite pull it off. From there we make the 5 block hike down to the Acorn. New York has the lighted ball, Raleigh has a big bronze Acorn to drop. Tradition says we go down to rub the Acorn for good luck. It's sprinkling. I brought an umbrella. We rub the Acorn and get someone to take our picture with my handy disposable camera. Naturally the bottom falls out on our way back to the cars. I'm talking the kind of rain that makes people with umbrellas look for shelter. Which we did. Finally, we make it back to the cars and head on to Ed and Vickie's for the party.

This is when the guys surprise the heck out of me. I had been talking about learning the acoustic guitar for a couple of years. These two had bought me a guitar for my birthday. Nothing fancy, but great for learning/beating on. Damn, I am stunned. I guess I'll have to learn now, which is fine by me. I need a new hobby that doesn't involve electricity, yet anyway.

Well, the rain went away. And the night passed surprising quickly, considering I was waiting on 12:30. I left and it was nice and dry. That is until I got about 2 miles away from my brother's place. It was like driving into a wall of water. But I got there. We left his place around 2a.m. headed for Jacksonville. The original plan had been to leave around 4a.m., but the weather convinced us to go ahead and leave early. It worked out well in the end. We drove in rain all the way to Florence, S.C. Then it pretty much went away. At some time during the drive, that one beer I had a dinner led to a short nap. Fortunately, my brother was driving at the time. I must say, between Florence and Savannah, GA, there ain't a whole lot to look at on the road. But Jon and I had a good time.

Just before we got into Jacksonville, we saw a strange thing. There was a cop headed toward us on the other side of the Interstate. Suddenly, he does one of those TV brake-and-slide turns, heads over to the shoulder, and starts driving the wrong way, lights and sirens going. About the time we pull even to him, he slides to a stop with his headlights pointing off into the distance on the other side of the road. Two more troopers were headed his way. We have no idea what was going on there.

So, around 8a.m. on Jan 1 we pull into a Waffle House for a bit of breakfast. It was good to see all the red clothing in that place. We attracted a lot of attention, ourselves. Well, my brother did anyway. You see, he had died his hair to a red and white checkerboard pattern. He hoped to get on TV. Our waitress just had a time with him. I think it helped brighten everybody's day. After breakfast, it was off to the stadium.

Okay, the map of Florida that I picked up at the Welcome Center has a small map of Jacksonville on it. In addition, there were a few signs that pointed the way to Alltel Stadium. Neither of these things had anything to do with how to actually get to the stadium. So, after a few wrong turns, we finally made it to the stadium only to discover that we had to park roughly on the other side of town since we didn't have a parking pass. And it cost $10. So we parked the car and hiked toward the stadium. Now, most games I've been to, you can't take a camera. We got to the gates (which weren't open yet) and saw a sign describing what can and cannot be brought into the stadium. "No cameras with 6 inch lenses or longer". So, we hiked all the way back to the car. Hell, we'd been sitting in the car for 7 hours, what's a little walking? But, I must say, by the time we did get to our seats. It was good to sit down.

Once inside the stadium we dove into the souvenier frenzy. While I was waiting for my brother to finish up, I got myself a beer. Which led to another short nap during the third quarter.

We ended up sitting at the NCSU end zone, up near the scoreboard. The jets that flew over, went directly over us. They didn't show that part on TV. And I soon discovered something I do not like about Alltel Stadium: If you're not sitting on the second level, you have a looong hike to get to the restrooms, or buy food, or anything. We were on the third level. I am really glad I taped the broadcast of the game. Apparently there are lots of things that we just plain missed. Like I didn't know our defense took out their first string quarter back in the first quarter. But, it was a great experience being there. Watching each play work out. Making fun of the Notre Dame fans. You should have seen it, if you didn't. Three-quarters of that stadium was in red and white. With one tiny green and blue section.

The halftime show was impressive, too. Notre Dame has a huge marching band. And, judging from my brother's reaction, a real talented marching band. I wouldn't know, I was never in marching band. But the kicker was this tribute band. Several high school bands on the field at the same time. These poor kids were standing elbow to elbow over the entire field. And, they managed to march on, play their musical tribute to the 57th Gator Bowl (a medley) and march off all in seven minutes.

Like I said, there was a short nap during the third quarter. During the fourth quarter there was an obvious personal foul. A Notre Dame defender was getting up from tackling our quarter back. He stopped long enough to bat the quarter backs head to the ground. But no foul was called. The crowd booed right well on that play. Now, by this time it was 28 to 6. Our third string defense was playing. A few plays later when Notre Dame had the ball, and was trying desperately to score, Coach Amato calls a time out. We didn't understand why (but it's obvious on the TV broadcast). He decided if Notre Dame wanted to play that way, then so would we. He put the first string defense back in. And those guys held the line. Notre Dame still couldn't score!

But there was another significant play before that. Once again, we had no clue, but it's obvious on the TV broadcast. As I said, the third string defense was in. Notre Dame attempted a pass to the endzone which was deflected by a Wolfpack player, who was really upset he didn't catch it. But our sidlines went wild. Wild enough that they were assessed a penalty for their behavior. It turns out that number 20, or "Rudy" as he is called by the team was a senior and for his entire "carreer" at NCSU, he had always dreamed of intercepting a pass. He was a walk-on player and this was his 15 minutes of fame. He wasn't even on the roster that the broadcasters had. I still don't know his name, but it's in the paper.

So, after the game, we head back to the car and the drive home. Here's something I do have to compliment: There are a few tricky blocks to get from the stadium to the road out of town. But, once you get to that road, there about 15 intersections to cross. But each and everyone of those lights is set to flashing yellow, and all the cross streets are set to red. You end up on I-95 real quick. One thing we were going to do was meet up with Smokey and her boyfriend somewhere along the way. They were headed south to Orlando. A short cell-phone call, and a short drive, and we met up in Brunswick Georgia at a Cracker Barrel. Once again, brother's head gets plenty of attention. And there were lots of red and white shirts there, too.

The drive home really only had one moment of excitement. It was near mile-marker 131 in South Carolina on I-95. We were travelling in the left hand lane. There was this odd light ahead of us. In South Carolina, there are guard rails all along the road since it's kind a swampy. This odd light turned out to be a car, on fire, the front half fully involved. Fortunately, we saw two people running down the road away from the car. It looked like they may have had flat tire or something, and veered into the guard rail. We didn't stop. Looked like everyone got out. We had no firefighting gear, and no emergency supplies, and it was a warm night. And traffic was hell. But I did call it into the highway patrol. They already had someone on the way.

We ran out radio stations along the way and I popped several cassettes that I had pre-recorded. Turns out there were lots of songs on those tapes that my brother really likes, and wants copies of. Who'd have thought? We got back to his place around midnight and called Mom, per her instructions. Then I hit the road home to my place. Got in about 1:30a.m. You see, I had to work the next day. I got to work about 11a.m. looking and feeling like a run-over turd. But it was fun seeing people's reaction when they saw the hat I was wearing and then found out that I got it in Jacksonville.

That was Thursday. Friday was a day of work and then I drove down to Fayetteville one last time to help out with some wallpapering. Friday I stayed up and watched the Miami/Ohio game. All both overtimes. Wallpapered all day Saturday. It became a family project after a while with even my sister-in-law pitching in. I got home Sunday, finally. And now, I think I'm finally caught up on my sleep. Now I just have to get some pictures developed and added in to this wild travelogue.

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