Homecoming '08 - Part 2

There are a few ways of dealing with parking on game day. My favorite is to go to the game on a motorcycle, which is quite easy to park at the stadium. That's what Alex and I did last year, since Ramon's bike was being kept in Jarue's garage while he was deployed. But this year that wasn't available.

Another option is to use the park-and-ride. You park your car at the Oaks Mall, pay $8 per person, and take a special bus to the stadium. After the game, you take another bus back to your car. I'm a cheapskate, so $16 was too expensive. Plus, I didn't want to be locked into catching a bus after the game. That puts a crimp on autograph-seeking.

You can pay for a parking spot near the stadium, but that's even more expensive than the park-and-ride, and often your car is blocked in for a while after the game.

We could have had Jarue drop us off and pick us up, but then she'd have to deal with game traffic. So I opted for a variant of this option, which I call the "car plant." Basically, we plant a car in a decent (free) spot several hours before the game, and then get a ride to the stadium closer to game time. Then after the game, we just walk to our car and go home. We did this for Gator Growl the night before, and it worked great.

Unfortunately, we didn't get going quickly enough Saturday morning, and by the time we got to the place where we had parked for Gator Growl, there were no more spots. We drove around for a while (Jarue following us in another car) and then finally settled on a spot probably a mile from the stadium. Oh well. A nice post-game walk would be good for us, though I was pretty sure I'd be carrying Bella for most of it.

After we parked the car, Jarue drove us up to the stadium and dropped us off. The first thing we did was get a picture with the Albert and Alberta statues in front of Emerson Hall.

Our next goal was to be a part of the Gator Walk. This is a thing where fans line up from the corner of North-South Drive to the stadium entrance and when the team busses pull up, the players and coaches walk through this tunnel of screaming fans into the stadium. We meant to be a part of it last year, but we got to the stadium a bit too late.

The fans were already lining up, so we found a spot. Within 15 minutes, the busses arrived and the players and coaches passed by. I couldn't see very well, but I had Bella on my shoulders and Alex was at the front where he could see better. I held my camera up over my head to snap a few pictures and got this one of Mr. Tebow:

We didn't realize it until it was too late, but if we had been on the other side, there was a group of kids that Tebow gave high-five to. Here's the only picture I have of Tebow and Alex. That's Alex in the khaki hat below center.

Luckily, Alex is very cool about everything. He takes what comes and doesn't pitch a fit. There was another little kid, about Alex's age, who wanted to see better, but his massive father couldn't squeeze up there with him. I told the father that my son was up in front and I was sure his son could just squeeze up there with him. I even introduced the two boys real quick. But the kid was just whiny and scared, and stayed in the back with his parents, unable to see much at all. I'm glad Alex is brave and willing to get up there in the thick of things.

Okay, about 2 hours till kickoff. Next order of business: procure some tickets!

Last year I bought two tickets on StubHub for (gulp) $100 each. At least they were pretty good seats. The biggest fear that led me to buy them ahead of time was not getting tickets at the stadium early enough to enjoy the pre-game stuff inside the stadium. Since we were coming all the way to Florida just for the game, I opted for the expense of security. But this year, since we had just experienced a game the previous year, I was more comfortable with buying tickets right before the game.

For those who have never bought tickets outside a stadium, let me give you a quick tutorial. Before the game, you walk around outside of the stadium and hold up the number of fingers for tickets that you need. When someone who has tickets to sell sees you, they approach you. You talk price, you look at where the seats are (carrying a small map of the stadium is helpful) you haggle a little bit, and then you either buy or you move on. Some people selling tickets walk around holding the tickets up in the air. So if you need tickets, it's easy to see who has tickets to sell. Selling tickets for more than their face value is called scalping, and used to be illegal in Florida. People still did it, but you had to be discrete. But a few years ago they made it legal. At any rate, buying tickets at face value or below face value is not scalping. It's just getting a good deal, I suppose. And that was my goal. Face value on most tickets is $40. I was aiming to get 3 tickets for $20 each.

And that was one slight glitch: there were three of us this time. It's pretty easy to find 2 tickets. And it's often even easier to buy just 1 ticket at a low price, because often someone couldn't come at the last minute, so someone has an extra ticket to sell. But 3 can be tricky. Usually tickets are sold in pairs. If someone is selling 4 tickets, for example, they are reluctant to sell 3, because then they're left with a single that may be harder to get a good price for. So my plan was to find 2 together, and then a single. And with Bella being so small, we would just squeeze into the two seats.

I read something in the paper that morning that said selling tickets on campus was illegal. But I knew I'd probably get the best deals right outside the stadium. So I discretely tried to solicit some tickets at the stadium. No sellers. We went back across the street to Emerson Hall (technically not campus) and approached someone selling 2 tickets. End zone seats. Not the best, but not bad. He wanted face value. I offered him $40 for both. He took it. Two tickets down, one to go. Another guy was holding one ticket up. I asked him how much. He said $40. I said I'd give him $20. He said okay. Mission accomplished!

And the beauty of it was we had tickets an hour and a half before kickoff. We were some of the first ones inside the stadium when they opened the gates. We went down close to the field and watched the players warming up.



Here's the view from our seats. Bella was diggin' the popcorn:

The game went great. Alex was totally engaged. Bella got a little restless during the second quarter, but was better after we got pizza and nachos at halftime. I wanted to get video of a touchdown in our end zone. It took me several tries (you never really know exactly when they'll score) but I finally got one:



After the game, we bought a Gator football from the gift shop and got a few player autographs on it. I was going to buy a scorecard for autographs like last year, but couldn't find any. We didn't get any big time autographs, but it was still cool. Bella was really ready to go, so we finally made the long trek to the car. I only had to carry her about halfway.

After dinner, I got the kids to bed and then called one of my former students, Skyler. He and another former student, Colin, work downtown. We agreed to meet at a downtown bar called Lux. I never had Colin's girlfriend, Ashley, as a student, but I did have her older sister Kim.

We chatted for a couple of hours and then we walked down to their work place, an internet company called Grooveshark. It was cool to hang out with them, but the time was heading towards 3 am and it had been a long day. So I headed home and hit the sack.

The next day we went to a big book sale and got several bags of used books. I got about 30 books for my classroom. We spent the rest of the evening packing.

Bella had found a huge leaf on the way back to the car after the game. She said it was the biggest leaf she had ever seen:

Bella and Alex throwing the football we bought at the game.

Monday morning, after a brief stop at GHS to try to see my friend Jim (he wasn't there), we headed to Jacksonville. Here's the kids with our plane:


The flight home was long but uneventful (apart from some especially bumpy turbulance that woke Bella up). Overall, it was a great weekend, and a nice introduction to Gator craziness for Bella. Hopefully we can do it again next year.