Let's begin by remembering that most of the time I make responsible decisions...This was not one of them. After BYU beat SDSU, I started getting pumped for the TCU game. I was a little nervous for the game (which it turns out I should have been) but excited nonetheless. On Sunday night I got an e-mail announcing that College Gameday was coming to Provo. I was so excited. For those of you who don't know (or don't care) College Gameday is the weekly college football show that travels around (mostly on the east coast) to important football games across the country. They haven't ever come to Provo before and so it was quite the honor. Let me also explain that at one point I wanted to be these broadcasters. The four people who do the show are Lee Corso, who is kind of wacky, Desmond Howard, who I'm pretty sure is there to be a cool kid, Kirk Herbstreet, who is so good looking and a good football analyst, and Chris Fowler, who is the host and also a great analyst.
As the time came closer I realized how big of a deal this actually was. People started camping out early Thursday for this event. We were thinking of just going that morning but decided that we wanted to get in sooner and got there at 6 on Friday night. Three of us prepared with one blanket (to cover the ground), two thermal ponchos (thank you Aunt Peggy), a sleeping bag, two little blankets, a down comforter, a pillow, two coats, and three sweatshirts. I realized this is a rather obnoxious list but it paints the picture for later. So equipped with all of these things and 3 Little Caesar's Pizza's we began the campout around 6 on Friday. Now our timing was pretty sweet because we got an awesome spot that allowed us to meet a lot of interesting people.
We decided to spend the first hour or two making signs that we could use for the show the next morning. Aaron came up with some pretty great signage: "evEn frogS can't stoP Unga" and "Cougars eat Frog for breakfast" (although the second was more Katie and me, Aaron made all of the letters for the sign). We were pretty proud of those signs and even got a few compliments on them from people who were wandering around. Most of the time we spent talking and walking around and such.
Once we finished the signs we were lucky to have a string of visitors to our little campsite. First my roommate Laurel came by and we had a blast! I showed her around the Gameday set and such (which she totally didn't care about but pretended to be excited about). As we were sitting and talking an man and his son (both dressed up in slacks and nice shirts) wandered by our little place. I think we were a pretty open target for people to talk to because there wasn't much that separated us from the outside world. Anyway, this man was a Fiesta Bowl representative who had come to see the game. He and his son (very good-looking I might add) were bored and thought they would come out and see what was going on. We talked to him for a bit and Aaron talked about his dad being in the administration at BYU and such. We also talked about how his son was applying for BYU and how hard it is to get in and such. I was funny because for some reason the whole time we were at this Gameday thing, I would talk to anyone. The whole shy thing was totally gone. Laurel and Aaron just laughed and me and wondered what in the heck was going on. Anyway it was a pleasant chat and it was kind of cool to know that other people thought the game was important too.
After that we decided to take some pictures of the whole experience. And it was all things cheesy (also something I don't normally go for). We took more pictures than I have for a while and enjoyed every minute of it. After a while Laurel and I wandered off and took more pictures and talked about the general splendor of it all. In our wanderings we had two very interesting experiences. One was as the Fiesta Bowl guy and his son were leaving. We saw them walking past and just politely said "bye" and "have a good trip" and things of that nature when he starts walking toward us. He then asks us to take a picture with his son....talk about awkward. His son just stood there inbetween Laurel and I while his dad took a picture. I tried to laugh it off but he did not seem amused. It was a pretty funny thing. Then Laurel and I met a dad and his son who came down to look at the Gameday stuff. It was so cute to see the dad interact with his son and try to show how important it was to share the experience with his son. We even got to be on the video he was making. It was pretty funny.
After we finished our wanderings, we played a few rounds of Catch Phrase with a few more visitors. Laurel's friend Nathan and his friend Zach (maybe I think but I can't really remember what his name was...oops!!) came and played with us for a while. We also had the chance to be on Channel 2 news. I called my sister and told her to tape it and she was so excited to. We ended up being in the front of the crowd, with our sweet signs. It was so much fun. I've never been willing to do anything like that before. Just another example of this being the craziest thing I've ever done. Pretty soon Laurel and her crew left and Lane and Audrey came to visit. They stayed until about 1 a.m......when the rain started. That's right rain.
Now look back at the materials we had....notice....no tent....or semblance of a tent....yeah...
It rained for a good while. Katie, miraculously, slept for about three hours. She bundled up in her sleeping bag and slept. She stayed pretty dry too. Aaron and I had our ponchos and huddled inside them in an attempt to sleep. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful....it was dark....and wet....and the parts of you that got wet were cold....I had the thought multiple times to go to the car and sleep while Aaron and Katie stayed out. They seemed to be able to handle it....but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Finally around 5 a.m. we got up and packed up our stuff to get ready for the broadcast. Now the next two or so hours were kind of a blur of not so great things. There was chaos when the people came to let the people who had camped out in and people cut in line and such. I choose to skip this part because I like to focus on the positive....the good things that happened....
We finally got our spots in the crowd and it was so cool. I could see something live that I had seen over and over again on TV. I got to see the National Championship trophy. I got to be a part of something and tell a story that no one can take away from me.
By the time it was all over (10 a.m.) we were exhausted. We headed back to the car and we were so grateful for how comfortable the seats of the car were compared to the asphalt. I got home and knew I had to do homework. I started and lasted for about 10 minutes before I was too tired to even function. I slept for a few hours and then moved on with life.
BYU ended up losing the game that night (which I didn't go to because I didn't want to be cold again) but I will remember that experience for the rest of my life. I will probably never do something like that again....but it was definitely worth it!!! Yay for random adventures and fun times with fun people....
