I have this list. Everyone has one really. It's the list of things you have to do before you die. My list has only one thing on it. Well, really it's a bunch of things, but they're all kinda the same.
Before I die, I want to visit each major college football stadium for a game. I love me some college football, and there's no place on earth like a rockin' college football stadium. Places that are on the list include, Tennessee, Michigan ( even though I hate those fuckers ), Ohio State, The Swamp, Oklahoma, The Zoo, South Carolina, Clemson, LSU, Auburn, Alabama.... well, you get the idea.
Notre Dame was on the list, but I crossed that one off. Lets just say that trip set the bar VERY VERY high for all the other schools to have to compete with.
Penn State was on the list as well, and Happy Valley was such a good time, that I didn't think any school would top it.... until I got to South Bend anyway.
Penn State was the first school I had the chance to cross of the list ( aside from Wisconsin. Those that don't know me, I'm a huge Badger fan, and even had a chance to work for the University, so I've been to just a 'few' games there ). A friend was doing grad school out at Penn State, and she remembered me saying once that I wanted to go to Happy Valley before I died. So she called me up, and invited some of us out to Penn State for a weekend. Will and I accepted the offer, and out we drove on out one Friday morning.
Maybe it was the excitement of going there, or maybe it's just the goddamn state of Ohio, but holy jeebus is that a long drive. It seems like you spend the whole trip in Ohio. It's so long, that they give you a toll ticket when you enter the state, then you hand it back in when you leave. You also hand them like twelve dollars, and they don't even offer a reacharound. Bitches. Anyway, from Milwaukee, I drove until about Cleveland, where Will took the wheel. We got into Pennsylvania around dusk, and the 'mountains' were pretty cool as the sun set. And then it got dark. Boy, was that fun.
We finally got to our off ramp, and Will proceeded to take the exit, noting the "Truck Runoff" sign, with a large arrow pointing to a gravel mound, for trucks that can't handle the steep offramps. This kinda gave us the heebee-jeebees as we proceeded off the offramp, because it was so dark, you couldn't see the edge of the road. Apparently, the locals are used to this, because they had formed a long line behind us, and seemed impatient that we were ONLY doing 45 mph in this area.
Eventually we avoided falling off the mountain, and made it to PSU. Friday night didn't consist of too much to note - we went out and got some food, then drank. Alot. But all in all, it was a calm night - just alot of drinking. But not too much debauchery. I have a vague recollection of passing out with permission in the roommates bed ( which I was ASSURED that she wouldn't be back this particular weekend ) - and waking up the next morning with the roommate staring at me with the "
what the fuck are you doing in my bed??" look. I was too tired to move, so I just went back to sleep at that point.
When I did wake up, it was game day. Adrienne took us out to see the campus, and the shops around campus. I picked up a PSU t-shirt for that night, and had a good tour around campus. We made the trek to the stadium pretty early, and thank goodness we did. When you can cram 108,648 people into one building, it takes a little while to get to your seat. Especially when there's catwalks to get to the seats, that only accommodate about two wide in the catwalk. Between people 'moo-ing' like cattle, the students were in full throat with a wide variety of chants... and this was before they even SAT DOWN.
When we finally did get to our seats, it was pretty awesome. Check out a couple of posts below, for I would put pictures in, but Blogger is being a bitch about it right now. Anyway, this place is so big, the sound takes WAY too long to travel across the stadium. Our side of the stadium would chant, "WE ARE!!!!" - and point at the other side of the stadium. You would then SEE them point back at us. We would then yell back, "WE ARE!!!!"... just as the sound from them yelling, "PENN STATE!!!" would get to us. Quite surreal... and I wasn't even drunk at this point.
There's also the picture below of the mascot being passed up to the skyboxes. Look again at the picture of me in the stadium, and look to see how HIGH up we were. They passed the mascot ALL THE WAY UP THERE. How cool is that???
Penn State ends up winning the game against Virginia, and we got to see Larry Johnson rush for over 200 yards. It would have been about 50 more, but he had one called back on him. Upon victory, we headed out for the night's festivities. The night kinda gets hazy from this point on, but I do remember going to this place called the "
Phyrst". It's this pretty cool bar that you go downstairs into, and there's lots of dark wood, and live music. They had these long wood tables, and each table was numbered, and there was some type of shouting game between the tables.
"
We are table number six! Number six! Number six!... We are table number six! And we can drink more than table number........ EIGHT!!!!"
Or something like that. Table number eight would then have to start up with the chant, and there was sometype of drinking involved. Again, like I said, it got a little hazy.
We met the live band while they were on break, and they were pretty impressed we came all the way from Wisconsin. Will talked to them more than I did, like I've said, I was getting a little drunk at this point. We then headed back to Adrienne's place - where the elevator picture was taken - and I have no recollection of that moment. What happened next is worth having read through all of the story so far.........
Will had brought his pillow and blanket for the trip, and had laid claim to the couch for the last night that we were there. I do remember getting back to Adrienne's place, and sitting in her comfy chair... and that was all she wrote. In my mind, I closed my eyes to fall asleep, but I'm sure I passed out. Will and Adrienne were talking, eating some food... something... I don't know, but they were still awake.
I "woke up" sometime later. In my head, sometime was about 3 hours later. I wear contacts, and I realized my contacts were still in. So I got up to take them out. Except I couldn't find a lightswitch, so I made it to the doorway, and opened up the front door to get some light from the hallway. I stumble back into the room, and try to assess my situation.
Looking around, I see that Will is NOT on the couch. Well, where could he be at this hour? ( again, I think it's like three hours later )..... AH HA!!! He's a guy, and she's a girl........ WAY TO GO WILLY!!! I know where he is!!!
The bonus for me, is that I now get the couch, his pillow and his blanket. Back to 'sleep' I go.
I'm woken up the next morning by Will at like 8am. We have to leave pretty early because of the insane drive back. Adrienne makes a kickass breakfast for us, and we're on our way. Because of my state, Will offers to drive the first half of the trip. We hop in the van, and make our way back to the mountain.
Remember the offramps I mentioned? Yeah, well, we find out in the light, that they're like 3 lanes wide, and pretty impossible to fall off of. Glad we knew that coming in. Once on the highway, I fall asleep in the back of the van, and leave Will to himself. I wake up sometime later when I hear ALL of the windows in the van rolling down at the sametime. I look up at Will, and he looks back at me with a horrified look on his face, and says: "Next time, warn a brother!!!".
Apparently, I dropped a pretty good bomb, that even had Will sticking his head out of the window. After a good laugh, I mustered up the courage to ask him how his "night went". He had NO idea what I was talking about. I said I didn't need details, but I was happy that he got some on the trip.
He looked at me like I was crazy, and again, asked me what the hell I was talking about. I explained that I woke up three hours later, and he was nowhere to be found, so I knew he hooked up with Adrienne. Apparently this was the funniest thing he'd heard in a long time. He went on to explain that my "three hours" was really only like a half hour. I had passed out on the chair, and he and Adrienne talked for a few minutes, and then she went to bed.
Will, took the opportunity to use the facilities. He hadn't used them in that manner all weekend, and what better time then after everyone went to sleep. Or so he thought. After sitting on the throne for a while, proud of his accomplishment, he leaves the bathroom... to find Adrienne standing in the doorway, waiting to use the bathroom. Oops. Head down, he walks past her to the living room, only to find me curled up on the couch with his pillow and blanket.
Not the best ending to a night, that all in all, was pretty rockin. But we got to see JoePa, and Larry Johnson. And I got to cross a school off my list. What a good one to start the list with.
