Michigan vs. Illinois

Several months back (when I foolishly thought that we would have moved and settled in a new location and home by now), I bought tickets for the Michigan/Illinois game, happening in Champaign where Mark and Allison conveniently live ;-). Well, the time rolled around, we are still here, and we still had tickets, so we headed five hours south to their lives in the corn fields.

We arrived Friday night after a hair-raising drive that included pelting rain for hours, construction that took us on 30 minute detours, and an accident caused by rain that allowed us to move three miles in 45 minutes. But we met up with Allison and her parents in "downtown" Champaign and found a restaurant that would seat all six of us.  Very kindly, the Bosses paid for our burgers and sandwiches.

The Bosses.  They are seriously some of the nicest people.  I sure wish we could have gotten along better when Mark and Allison actually got married.  They remind me a whole lot of the Carlsons.  If we end up staying in the area, I think we need to get in better with them, because they have a whole lotta love to give.

The next day was beautiful.  It was the perfect Fall day.  Only 50 degrees though, so Mark took us over to his house to pimp us out in Michigan and Illinois finery.  Man, all those clothes I bought him at M-Den definitely came in handy! ;-). And we got to see his very cute apartment.

We drove over to the stadium, and it was amazing to see absolutely no traffic, and the Bosses were tailgating as close to the stadium as is allowed.  It was all so easy.  And they had a wonderful breakfast spread with yogurt parfaits, doughnuts, and egg quiches.  Unfortunately, my tickets said the game was a 12:00 start time, but it turns out they said 12 AM because the time was unknown when I first bought them.  However, the game started at 11:00 a.m. (noon EST) which meant we horked down the spread in about five minutes, packed it up, and headed to the stadium.  Yeah, bad planning and miscommunication on our parts.

Turns out, we were only five rows off the field!  And if I had to guess, I would say it was 50/50 Wolverine/Illini fans in the stands.  It was a fun game.  We were warm enough.  Mark and I would lead our section in "Hail to the Victors" after every touchdown, and we won!

I told Mark that my hat (borrowed from him) was a WOLVERINE for all intents and purposes.  It can be a yeti any other day, but not today!

The carrots were HEAVEN SENT after the game!

ALL kinds of goodie drinks ;-)

Pretty good seats, eh?  The Illini shoot off fireworks every time they score which caught me off guard every time.

Don't we WISH we'd had the special padded seats?!