Wet and wild

My friend Carole called me up and said she had an extra ticket to last Saturday's Clemson game. I ran it by Thomas and he was (thankfully) willing to stay home and watch the little guys* so Carole and I could go whoop it up in Death Valley. Let me just say that Thomas and I have both been getting Clemson season tickets since we graduated college in 2004 and 2005. We had to stop getting them in 2013, the year the boys were born. Since then we've only been to a couple of games and we both miss it. Whether we'll be able to do season tickets again in the future remains to be seen, but it sure is nice to get the chance to go see the Tiger play once or twice in a season!

After last week's emotional win over Notre Dame, amidst a monsoon of rainy weather, I don't think anyone was sure what to expect. We could have the big game hangover that a lot of teams face. Georgia Tech had lost several in row and fallen out of the top 25 after being heralded as a true contender in the preseason, and they were hungry for a win. We typically do not play well against GT's triple option offense. The fans came out in droves to tailgate in the mud and sit in the rain for the Notre Dame game - would they be willing to come back out after those crazy conditions? It didn't help that the weather was calling for rain once again. 

As luck would have it, the rain indeed showed up once again. All the tailgating fields were still mud pits from the previous game and now all the mud was showing its ugly face. I typically love the fact that Clemson tailgates in grass fields instead of parking lots and concrete, but when it's rainy, that mud is a force to be reckoned with. I have never, ever seen the tailgating scene in the conditions that I witnessed on Saturday. I took some pictures, but they just don't do it justice. It was unbelievable. 

Carole, me and Susan at the tailgate, pre-game

Carole and me in Death Valley

Look how close we are to the action!!! Carole has AMAZING seats!

We went out at halftime to a friend's tailgate and I got to see this for the first time.

My first glimpse of the "Oculus" - what is that thing?!?!?
Dunno, but it looks pretty cool.

Go Tigers!

Big win! Fans gather on the field after each and every game

Scoreboard - Clemson 43, Georgia Tech 24

Despite the mud and muck, it was a GREAT game. The tigers took the lead and never looked back. It was total domination and I loved every second of it! 

Believe it or not, I managed to stay completely DRY the entire day. I had jeans and a t-shirt on for my first layer. I had some tall rain boots (nevermind that they are houndstooth - aka Alabama-themed - you gotta do what you gotta do in the rain). Then Carole lent me some water repellent pants that I put over my jeans and stuck inside my rain boots. I had a rain jacket over my t-shirt, a hat on my head and my final layer was a Clemson poncho. I was surprised after sitting in rain all day long, my first layer did not have a drop of water on it. And the temperature was very mild, so at least we weren't cold! :)

Lot 1 post-game

Fun at the tailgate!

This random guy was at our tailgate and was wearing a Florida shirt
and was barefoot. OMG.

Beautiful green grass replaced with inches of mud!

These guys were at the tailgate and just happened to be
fraternity brothers of Thomas's. So naturally I took a pic with them. :)

Post-game cleanup proved to be...well, interesting. Keep in mind that everyone set up their tents and just had their chairs, tables, coolers, etc. sitting in the mud. People spread straw out on the ground in their tailgates, but it wasn't enough to keep the mud at bay. Smart people even brought tarps to put down on the ground, but even the tarps got filled with mud with people walking in and out. I'm sure people that were there are going to have to get their cars detailed after tailgates were taken down, folded up and packed away in trunks. I mean, there was just so much mud everywhere; there was nothing you could do. We had extra trash bags and were putting them around the bottom of coolers and putting chairs inside the trash bags to mitigate the damage, but holy moly. Mud for days!

Some people even abandoned stuff - just left grills, chairs, etc standing in the field. I guess they just thought it wasn't worth it to pack it up, get mud in the car, then have to pull it out later to clean it all up.

Pictures don't do it justice for how crazy muddy it was!

Cars stuck in mud. When this happened, people from all
over Lot 1 would trudge over to push the stuck vehicle
toward the exit.

Pictures don't really capture how totally muddy it was, but these videos may help!

Meanwhile, back at home...

Thomas and the boys celebrating the first Tiger Touchdown of the day!!!

Thomas/Ryan selfie :) <3 <3

So Carole and I got a little surprise. Do you recognize this?

Random picture of Carole and me cheering....

Guess what! It's a picture of a TV screen. Yep, that's right! We made a {very brief} cameo on screen during the game. We're famous! I've had thousands of new Instagram followers. People are stopping me on the street and asking for my autograph. ESPN is already calling us to be guests on next week's College Gameday episode. Ok, ok, not really, but I've never been on TV before so I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, this just goes to show how incredibly awesome Carole's tickets are!

Woot woot! 

Our Clemson football team looked AWESOME, I got to hang out with some of my favorite people, Thomas sent me pictures of the boys and checked in with me throughout the day...what more could you ask for?!?!? It was a great day. GO TIGERS!

* In exchange for Thomas staying home while I went to the game, I offered to repay the favor. You read it here, folks. If Thomas wants to go to a game later this season with some of his friends, he's got the green light. :)