I left Sunday night. I drove 3 hours to Indianapolis and stayed at my friends house. It was good to see them since it has been way too long since I have. In the morning, I took off just before 8. Other than gas/pee stops- I went straight through and drove right up and parked nearby the stadium at just about 4.It was 10 hours of driving time with the added stop time. I did "splurge" a little in the parking at $75. It was about a ten minute walk to the stadium. I was pretty excited for the game and had to pee REALLY bad so I wanted to just get to the stadium right away. The suite opened up at 4:30 and between parking, walking and peeing- I got to the suite just about then.
I am not a podcast guy but being in the car so long I felt like music was not going to cut it. I had seen several reels or whatever of Shawn Ryan interviews so I decided to look that up. I started listening and it was just great. Basically I marathoned through a number of episodes. I will definitely pick up more episodes more intentionally and not just on 23 hours worth of driving in a little over two days trips.
I tried to keep doing some little exercises with my feet (like calf raises) just to keep blood flowing. One funny thing was that I also was drinking a lot of liquid trying to keep hydrated to avoid blood clots (or not make the ones I still have worse which was also what the exercise was about). I could go a while without stopping for pee and I have a pretty strong bladder (like the only thing that works well on me) I would be like "ok, I am going to need to pee sometime in the near future" and then be fine but as soon as I would pull into an off ramp... it was like "I HAVE TO GO NOW AND I MAY NOT MAKE IT" every time. It is weird how your body works. As soon as it knew I was going to go the bathroom it was ready then and there.
After the drive and looking at my phone waiting for the game, I realized that I had the 'avoid toll roads' on which was a total accident as I think the last time I saw that I was just messing around with it seeing how much time it added to drives around my home and I must have forgotten to take it back off. I am not sure how much driving time it added but I know it added about 10 min for my drive to Indianapolis.
A the game, a nice fancy buffet with Wagyu beef hamburgers and a bunch of other stuff. Grabbed a nice plate full and then went to the suite. My boss was there (second person to arrive) and we chatted as we ate. Poured myself a drink from the bar and relaxed a bit.
I stood up for most of the game. The experience in the suite besides the food was great. The suite was about evenly divided between Irish and Buckeye fans. Most everyone did not know others there but everyone was very nice to one another. A little friendly teasing (for example, one guy went and got a plate of seafood stuff a little before the game started and I told him that he might want to be careful or he is going to have a really bad stomach ache once the Buckeyes lose.... and then as the game ended, I put my hand on his shoulder and said "Looks like it is my stomach that is uneasy now")
When the game ended, I stayed a bit and watched a little of Ohio St celebrating. I then went over into the lounge area and just sat and relaxed a bit knowing I had a long drive ahead of me. A friend of mine from HS, her daughter wants to go to Ohio St in their band and I took video of their band to send to her. After the game was done she said that her daughter said she wanted some of the confetti and I told her that I was up in a box suite and no where near the confetti. But then leaving, just as I was about to leave the lounge area an elevator opened up with a woman in there and two guys were next to me. She asked if we were going down and I said "yes" and went in. It took us to the field level club area and I immediately saw confetti so I went over and picked up an handful to send to her daughter. After that I started wondering around not really knowing where I was or how to get out since I entered a completely different way. It was right in the service tunnels and so I started down it towards the direction I thought was where I entered. It was right in front of the ND locker room. I saw a couple of players some out (I did not recognize their faces) and I thought about staying there to see the others com out but decided against it since all I would do would be to looky loo as I was not going to say or approach them since they obviously would not be in the mood for that. So, I went further down. There were big poster boards all along giving directions like "ND Locker Room". I decided that they would just end up getting thrown out anyways so I grabbed one for a unique souvenir.
I headed out and drove out of Atlanta. I stopped at a Buc-ee's as I never been to one and know it is a 'thing'. This was about 2ish hours outside of Atlanta and almost all the customers in there were clearly Ohio St fans that were at the game and heading back to Ohio. Several of them stopped me to say nice things about ND (I still had my ND shirt and hat on). We had very nice conversations discussing the game, moments and our feelings and giving compliments to the other team. One thing is that basically EVERYONE said is that they love Coach Freeman. (at the end of the game, they showed a shot of Freeman and even with the game ending he still looked 'cool'- I said that to my Ohio St buddy and he said excitedly "I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING!") I got some beef jerky, sour cherry candies, the beaver nuts or whatever they are, fudge sampler and pork rinds. Apparently I failed as I did not get brisket but it was past 1 in the morning and I was still stuffed from all the food in the suite. I drove a bit over 30 min.... I felt like I could push more without being in danger of being sleep but I also could feel the day catching up to me and being tired. I found a hotel for $75 and crashed.
I woke up and left about 8am. It was an 8 and a half hour driving time ahead. I took off listening to my Shawn Ryan podcasts. I was trying to get back by 4pm but that didn't work and I moved one of my boys practices to double with my other sons team at 6pm. I rolled up at 5:30 to my house. Ran in, took a shower and then took my son (the other one wasn't feeling well) to practice. Ran the practices and after took my son home, picked up my daughter and took her to her vball game... so immediately right back in it.
Being at the game in a box suite was awesome and a great experience. Obviously, it would have been much better if ND won but still worth it. 1500 of driving miles. Figuring out what I think I would have spent if I flew would have been well over $1500 and likely even more with the winter storm that came through (my weather was perfect other than temp the whole way). The total cost for me including the Buc-ee's stop was just about around $500. The driving was actually enjoyable in a way. The break away was unexpectedly good for me. The pressure of everything going on with the family having a rough patch for the last few years and then grind of taking care of the kids etc (like above when I got home) was nice to get away for just a bit. The podcast listening was good to listen to a bunch of things and engage my mind in ways I do not usually do.
Overall, I am glad I took the drive and had this opportunity. The only thing that would have been better was if ND brought the Championship home. After the fumble recovery, I was thinking, man, if they pull this off, it will be one of the all time great games in college football and I am here.... but it didn't work out.
