This morning Travalon and I had to get going as early as if we were going to work, because we were invited to a tailgate at the Chancellor's house with what appeared to be five hundred of her closest friends. We got to park in a lot just a few blocks away, and if that didn't make us feel enough like a VIP, there was a cute little trolley bus that took us to the Chancellor's house. She was greeting everyone when they came in, and when she shook my hand, she said, "Ooh! You have very warm hands!" Does that mean... cold heart?? I was thinking that brats and beer at nine in the morning sounded kind of weird, but no worries - this was a brunch tailgate! I had coffee and a mimosa and water in a commemorative 175th anniversary water bottle to drink, and all sorts of wonderful pastries and quiches to eat. There was also brioche French toast that looked really good, but I was too full to try it. We mostly talked to my committee peeps and their spouses, but there were all sorts of people there, like our current governor and at least one former chancellor. Not the previous one, alas, since she is dead. They had a carillon concert in her memory on Monday, but I was sick and couldn't go.
Travalon felt that if we were going to tailgate, we should also go to the game. It was the homecoming game against Rutgers, but he managed to find relatively cheap tickets a couple of days ago. We just walked from the Chancellor's house to the game, and Travalon thought it was pretty funny how I became best friends with the woman sitting next to me. I told her we had once watched a game from a box, and she said she hadn't done that at Camp Randall, but she had at Lambeau. Whoa! That's awesome! The Badgers are not super impressive, and they managed to fumble the ball twice in the other team's red zone, although Rutgers is not that competent either and didn't even capitalize on one of those turnovers. One of our guys did pick off a throw into the end zone, and he ran it ALL THE WAY BACK for the most exciting pick six I've ever seen in real life. Anyway, the Badgers did win fairly decisively. As we were leaving the game, Travalon pointed out that one of the frat houses across the street had hung up a filthy but hilarious sign: "Rutger? I don't even know her!" College boys will never change.
We did stay for the Fifth Quarter at my insistence, and it wasn't as popular as I'd remembered because not that many people stayed to watch the band. They did "Varsity" twice, and Travalon said, "It's not even that good of a song." He's right, it's not a good song from an aesthetic point of view, and objectively I don't particularly like it, but all Badger alumni get all nostalgic and misty-eyed while singing along. It's a vibe more than a piece of music.
We managed to evade all the bad traffic by driving to Verona and going to Sugar River Pizza for a very late lunch. Then we hiked on the same segment of the Ice Age Trail that we did last year after eating at Sugar River Pizza. Altogether we hiked four miles today, since we are a team and our miles are cumulative. Of course, I walked a lot more than two miles today, which is part of the reason we didn't go any further. We need to hit the Ice Age Trail when we are fresh. We have to go forty-three miles this year, but you can subtract miles for different things, like going to a fourth Trail business, taking an Ice Age Trail newbie hiking, or attending an official event. In previous years we haven't really had a problem getting all the miles, but this year it feels like we got a late start, so we will explore all these options. It's always easier to get a cup of coffee somewhere than to hike five miles each.
Famous Hat
No comments:
Post a Comment