The BCS Game

Larry and I attended the College Bowl Championship Series game between #1 Auburn and #2 Oregon Ducks on Monday, January 10th. We were going to be attending the game with our good friends Frank and Donna, but the week before the game Donna's Mom became ill and it was necessary for them to stay home to be close to the hospital. Larry and I left Eugene airport on Saturday the 8th at noon. Following are some photos from our trip.

Now, I know that there is a more efficient way to show photos on a blog. I think it's linking them to Flickr or Picasa so that they are not all placed one by one on this blog post. BUT, I don't really want to direct you to another program to view the photos. I have about 43 photos that I want to share with you, so I hope you won't mind scrolling through the blog post to see them all.... (if you want to see any of them larger, click on a photo).


The white patch is Diamond Lake, the mountain behind it is Mt. Thielsen (9,182') and the mountain in the foreground is Mt. Baker (8,363')


WOW!!! I've never seen Crater Lake in person from this angle!! (There's a little glare from the double paned window of the plane.) I took 3 photos of it.


I can always find heart shapes!



Not sure, but this may be part of Lake Mead.


Part of the Grand Canyon.




Orange trees were abundant at our hotel in Scottsdale.


Courtyard on the back of our hotel, it faces and looks out over a golf course. One afternoon I sat next to the fire pit and sipped hot chocolate. Talked to some others sitting there and found that the lady was from Albany. I knew of her and we have mutual friends.


On Sunday we took a walk a couple blocks from the hotel to an outdoor shopping mall called Kierland Commons.


That afternoon we attended the Duck Pep Rally in downtown Scottsdale, AZ.


Sunset over the Pep Rally.


The Duck - crowd surfing!


End of the rally fireworks.


Looking closely at the mountain in the background you can see that they were projecting a laser "O" on it. A palm tree is obscuring the bottom of it...


Larry, Moi, Mike, Ashley, Erin. Mike & Erin are our friends from Albany Fire. Mike is a Firefighter, Erin is a Pediatrician. They bought Frank and Donna's game tickets. Ashley is a friend of theirs that is going to nursing school in Phoenix.


Green and Yellow bouquet at our hotel.


Front entrance...Kierland Westin.


There was a glass sheet behind this carved bear that had water flowing down it in the lobby. (it was awesome and yes, I'm easily entertained!)


Waiting in line to board the bus to take us to the game! Some beautiful cactus...


There was a stockyard in front of the Cardinals football stadium in Glendale, AZ.


Walking to the Alumni Tailgate party.


HA! I asked Larry how he'd like to ride around in THAT! He smiled and said, "Nope."


We shared a table with four from Redmond, OR.


Inside the stadium! If you click on this photo to make it bigger, you'll see the people filled stands that we were heading for!! I was bursting with excitement I tell ya!


That's Larry ahead of me. We are heading to row 14 of section 105.


The transparent stadium roof.


One end of the field. The 5 bright white lights under the Tostitos sign and right above the stadium seats on the field, was where the ESPN Commentators were sitting and being filmed.


Ducks take the field to warm up.


Coach Kelly walking the goal line before the game. The night before, at the Pep Rally he said, "I don't know how you guys feel about karma, but we are playing in the "Tostitos Bowl" and your coaches name is CHIP!!!!!! And the crowd went wild!!!!


Before the game an American Eagle was set free to fly over this big American flag...





Erin, Mike, Me and Larry.


OH MY, Ducks tied the game with 2:33 minutes left!


Still tied at 10 seconds left!!!!!


Still tied at 2 seconds left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And in an instant Auburn won the game 22 - 19! It's all over....


Confetti for the winners! It got so deep that kids were out there making snow angels in it!


Next day, on the bus to the airport I took a photo of Camelback Mountain. They say the head is on the left with the large hump in the middle and a smaller hump to the right.


:-) In the morning at a store in the Airport....


This too. Hot of the press, showing the score from just a few hours before!!


Taking off from Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. An artisans work on an exit ramp on the freeway below.

Close-up. I didn't think of it until my brother Paul said it looks like a woven Native American basket....

We got home to Eugene at around 11:30am. It was snowing! Flakes were falling and it was 31º, quite a difference from just 2 hours and 20 minutes before. :-)

And to bring our trip and this blog post to an end, my final photo. The first day I was home and running errands, I drove by Larry's office and saw the lamp on in his office. It's a fire extinguisher made into a lamp that Frank gave him. I stopped to take a photo of his office window with his red truck in the foreground.