Always a fun trip when my son is with me. Weather was beautiful, got to see some incredible eye candy Sunday night on NYE in downtown LA. The parade was a lot of fun, met some very nice locals there that let us sit in their chairs/space. Nice walk to the stadium. Met a wonderful retired couple that I noticed had an Alabama license plate on their car. Struck up a conversation and stayed a while. Season ticket holders from Stevenson that even got championship game tickets with their tickets somehow. They let us park our coats in their car during the game because the temps had gone up 17 degrees since the parade start. They made it a 4-day drive and planned to head straight to Houston if we’d won.
Stadium is cool to see, view was solid. Lots of great folks from both teams around us. A dad and 3 sons sat directly behind us, from Vancouver. We’re in town to visit family and saw this game was happening during their stay. Dad said they’d never been to a live football game but did everything he could to make tickets happen for his boys. They had an absolute blast and were Bama fans by the end.
The stadium is tired. Screens suck. Concession area is outside behind the stadium so that means underserved patrons since there is only one level of concessions and such. Lines were insane before the game and I heard just as bad during. We didn’t get up. Leaving the game was a nightmare. UM fans didn’t want to leave due to the post-game stuff, but Bama fans wanted to get the heck out. Exit tunnels are few and far between. Some folks got ugly trying to get out. Took probably 25-30 minutes to get out of the tunnel. 30 minute uphill walk back to the light rail for us. I’d hate to be stuck there in a car. Traffic likely took hours and not minutes to exit.
One thicker lady UM fan sat in the middle of our row and left 4-5 times. It’s a pain when someone has to walk past your seat. I told her on the 3rd trip she should have bought an aisle seat. Reminded her that on the next two trips afterward. And a group of frat boy Bama fans also left 4-5 times to keep getting beer. That part is very annoying because there is zero leg room and the rows are like 80-100 seats long.
All the fans we encountered during and after the game were nice. A number of times during the game they thought they’d lost and all but given up hope, only for us to resurrect it for them. Most realized they haven’t won anything in years and we’re happy to finally get a playoff win.
