In the lion’s den

I’m finally getting around to it, but here is the recap of our adventure last week in Utah.

George and I made the call long ago that we were going to travel down to Salt Lake City for the Boise State vs. University of Utah football game. Perparations were made and tickets bought.

Utah is the easiset away game there is for us as far as travel goes. Just hop on the freeway and in a few hours you’re there. Specifically, 4.5 hours. Living in the west, we’re used to having NOTHING close. Those of you back east don’t realize the distances involved out here. There are no D1 schools closer than Utah and Utah State and they’re 5 hours away. My buddy John lives south of Atlanta, and has about a dozen HUGE schools within 5 hours drive.

So, the plan was to rent some sort of luxury car for a cushy drive down. Since its so close, we’re down and back all in one day, piece of cake.

We rented a Chrysler 300 for the trip. I have to say, I liked it. Then again, I drive a 11 year old car, so at this point, anything less than a couple years old is a serious upgrade. Amazing how far cars have come in that time.

George showed up at the door just after 5 am. We were on the road at 5:30. All things being equal, we might have gotten a little too early a start. But, we made terrific time. Took us right at 4 and a half hours to get down there. I thought we would see a whole caravan of Bronco fans heading down there, but I think we were actually leading that vanguard, so we didn’t see many. However, once we got to Salt Lake City, there was orange EVERYWHERE. Apparently, some 8,000 to 10,000 Boise State fans made the trip down. I believe it.

We found a parking place on campus before 11am, and had a couple hours to kill before game time. So, George had never been downtown (ye olde Temple Square) so we hopped the light rail and rode down there.

We immediately knew something was amis. As we approach the temple, we hear some sort of preaching being played over loud speakers. The whole place was literally crawling with hundreds of guys in shirts and ties and women in skirts. It was downright creepy. We decided to boogie after a short 4 minute visit. Overwhelming. The only saving grace was there was a guy in a kilt playing the bagpipes on the corner. It helped push back the incidious feeling.

George, being the history nerd that he is, said he felt like Saladin. I had to agree.

It got worse. We went into the nearby mall food court to get some food before the game. In said food court, were multiple big screen tv’s also showing some sort of preaching thing. We were well and truly bugged out. (Note, it wasn’t until later that we found out the LDS national conference was happening… at least that helps put everything into context).

Leaving the smiling horde behind us, we head to the game. For those of you who haven’t heard the result, Boise State went in there and took Utah out behind the woodshed for a 36-3 whipping. We were 5.5 point UNDERDOGS in this game. Utah scored the first 3 points of the game (well, after our first three points)… then never scored again. It was quite amusing. Our fans 8,000 fans were louder than their 37,000.

I have to say, when you go into someone else’s house and they’re booing their own team and leaving the game early, you know you’ve really humiliated them.

The downside was our seats in the stadium were in full sun for the whole game. I got absolutely torched. Somehow, I didn’t think about bringing sun screen. The lesson is, as always, I’m a moron.

We were back on the road home at 5pm. Again, I thought we would see a bunch of broncos on the road, but we didn’t. We must have been ahead of everyone. And, just like the trip down, we got home in exactly 4.5 hours.

It was a long day, but was sure worth it. It was ever so amusing to read the columnists from Salt Lake absolutely KILLING their team the next week. Hillarious. That loss of theirs was so bad, the headline of the Associate Press article of their win over TCU mentioned it:Utah shakes off Boise State blowout, steamrolls TCU