It was one heck of a last minute trip! Yes folks, LSU actually WON THE GAME!! Despite the attitude of many of the threads I have seen this far.......

I won't bother focusing in depth on the actual game very much. Instead, I will focus mainly game day atmosphere there.

We arrived at our hotel in Tempe just after 1:00pm and quickly realized that this was a very LSU friendly hotel. The lobby of the Mariott was filled with LSU fans who were all frustrated. Why? Because they do not open hardly any sections of the campus for tailgating until after 3pm!!! So, there were a lot of friendly hellos, geaux tigers!, and the such in the hotel.


At about 2:30pm, my girlfriend and I left the hotel to go to the game. We had a full assortment of LSU flags and stuff ont he car and we drove towards the stadium (hotel was only 1.5 miles away). As we turned onto Fifth Street, we could see the stadium in the distance. I rather easily made my way towards the stadium and encountered hardly any traffic at all.

There was supposed to be a football game there in a few hours..... How odd to see a campus so dead. From time to time we saw a group of people here and there, most oblivious to our LSU labeled car. What a disappointment. We made it to the stadium area and as we passed by the stadium we saw the huge will call line filed with thousands of LSU fans. This was when we finally drewa a LOT of attention. :hihi: LSU! :geauxtige

At this point I got on the phone with Aztiger03 and he gave me directions for parking. A lot with covered parking spots, he kicks butt! We met his brother near where we parked. He was guiding us to their tailgating spot. We entered a grass field and saw a few cars parked, some with canopies and such.. Typical tailgating stuff.....

.... NOTTTTT Exactly..... There was no music playing anywhere, I could not smell food anywhere, people were just sitting and hanging out. I did not see any rv's... Surely this was not the campus where the game was to be played.....

Fortunately though Aztiger03 saved the day. When we got to their spot, LSU flags were flying, a full bar was setup with anything and everything you could want to drink. He had food ready to grill for us. He had some smelly ASU fans/family with him though. They were all very nice and happy to have us there. I am so thankful to Aztiger03 and his crew for hosting us!

While there we saw some tailgating/partying - ASU style. About thirty or so ASU frat boys were gathered in a circle chugging down bottle after bottle of Boone's Strawberry Hill. They did this for about five minutes straight, drinkign as much as they could. Until........... they all started puking and cheering one another on as they were doing so.... Idiots! They invited us along to go drink with them. lol ...................... Thei own fans eventually had the cops come and break it up. One old woman, an ASU fan, yelled at the with a very mean tone "EAT IT!" (referring to the puke). I believe she called the cops on them. :hihi:

Finally at around 5:45 we made out way to the stadium. We met up with the rest of Aztiger03's family and headed into the game. For some reason they had EVERYONE go through one tiny makeshift gate for bag searches. It was complete chaos and a stampede. Aztiger03's family looke quite embarassed that their university was doing such a thing. Some students called us names. FINALLY, someone from their side was passionate enough to even notice an opposing fan. It was about time! :hihi:

We sat in the "Loge" section, which basically is the box seating section that wraps around the middle section of the stadium. Aztiger03's wife's family is a member of the ASU athletic foundation, hence the nice seats. Covered seating, nice fans for air circulation, and all the food you want for the game. Only problem with that was they stop serving food and drinks in third quarter (or ran out?)!!! I reaaaalllllyyy needed something to drink during that fourth quarter.

Game time (you must be really bored if you have read all of this!!!!).... They played the LSU intro video, that's usually played in Tiger Stadium, on the big screens at Sun Devil Stadium. That was something very special and moving to see.

The game atmosphere itself was NOT what I expected. This stadium was LOUD and the fans were into it from the beginning. There were five LSU fans including us, and about fifty ASU fans in the particular box we were in. The five of us were a raucous bunch. At oen point some hot shot ASU fan turned around and yelled SIT DOWN. That caused a major argument between that guy and Aztiger03's brother. Needless to say, we never sat down. :hihi:

There was a lot of back and forth banter throughout the game. With the exception fo that one guy, the ASU fans were great to us. During the bad times of the game, it was tough to be amongst them though! The five of us stood strong though and chanted along with the golden band from tigerland and the rest of the LSU fans on every opportunity we had.

I could tell these priveledged ASU fans were growing quite tired of us as the game approached it's latter stages though. :hihi: :hihi: We were in their box! :grin: After they scored their last touchdown in the fourth quarter, like fifty people turned around and pointed at us all, celebrating, saying TAKE THAT (amongst many other things I can not type here hehe)..

Well, all I can say was they were quite humbled just a few minutes later. I had plenty of room to run around in the general area of my seat. I must have carried my girlfriend around for a good couple of minutes jumping and celebrating after that 4th and 10 touchdown. :geauxtige :geauxtige Most of those ASU fans were sick with anguish at that point and left. A few were dedicated and stayed. The loud mouth from early on was long gone.......

After the game was over, we made our way out of the stadium. We were the only LSU fans on those particular ramps (the LSU section was on the other side of the stadium). The mood was very odd. Many of the ASU "fans" were on their cell phones, but very few if any were talking about the game. Most of the ASU fans were smiling as they casually walked down the ramps and out of the stadium. This was the general mood I observed out of them all the way to the car.

I'll give them their props though, they were LOUD and VERY supportive throughout the game. That stadium was rocking big time! In the end though, it is still no SEC stadium or atmopshere........ If those people would back their teasm every week football would really catch on and thrive there. Oh well, that's the Pac10 for you.


A notable thing on the drive home. Just after midnight last night, I was driving betweek Ell Paso and San Antonio through a construction area. From the distance way behind me a vehicle with lots of lights was approaching rapidly. I was going about 75 in that area. I was thinking "what a moron!!!"... The lanes were uneven and the road was being resurfaced so it was rough.

Then.... The vehicle caught up with me and roaaaaarrredddd past me. It was the LSU big rig! :geauxtige LSU! This was no moron, it was just a Louisiana driver. :hihi: :hihi: This really got me more energized for the ride home. I followed the truck for thirty minutes or so, doing just over 90 whole time.

It got off on an exit ramp at the same spot I was planning on exiting at for gas as well... The only gas stations for couple hundred mile stretch at that time of night. On the way back onto the interstate I passed the truck as they were taking a driving break. I blew the horn, fight song style, as we passed by. At around 4am we passed them again (they'd passed us while we were stopped somewhere). I held my LSU flags to the window for them to see and they began blowing the horn back at us - LSU fight song style! :geauxtige That gave me more than enough energy to finish the trip home. (Ok, I am lying, girlfriend drove most of way after that hehe).

Well, I am done boring you to sleep now. I serious doubt anyone has read this far anyways. :yelwink2:

Thanks so much to Aztiger03 and his family for hosting us there. I look forward to another trip there in 08 (by plane though!)

GEAUX
TIGERS

PS: Coach Pelini, you have your one game under your belt. Please adjust over the next couple of weeks and do away with that twenty yard cushion on the line of scrimmage. Ok? Thanks!

Note: I will not proofread this essay for typos! heh...

"File" "Print"......now i have bathroom reading material for the week.........hold on, let me add more paper and change the ink cartridge :hihi:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

cool deal! Glad you had fun, but there's no reason to make up the part about you having a girlfriend :hihi:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I want you to know gradin that I am BORED enough to sit and read the whole thing.

Shhhhh!!! :thumb:

With the way the game ended up going, I would have never forgiven myself had I not gone. We were able to go and did just that. I am so glad!

I just added up all the gas receipts.. The total gas cost for the trip was only $272.

how much was gas going for out West....did it get worse the further you went?

how long did it actually take to get there?

The highest for regular unleaded was $3.09 and it was pretty much the same price for whole trip.

It took us right at 24 hours to get back, with only stops for gas. As for the trip there, I am not really certain.. We drove very casually.