A quick trip to South Bend, Indiana

Kim, Camille and I made a quick weekend trip to South Bend, Indiana to watch BYU play Notre Dame.  I have always wanted to go to South Bend to watch a football game since I saw the movie Rudy when I was a teenager.  We definitely picked a great year to go.  Notre Dame was undefeated and returning to their old glory days.  BYU was not really in their glory days, but thankfully they put up a really good fight!

Unfortunately work was CRAZY busy (stupid Windows 8 launch called "Microtropolis") at the same time and I pretty much worked the entire trip except for during the game and our visit to campus.  I flew out at 5pm on Friday night and joined Kim and Camille who had been in Chicago since Wednesday.  I literally worked the entire flight and was crazy IMing all my developers coordinating what they needed to do.  I've never had a flight go by so fast in my entire life.  Thank goodness for in-flight WIFI now.  By the time I made it to the hotel it was 11pm so I pretty much chatted for a bit and then we went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and went to get our rental car.  We were there with a couple other BYU fans with the same idea apparently.  We got the car and made the 2 hour drive down to South Bend.  It was actually a really pretty drive since the fall leaves were changing. I was working on my phone most of the time but I did take in some of the sights along the way.

Once we got to South Bend I put my phone away and enjoyed my experience there. First stop was "Touchdown Jesus."

Then we just walked through campus and took in all the sights.  The people there were very nice, just like they have been rumored to be.  Not at all like going to Rice Eccles :)

The fall leaves were just amazing.  This is one of my favorite pictures that Kim took of course with her awesome camera.  I love that Kim is our "friend historian."

We watched the players leave Mass.  I sadly overheard one of their event staff  folks explain to another Notre Dame fan that they "probably wouldn't be in there long.  If they were playing USC it might be over an hour though"  LOL!  Sad that they didn't think they needed much inspired help to beat BYU.

We watched all the Notre Dame players make "the walk" from the library to the stadium. It was cool to see all their fans line up and cheer very nicely for their team. 

It's nice that they hang the flag of whoever they are playing outside the stadium. BYU's flag is on the left.  I guess someone should tell them of our updated colors :)

The seats in the stadium were the same 100 years ago.  They are wooden benches throughout almost the entire stadium except for about 10 rows of yellow chair seats.  Notre Dame stadium seats about 80,000 but it still felt smaller than Cougar Stadium.  Probably because Cougar Stadium goes up instead of back. It was a really loud stadium though.

In the end BYU lost 17 to 14.  They had many shots to win the game, but unfortunately what had happened all season happened again.  They (or I should say Riley Nelson) found a way to lose.  It was sad because going into the game I just wanted it to be close, but as the game went on I of course kept thinking they were going to win so I was sad at the end of the game (for a second).