Wisconsin Road Trip

This past weekend, Hay and I loaded up the car and drove to Madison, Wisconsin to cheer on our BYU Cougars against the Wisconsin Badgers. We left straight from work and made the beautiful drive to Madison, driving through forests and pretty countryside to arrive in time for the Team Devotional in a chapel near campus. The place was packed-- we saw people in suits and people in BYU gear. I guess anything goes! Jared was in town for a work event, so we had him save us seats there. We also met up with our friend Kyle Barton and his wife Brynlee, who also work for Precoa. It was good to see some familiar faces!

I was impressed by the devotional-- they had about 30 players there. Bronco Mendenhall, the head coach, gave a talk. Bronson Kafusi-- one of our favorite players-- also gave a talk. Robert Anae, the Offensive Coordinator, played the ukulele and sang a song, and the players all together sang a song. I haven't been a big Bronco fan because of a his focus being more on the players than on a winning team, but I respect the man a lot more now. He did say 'This meeting is the most important part of this weekend." I understand where he is coming from, but I'd like to see a win against Wisconsin!!

For dinner, we went out and toured Madison by night. We found a fun place to eat-- State Street Brats-- and Hayley got IDd for the first time in her life to get in. We went upstairs where we found that the BYU basketball game was on the big screen. We found a booth, got some Brats and Cheese Curds and settled in to watch the game. We saw a group of other BYU folks nearby, and one of them came up to talk to us. He asked where we were from and what we did and all that. I asked him back and he said he was from Salt Lake. I asked if he came out just for the game, and he said yeah. I said 'Wow! Thats dedication!" to which he replied "I am Blaine Fowler- I to the TV broadcast for the games. Over there is Dave McCann. He just tweeted out that we were at a bar! The dummy!" Good times. After the BYU basketball game was over, BYUTV cut straight to some movie out of the 50s. Everyone in the bar was making fun of it-- we were a bit embarrassed!

We spent the night with Kyle and Brynlee in their home that they bought and were renovating. We had a good time together and enjoying spending time with some old friends from BYU.

On game day, we toured Madison and walked around the farmer's market. It was incredible how many people were out and about-- the whole town basically shuts down and goes to the game. Finding parking was impossible, but we did get to see all kinds of people tailgating and pregaming as we searched. We had a few 'we're not in Provo anymore' moments as we saw beer bongs and frat houses doing their thing. Overall, it was a great atmosphere-- I really enjoyed it!

We went to a Precoa pregame tailgate party at the Red Hotel accross the street from the stadium and chatted up JJ and his co-workers. After that, it was game time. Unfortunately, BYU didn't play too well and we got beat 27-17. I think we could have done a bit better, but Wisconsin was clearly the better team. Oh well!

After a stop at Sonic we were on the road again, back to our place. It was a great trip, and well worth the journey even though BYU lost.