2005 Outback Bowl

29 Dec 2004 - The trip started pretty inconspicuously for me, when I bruised the top of my foot, took a huge chunk out of my heel trying to get into the shower {at Nick's house} and nearly fainted as a result. I recovered pretty quickly and got a band-aid from my boyfriend Nick for the wound.

Let me back up a minute. This year, the Badgers started the season 9-0, then lost the last two games to go to the Outback Bowl in Tampa. As I was a student at the university again, I wanted to sit in the student section rather than with my parents and Grandma Kienert. The group I went with was Cassie, her boyfriend Braden, Nick and the guys' roommate James.

We left at 9:15 from Madison and made our way south. We drove straight through, each taking turns at about 3-3 1/2 hours each. I drove through all of Tennessee and had to deal with the only congestion from an accident.

30 Dec - I caught about an hour or two of sleep between Chattanooga and Atlanta. We pulled into the Day's condo in Sarasota around 8 am ET. Had a bit of breakfast with the folks and Grandma, then tried to get some sleep. Went down to the beach to get a few winks by the surf. Very nice day, if a little windy. The high was in the 70s, but in the direct sunlight, it felt a lot warmer. We all ate lunch upstairs, then came down to onto the beach for more relaxation. Later in the afternoon, Mom and I went to the grocery store to buy pizza makings for dinner. I felt like I was going to crash, but held off, or I wouldn't be able to sleep later. After dinner (and a light tiff between Grandma and Mom), we put on the bowl games and played sheepshead for a while. Everyone but Cass played, with James learning how with Dad. I decided I'd had enough of being awake and went to be around 10.

beach bums #1

beach bums #2 (Dalys' condo in the background)

31 Dec - We started to get up around 8:30 this morning. Dad, Grandma and Braden headed down to the beach. Nick and I went to Barnes and Noble. He got a Stephen King book and I got the first three books of the Series of Unfortunate Events. We got back just as Mom was setting out sandwich makings. After lunch, we all watched some bowl games before heading to Tampa around 1:30. We got to our hotel, deep in questionable part of town, just off the Interstate. We unloaded and watched some more football. We were pretty hungry, so we took off towards Ybor City, where the pep rally and parade were being held, by cab. We were dropped off by where the parade started, and got a ton of beads from floats as we walked looking for a place to eat dinner. We ended by asking a police officer for a recommendation, because the place we went to the last time our family was here (Cha-Cha Coconuts) was no more. We found a bar/restaurant just off the parade route. Good food at M.J. Barleyhoppers. We called Mom, Dad and Grandma, who were at the parade, to tell them where we were. They joined us as we were eating dinner. After we were all finished, we said bye to the folks and went in search of a bar. We ended up at the Irish Bar, where a very loud band was playing. We went out to the beer garden in back, where the rest of the crew ran into the parents of a friend of their who passed away a few years ago. we stayed there until about 10:30, then took a cab back to the hotel. We wanted TV until midnight, then called it a night shortly afterwards.

Road trip gang on the beach

Post-dinner in Ybor City

1 Jan 2005 - My first time writing that. :) We got up at 8, and after getting ready and eating the complementary breakfast of tasteless grits and hard pancakes, we left shortly after 9 for the stadium. We found parking just north of the stadium among many Georgia fans. Tailgated a bit before heading into the stadium. James, Nick and I wore cow costumes that the guys had bought and wore during the football season. We got a lot of smiles, laughs, and pictures taken of us. Our seats weren't together, but we still managed to sit in a group. The game was exciting, but bad referring and missed opportunities resulted in a 21-24 loss. At least the weather was nice (almost 80) - I got pretty dehydrated. After the band played 5th Quarter, we met up with Mom, Dad & Grandma for a while. We came back to the hotel to see what was going on in the other ball games. We then drove to Ybor City for dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. Mmm. We walked around a little while afterwards, then drove back to the hotel. Watched the Rose Bowl and had a few intoxicating beverages. So tired I went to sleep around 9:30.

{I must have been been so tired that I didn't both writing down some of the things I remember about the game to this day. We were seated in the "student section" in the end zone at Raymond James. We found seats together directly across the aisle from rabid (not literally?), drunk Georgia fans. They gave us some crap about our costumes, and the student section in general. They REALLY did not like it when students started passing out newspapers that we could hold up in front of us when the Georgia band played at halftime. One guy in particular was belligerent, but we could not understand half of what he was saying. With Georgia's victory, the drunk Georgia guy decided to be nice, and invited us all to his tailgate after the game. Yeah, pass.}

We three cows

Our view

Rather read the paper than watch Georgia's band (James middle left)

2 Jan - We were all up, packed and fed by 9 eastern, so we checked out and left Tampa shortly after that. The drive back had a lot more areas of congestion, especially north of Tamp and southern Georgia, as us Wisconsin fans, Georgia fans, and those who attended the Iowa-LSU game in Orlando all were using the same roads to get home. My stretch of driving was from Macon to Chattanooga. I got a bit of sleep afterwards, then stayed up with Nick as he took Kentucky and southern Illinois.

3 Jan - We ran into a lot of rain in S IL and it turned into freezing rain as we went north. Braden and Cassie took it slow in the early hours of the morning. We got back to Madison right around 6 am. I slept for a few hours, then drove Cassie home. I was going to pick up my cats, but they didn't want to come, so I left them in my parents' care for a few more weeks. Drove back to Madison and that's enough driving for a while, I think.

{transcribed 1/21/2020}