Oh to be young, carefree and impulsive again! A couple of weeks ago I was and I miss it. It's crazy to think because you still feel young and like the exact same person you were 5 years ago but it's not until you do something you would have done 5 years ago that you actually realize how much you have changed.
So I was at work a couple of Thursday's ago when Corbin, Cassidy's younger brother gave me a call and needed to go to Costco shopping that night. We started out trying to figure out how we could get him to Costco and get me to the airport and work everything out when the conversation changed to the weekend and what his plans were and what our plans were and so on. We were talking about the big college football games on Saturday and the BYU-UCLA game came up. I had told him that I had tried to get tickets through my uncle who is the new Sports Marketing Director at BYU so that I could go with Brandon, Cassidy's other brother who just graduated with a Masters from UCLA in April and who lives in LA but that it didn't work out. "It's too bad", he said, "because, Brandon called me the other day and asked if I wanted to go. He said that he had called and asked Cassidy about it but she said that you guys wouldn't be able to go." "You mean he could get tickets?" I said.
I could feel the 21 year old in me surfacing and the wheels in my head started to turn. Had it actually been 5 years ago I would have called in sick to work for the next day and we would have been in the car on I-15 within the next half an hour with whatever I could throw in a bag and get in the trunk, but this was going to require a little bit more planning.
I asked Corbin if he was up for the trip and he got way excited. He said that if we weren't going to go he would try to talk his roommates into going. Our next step was to convince Cassidy it was a good idea. When I talked to her that night I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride the next day, she asked where to and when I told her LA she kind of laughed it off and told me I was funny. When she saw that I was serious I think she started to panic a bit. She asked if I really wanted to drive 20 hours down and back for a 12 hour stay in LA. She had a point and knowing that she not really into football I could see she wasn't to excited about the idea. We talked pros and cons and had settled on the fact that she wasn't going to go. I would head down the next day after work with Corbin and his roommates and we would be back sometime Sunday. I had never been to the Rose Bowl and must have told her that a few dozen times. She could see how excited I was and it must have been contagious because she re invited herself at the last minute and by six o clock Friday night we were on the road headed south. Cass and I in the front and Corbin and his two roommates, Austin and Kevin squished into the back seat. These are three men over 6 feet tall, Corbin and Kevin closer to 6' 4" and all in the back of our tiny Toyota Corolla.
We made good time and ended up staying in Vegas that night with some family friends in their huge amazing house that they had just finished building. It was a beautiful home with a view of the strip and better than a five star hotel. It was like we were in Disneyland and that stay alone would have been worth the trip, but we were excited to keep going and get to LA. We were on the rad by five the next morning and pulled in to Brandon and Michiko's (Brandon's wife) by 9:30 Saturday Morning. They seems excited to have us there and after breakfast they wanted to show us the town a bit. We went to the beach and got home in time to shower, have a quick lunch and head to the game.
It took us about an hour to get there an park and we didn't get inside until the end of the first quarter, but WOW! What an awesome experience. The Rose Bowl was HUGE! It didn't seem like it from the outside, or the inside for that matter as it wasn't very high with multiple levels like you see in stadiums today, but it fanned out wide and there were so many people. It's amazing to think you can fit over 100,000 people in there and that there isn't a bad seat. We watched and waited for BYU to show up but had to wait until the second half, then saw them try to get back into it and come up short. It was really a good game. BYU had quite a few fans there, taking up a few sections, but all the prayers couldn't save them. We waited around after the game to try and talk to my uncle but weren't able to wait that long.
We headed back to Brandon and Michiko's and had dinner at a little Brazilian place around the corner from their apartment. The original plan had been to be on the road the next morning by 9 and get home while it was still light. It didn't work out that way though, we were having such a good time talking and visiting and by the time we had breakfast and left it was about 1:00. Again, we made good time getting back and pulled into Happy Valley around 9:00 Sunday night. It was an awesome weekend, and brought back a lot of memories or taking road trips with the boys to go to games, concerts, shows, or whatever. just being young, carefree and impulsive. Those were the days!
The next morning we spent fishing and didn't catch a thing. Not even a nibble. My ancestors never used a pose and I like to think that I would do better with a spear or a net, but the fact that we were using 5 year old power bait may have had something to do with it also.
We got up that after noon and made it to the Alpine Slide. So much fun, even if Cass smoked me down the hill. We had dinner downtown and made it back to the hotel in time to get in quite a bit of pool time that night.
