Notre Dame vs Washington

This past Saturday I had the priviledge of attending the Notre Dame -Washington football game in South Bend ,Indiana--which is always a happening. I went compliments of Jim Phelan, a big time ND fan along with Todd Phelan, Tim Lyons, and Shane Stonebraker all Versaillians and a hell of a lot of fun to share a van ride with.

We got to SB about 11 a.m. for the 3:30 game time. There is so much going on around the parking lots it is fun to just mosey around and check out all the tailgating and related activities. What a party and what a lot of food and drink being consumed--an aweful lot.

This big 8' balloon was being raised about 60 feet in the air about 4 spaces from where we parked. Not sure what it means but the folks blowing it up were having a great time doing it. Check out that gold thing in the distance.

This is a pic of our tailgate site and the people who inhabited it for 3-4 hours before the game. Featured here are my van mates Jim Phelan, Shane Stonebraker, Todd Phelan, TimLyons and 3 homeless guys Todd found wandering around the parking lot begging for free food/drink handouts from the ND partiers. Since we had a bottomless cooler full of drinks these vagabonds stuck around our site for quite awhile. Although only 1 spoke English Todd spent a lot of time with them because he is such a wonderful people person.
That wire running from the van behind Jim (the guy with the cowboy hat) led to a very nice flat screen TV that got aabout 10 other football games thanks to a satalite dish. In addition there was a large cooler full of a wide variety of liquid refreshments. Unlike a lot of our fellow tailgaters we did not have a grill working or a pot of chili bubbling. I quickly ascertained the need for solid substinance and solved that issue by buying an extra large bag of kettle corn . I was eveyone's new best friend when I walked up with the kc.

Another thing to note is the 3 pine trees on the right. When the lines to the portapotty got to be ungodly long they proved to be very functional and discreet when nature called our group--which was a bunch due to the bottomless cooler of beverages.

There are zillion statues on the ND campus of all sorts of dieties both regular immortals and mortals alike. This is me with one of the newest statues and most famous (IMO) of all ND folks, Knute Rockne(that is me on the left with the binoculars).

Watching and listening to the ND band in pregame was spectacular. I had thoughts of a scenes/sounds like this in the Roman Coliseum before the lions and the Christans went at it. The Game was crazy interesting with a lot of action. ND wins in overtime and afterwards there was not a dry seat in the house(it rained for a good portion).