The alarms sounded in sequence at 3:15, 3:23, 3:30, and (just for good measure) 3:45 last Saturday signalling the start of a pilgrimage of sorts: Jenelle and I were Rose Bowl bound. We drove west, flew west, flew southwest, flew west again, and found ourselves outside LAX next to our roll-aboard bag after a stressful day that included an unscheduled aerial tour of the Grand Canyon (holy cow) and 17 minutes in Las Vegas (ditto). The FlyAway bus took us downtown and the metro red line took us to our hotel; with the days' remaining hours we walked around downtown, astounded by the Disney Center and the vertical layers of the city, and winding up at, ironically, California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.
Sunday we toured the oldest part of Los Angeles, El Pueblo. It presented a great look into the origins of what is now an enormous metropolis - a single dusty hacienda and a 'zanja madre' (mother ditch) which supplied water. We also visited nearby Chinatown before jumping onto a bus for Santa Monica. Santa Monica is one of those places we know in name only, but what a cool seaside town. They recently converted their busiest downtown shopping street into a pedestrian zone that stretches three long blocks parallel to the Pacific. We didn't visit Santa Monica for shopping, though: we were there for the Official Michigan Pep Rally on the pier. The band was there, the team was there, and Lloyd Carr was there to get everybody fired up for the game. It was awesome.
After the pep rally, some additional Santa Monica wandering - and wading into the biting cold of the ocean - we went back inland to see more neighborhoods. We took metro to Hollywood, which was disappointing. We saw stars on the sidewalk and bright lights at Hollywood & Highland, but it took just over an hour to decide we needed a new New Year's Eve plan. So, we went one stop farther down red line and found more bright lights and a huge throng: Universal City.
The Tournament of Roses features a list of events as long as this blog, but we were interested in two - the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Game. The former starts
early in the morning (unless you camp out overnight along the parade route) with a trip to Pasadena on light rail. We found a great spot along a wall at Colorado Blvd and Allen Street, 55 minutes along the parade route. We made friends with our neighbors and ate donuts (the
only store anything close to open at 7:45am on New Year's Day, even along the parade route) before the parade arrived. And when it did, wow. It smelled like flowers. It sounded like bands. It had George Lucas as Grand Marshall.
When the last float had rolled past and the strange tow-truck post-parade had subsided, we walked into Colorado, turned left, and began the trek some four miles through Old Town Pasadena and beyond, to the Rose Bowl. An overnight of camping people had trashed the city and many merchants had (wisely?) boarded their windows, lending a very surreal post-disaster feel to the lull between Pasadena's marquee celebrations. The Rose Bowl is located in the heart of Arroyo Seco park, which means that you just walk and walk and walk through a residential neighborhood, down a hill, past some baseball diamonds, and then there it is. We stood in the shadow of the great stadium waiting for lunch but really had to go almost straight in to catch the pregame activities - Spirit of Troy, MMB, George Lucas tossing the coin, and our second impressive Air Force flyover of the day.
Then the game. What is there to say, really? Michigan lost the game in the trenches - in the first half the offensive line was terrible and then in the second half the defensive line joined them. Hart had 47 yards, not for lack of trying, and Henne had a day he'll spend Winter semester trying to forget. The bands played, the myriad student section cowbells reverberated off the scoreboards above us, and there were fireworks, but all of that is lost in a haze of Michigan not getting the job done, of ending its third straight season on a two-game skid, of my last football game as a student in the student section going horribly wrong.
After the game, more woof. Drama in the stands, crowds, and the long walk uphill back to Pasadena after a bad loss on somebody else's home turf. Then travel drama, the red-eye home, and a recovery day in Michigan. I'm glad we went; it really is a totally different experience than any other event I've been to, but when you travel 2200 miles to watch big blue it is tough to lose in a late night blowout and then spend five hours sitting in an airport terminal thinking about it.
Thursday, January 04, 2007