There she was – in her school’s colors of red and blue –
surrounded by a sea of Blue and Gold at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial
Stadium. The match-up? The US Naval Academy versus the University of
South Alabama in a rival only a few of us really care about. The rivalry started five years ago when Navy
and South Alabama signed an agreement to play a total of four games against
each other starting this year, but that agreement was cut short to just one
game in Annapolis, Maryland and one game in Mobile, Alabama since Navy is
joining the Big East Conference in 2015.
But we’ll get back to all that in a moment.
Our weekend getaway started early Friday morning when we
left the house way too early to catch our flight to Baltimore. United was nice enough to cancel our original
nonstop flight and never notify us.
Luckily, we caught it a few weeks ago and got a redirected flight
through Cleveland, Ohio. The flight to
Cleveland was great, but the flight to Baltimore was on a Dash-8 – a prop plane
that has no business being certified by the FAA to transport cattle let alone
people. What a long, bumpy, loud
flight!!!!
We landed, got the car, and drove to our hotel to drop some
stuff off and grab a quick bite to eat before heading back up to Baltimore for
Jersey Boys (the traveling Broadway show).
Yes, I know… we just saw the exact same show seven weeks ago on Broadway
when we were in New York… but we enjoyed it so much we figured we’d take
advantage of the traveling show being in Baltimore the same time we were there.
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| A panoramic from where we ate dinner |
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| Look at that sunset! |
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| Jersey Boys - The Story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons |
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| Making some great sounding music! |
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| Grand Finale |
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| Hippodrome - Balitmore, Maryland |
After the show, we walked the streets of Baltimore to the
Inner Harbor to grab some dessert at The Cheesecake Factory.
I’m rarely an adventurous eater, but I
usually get a different cheesecake each time I’m there.
Karen, on the other hand, has gotten the
Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake every time we’ve been there since they came out
with it (about 5 years now).
This time
around, I got the new
Toasted Marshmallow S’mores Galore Cheesecake and it was FABULOUS!!!
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| Yeah.... it's THAT good! |
After a late walk back to our car in the rain (to walk off the calories), and a late
drive back to Annapolis, we made it back to Nappy-town after 1AM… sometimes
it’s nice to be out without the kids!
We got up the next morning and walked over to “the yard”
(aka the Naval Academy). Karen loves to
see the beautiful fall foliage this time of year and we love the deals we can
get at the Midshipmen Store (a store only open to Midshipmen and alumni with
discounted prices and no tax). We
knocked out a lot of Christmas shopping… good thing we brought an expandable
bag!
Then it was back to the room to change into warmer clothes
for the football game. It was about 50
degrees throughout the game, so we bundled up with Under Armour, sweatshirts,
and our favorite team’s jerseys. This is
where Karen showed her true colors as an extremely brave woman! Not only did we sit on the Navy side, but we
were surrounded by alumni from the Class of 1983 who were at the game for their
reunion, a loud and boisterous bunch. Karen
didn’t hesitate to cheer for her beloved Jaguars each time they scored. Unfortunately for Karen, she only got to
cheer loudly twice because Navy crushed the Jaguars 42-14! GO NAVY!
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| Bill the Goat joining us at the stadium |
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| A friendly picture before the "big rivalry" |
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| A shot of the new stadium on an overcast day - it never looked this nice when I was there! |
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| This "Spirit Button" says it all - I walked up to a group of Plebes and offered one of them $5 for their button (they get them for free). They originally looked at me like I was nuts, but after I explained to them I graduated in the USNA Class of '03 and my wife from South Alabama, they relaxed a little and one of them gave me his button at no charge. |
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| All 4,000+ USNA Midshipmen at "March On" |
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| USNA Color Guard |
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| One final look at the scoreboard |
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| Singing "Blue and Gold" with the Brigade |
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| Google doesn't lie, right? Saving the screenshot for prosperity |
A leisurely Sunday with breakfast at the famous
Chick andRuth’s Delly and some fall foliage sight—seeing topped off the wonderful
weekend before we headed back to the airport to end our mini-vacation. A wonderful time was had by all… even by
those on the losing team!
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| Annapolis is such a nice town |
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| Beautiful Leaves |
