11.30.10 - It's not official yet, but true fans know - the University of Wisconsin Badgers are going to play in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day in Pasadena, California!
Baba and I had discussed going to the Rose Bowl as soon as it became a possibility for the Badgers, and after clinching part of a three-way tie for Big Ten Champions, we decided our chances looked good enough to start booking tickets. So it goes, my father, Baba and I will be joining the Badgers in sunny CA!
Brenda was inundated yesterday with requests for information and with bookings, and we confirmed our tour today! Being that this trip is (literally) just days before our trip to Hawai'i, Baba plans on taking it easy, but wanted to make sure Dad and I had the opportunity to really experience the trip to the fullest.
I didn't want to take the focus of the blog away from the Hawai'i trip, since I know my whole family is diligently checking it for updates (yeah, right...) so I'll just update this page with the posts that pertain to the Rose Bowl. Once we get our itinerary later today, I'll post it here as well!
12.2.10 - No official itinerary yet, but everything is booked! BCS announces things officially this Sunday, then we'll see who we're going to play in Pasadena. Can't wait - this 18 degree weather is already wearing on me!
12.3.10 - Here's the Itinerary from the Cartan Tours Website:
Rose Parade Tour - DoubleTree Hotel Torrance
Tour Highlights - 5 days & 4 nights
* Arrival transfer from Los Angeles International Airport to the DoubleTree Hotel Torrance (transfers provided between 9am & 4:30pm. After 4:30 transfers will be by Super Shuttle)
* Four night’s hotel accommodations at the DoubleTree Hotel Torrance
* Breakfast daily
* Welcome reception
* Visit to the float barns to see select floats as they are being constructed
* A wonderful tour of greater Los Angeles – Including: Santa Monica, Bel-Air/Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Strip, Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Farmers Market
* The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies Show
* Top category grandstand seats on West Colorado (with the sun at your back!)
* Official Rose Parade Program
* Souvenir stadium seat cushion
* Optional tour “Post Parade-Showcase of Floats”
* Boxed Lunch on Rose Parade Day
* Transportation to and from all included activities: On Jan 2, Cartan Tours will be providing transfers from the DoubleTree Hotel Torrance between the hours of 6:00am and 2:30pm
* Service of a Cartan Tours Staff Member
* Hotel taxes, entrance fees on all included services
Rose Bowl Option Highlights
* Transportation from the parade to the Rose Bowl game
* Corner end zone reserved seating at the Rose Bowl
* Transportation from the Rose Bowl game to the hotel
12.6.10 - BCS Countdown announced it last night - The Badgers are Rose Bowl Bound!! They'll face TCU on January 1st, 2011!! And I'll be there watching!!
http://www.uwbadgers.com/
12.29.10 8:46pm Madison time -
We’re finally on the plane to Los Angeles. I have to say finally because there were a few times today that I didn’t think we’d ever make it this far. Everything started out fine – I worked this morning from 8-12 and made it home by about 12:30. Time enough to even make a quick stop at Wisconsin Active Sportswear to get an official University of Wisconsin Badgers Rose Bowl Pasadena, CA January 1, 2011 t-shirt! J After that, I went home to spend a few minutes with Andrew (and of course, Atlas) before we left at about 1:30 to pick up Dad and Baba and head to the airport.
Great.
Now, we’re at the airport… two hours before our 4:18 flight was due to take off. “God” (aka guy on a serious power trip working the desk) comes on the PA and lets us know there will be a “slight” delay due to weather in Chicago and we’ll now be taking off around 5:45… but don’t worry! We’ll get into Chicago around 6:15 – PLENTY of time to make our 6:30 flight to LA…
Sure.
So, now we’re sitting there until about 5:30 and then “God” lets us know there will be an additional delay and we will probably need to stay over night in the Chicago airport because there’s now no way in Hell (or Heaven) that we’ll make our flight to LA…
Fantastic.
Then, we finally get on the plane – two hours after it was supposed to take off originally – and the “Demigod” (aka pilot) comes on to say that we have been told by the FAA - aka God’s father… I guess… that we need to wait an additional 25 minutes before we can take off.
So we taxi.
And taxi.
And taxi.
And FINALLY get in the air. Now by this point – being the clever librarian that I am – I have found out that a) there is NO “weather” in Chicago and b) the ONLY other flight from United to LA from Chicago tonight is not only completely FULL – it will probably leave before we get there.
Awesome.
So, then we get to Chicago… well – Chicago’s airspace at any rate.
And we circle.
And circle.
And circle.
Now, the “demigod” tells us we may have to divert to another airport to refuel… so we can reenter Chicago’s airspace and
Circle some more.
Sure.
LA is looking doubtful.
Then the “gods” convene and we’re allowed to land! In CHICAGO! Wahoo!
To bad its 6:35 when we finally land… remember – our flight to LA was due to take off at 6:30? Yeah…
Angels of mercy often come in odd forms though. Ours came in the form of a airport wheelchair attendant with barely-intelligible English who knew an awful lot about the best sandwich shops in the C Concourse of the Chicago O’Hare Airport. In Madison, we’d arranged for a wheelchair to meet Baba at our gate to expedite the process of getting from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. At the time – we’d thought we’d have about 30 minutes to get there, a monumental accomplishment for the most nimble and fittest of any group. Lucky for us – as well as knowing about sandwiches she also knew that our flight from Chicago to LA had been delayed, due to everyone’s favorite – mechanical issues. It was then slated to take off around 7:30.
Perfect!
So we are finally on the plane to Los Angeles. We will only arrive two hours later then we’d originally planned and should be able to get a shuttle to the hotel with no problem.
I’ll let you know later how THAT goes…
12.30.10, 12:23 am "Badger Time" (California time :) ) - We're in our hotel! More tomorrow... it's a FULL day!
12.31.10, 12:32 am "Badger Time" - Yes, it was... :) Okay - here's a quick run down, I promise to flesh this out... probably tomorrow evening. (Italics added 12.31.10 5:09pm "Badger Time")
6 am - wake up
I doubt there is much more I can add here... :)
7 am - breakfast
OMG Breakfast potatoes! And bacon, and sausage. Orange juice and fruit!
7:45 - buses leave for float barns
Our bus, number 9, is being driven by Matthew and our tour guide is Debra. They're both very knowledgeable. And it takes "45 minutes" to get everywhere.... of course, 45 minutes is often 2 hours... but yeah...
8:45 til 12pm - float barns, food: Garlic fries!
We went to see the barns where the Rose Parade floats are constructed. It's amazing to think that each piece of natural material that covers the float is placed there by hand, one at a time.
12 pm til 1 pm - drive towards Palm Springs
Yup.
1 pm til 2 pm - "quick" stop at Ontario Mills Mall... yes... MALL...
... Oh boy! An H&M!
2 pm til 3:30ish - continue on the way to Palm Springs
3:30ish - arrive, drive in circles around casino 47 times to "find" the front. All while wearing invisibility cloak, apparently.
Oh here's a story... So, the guy handing out the tickets for dinner was walking up the aisle, row by row, and talking -- and he skipped me! I had to flag him down and ask for a ticket. Then the next guy gets on and starts handing out buttons to get us faster service or something... and THIS guy skips me too!! :(
4 pm - go inside, get carded to enter (yes, only me), receive $10 in unusable credits for the slot machines.
So the back of our ticket to the Follies there was a coupon to get $10 in free play... but I couldn't get the card to recognize I had that credit on my player's card... Oh well...
4:40 - get sick of trying to figure out how to gamble in Palm Springs, find buffet dinner provided by tour company in casino.
4:45 til 6ish - PIG OUT! PASTA BAR!! Play cards with "house" deck
When we signed up for the player's club, they gave us a deck of cards that had been used at a table in the casino!
6 ish til 6:30 - wander towards theater, stopping numerous times for street musicians and photo ops.
6:30 - arrive at theater, find seats, no elevator
7 pm - Palm Springs Follies Show starts!
7:15 pm - begin feeling embarrassed and very worried that a 75 year old woman has a better body then me...
7:16-9:40 - feelings continue, interspersed by hilarity and general feelings of being very entertained! (juggler = amazing)
9:45 - board buses to head back to Los Angeles
12:40 - finish writing up very concise version of day's events, fall asleep immediately!
12.31.10, 8:07 pm "Badger Time" - Hello! Today was a more relaxing start, got to sleep in until the late, late hour of 7:00 am. We met for breakfast at about 8, and then headed to the buses at 8:30. The main event of today's agenda was a Los Angeles City Tour, with a step-on tour guide. We started the morning by visiting Olvera Street, which is where the city of LA was founded. It is also a world renowned Mexican marketplace. The oldest house (
Adobe Avila) in LA is located on Olvera Street and we had a chance to tour it as well. We also saw the oldest firehouse in Los Angeles, the Plaza Firehouse.
After Olvera Street, we headed to the Farmer's Market for lunch. We ate lunch right away at Johnny Rocket's, which is a fun 50's style diner - complete with a mini-juke box on each table! We had two hours there, which was enough to try to go over to CBS and get myself a The Price is Right t-shirt, but they were closed! :( I did see the Sur La Table to which Gordon Ramsey sends contestants of Hell's Kitchen, so that was cool.
Finally, after a drive-by view of Rodeo Drive, we had all of 20 minutes to enjoy Santa Monica Pier and FINALLY got to see and touch the OCEAN!
After that, we headed back to the hotel and chill out for awhile. Dad and I watched Men in Black on TV and then we met Baba in the hotel's restaurant for dinner at about 7:00pm.
Now, we're going to have to go to bed early as possible because we have to be on the bus at 5:00am to get to the Rose Parade and later the game! I hope to update you all with VICTORY the next time I write!!!
Happy New Year's and GOOOOOOOOOOO BADGERS!
1.3.11, 10:19 am Madison time - Well, to get the obvious bad news out of the way - the Badgers lost 21-19 to the TCU Horned Frogs. But, you all knew that already! Now, to recap the last two days of our trip. On New Year's Day, we got up at 3:30 am, had breakfast (or would that be more of a midnight snack? :) ) at 4:30 and then headed to the buses. It took much longer then usual to get to Pasadena because of all the traffic due to the Rose Parade, but we still made pretty good time. We had bleacher seats right on the first turn of the parade route, which was prime viewing location! I think we may have even been on TV a few times! (Let me know if you saw us!)
The parade started promptly at 8:00 am. Even though I've been to the Rose Bowl three times, we've never made it to the parade - and believe me, we were missing out! There were something like 47 floats and maybe 30 other groups from marching bands to show ponies and everything in between! In our tour package, we received a parade program that had pictures and descriptions of each entrant and it was a lot of fun to read about each of the groups as they came by.
After the parade, we made our way back to the bus. The tour company provided us with boxed lunches from Panera, which were fantastic. I had a Mediterranean Veggie sandwich, Baba had the Ham and Cheese and Dad had a Turkey sandwich.
From there, our bus split up as not everyone on the tour was headed to the game.
I don't remember it being so congested getting to the stadium, but I suppose it was. We had to take a shuttle bus from our bus, and (although we skipped it on virtue of Baba's age) I heard the line was about two hours long.
Everything was going swimmingly until we hit the stadium security line. Apparently, the powers that be do not want meer spectators getting good pictures during the game and so Dad was not going to be allowed to bring his "too professional" cameras in to the game. They had a "secure tent" (yeah right) where he could leave his stuff, but of course he'd have none of that. We had finally met up with Taylor right before the game and we asked him to take Dad's stuff back to his hotel, but while he was making his way back over to us - a sympathetic gate guard who apparently didn't mind bending a few rules, let Dad sneak in behind an old lady in a wheel chair. SCORE!
Our seats were 67 rows up in the corner of the end zone, which gave us an excellent vantage point. It was hell getting up there though :) And, it's a good thing Dad had his telephoto and I had my 14x optical zoom!
I won't recap the game for you, I am sure all of you who care don't care to hear it all again - but it was a doozy. At least we fared significantly better then most of the rest of the Big Ten schools!!
After the game, we had been told to take the shuttles back and meet the bus at Beckham's Grill (owned at one point by David Beckham). Apparently there had been a break in the communication chain because this was actually not what we were supposed to do - but it's what we did. Eventually, I ended up calling our tour manager and having them come pick us up there. Thank goodness for cell phones! I think we'd still be in LA if it weren't for that!
We arrived back at the hotel in time for one last dinner in the restaurant downstairs. Baba and I split a plate of calamari with chipotle dipping sauce and all three of us had a bowl of soup as well.
After dinner, we had to repack and get ready for our flight on the 2nd.
The next morning, we got up around 6:30 and headed down for one last complimentary breakfast. The shuttle to the hotel left on the half hour - so to make our 11:35 flight to Denver, it was suggested we be on the 8:00 am shuttle. I have to say, the security at LAX wasn't nearly as much of a pain as I expected, there wasn't even a full body scanner to contend with! It did take about an hour to get through the check points, though, so it was good that we had the extra time.
Our flight from LAX to Denver went off without a hitch, but the flight from Denver to Madison was delayed about an hour and a half. This ended up being to our advantage, because yours truly forgot to arrange a wheelchair to meet us in Denver. We ended up needing that extra time! Denver is a VERY big place!
One benefit of the delayed flight was we got to follow the Packers/Bears game on my phone. I'm sure I don't have to tell you all this either - but the Packers beat the Bears 10-3 and now have a wildcard slot in the playoffs!!! It will be fun to do a repeat of last year and watch the Packers game in Hawai'i - maybe we can actually win it this time! :)
Andrew met us at the airport in Madison when our plane finally made it in at about 8:15 last night.
Thanks for following along on the trip to Pasadena. Now, I need to get ready for the next trip!!
