Once A Buckeye, Always A Buckeye

If you read my post yesterday about our nightmare of air travel on American Airlines, then you’ll understand how it’s a miracle we made it to Ohio on Friday night.  We came to see a Buckeye football game!  The last time we saw a game at Ohio State was 2006.  We flew to Seattle for a game vs Washington in 2007.  We went to the Rose Bowl to see the Buckeyes in January 2010.  We flew to Wisconsin for the game at Camp Randall Stadium in October 2010.  It was about time! 

We woke up on Saturday morning and met Todd’s family for breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express in Polaris.  Then we checked out and drove down to the Ohio State University campus.  We were able to park by the OSU Hospital so the walk wasn’t super-far.  Although, we had to walk with a steady rain so it wasn’t that fun. 

We made it to the 10am Skull Session at St. John Arena.  This is the OSU tradition where the band plays their halftime music inside the arena, two hours prior to the game. 

Despite the rain, St. John Arena was packed with Ohio State students, Alumni, and fans.  Todd’s parents were in marching bands growing up, so they always want to see TBDBITL’s Skull Session prior to the game.

The OSU Marching Band is all brass.  No woodwinds.

A selfie with Todd and his mom Sylvia.

After the Skull Session, we left St John Arena and headed towards Ohio Stadium for the game.  It was overcast but no longer raining.

Todd & I in front of the “mothership”!

Lots more family photos in front of the stadium.  Todd’s cousin Becka was visiting from Colorado.  Todd’s sister Amy’s boyfriend Luke also came with us.

We had to wait for the band to march into the stadium before crossing the path to get to our gate entrance.

It turned out our seats were under the B deck, so we would not have been rained on anyways!  But it started to clear up right around game time.

Go Bucks!

There was a bunch of pre-game stuff.

The entrance of the marching band.

They formed “FAMU” for the visiting team, Florida A&M University.

Todd went to get us lunch before the game started.  We had Brutus hot dog & sausage.

The team enters the field with fanfare, cheerleaders, and flags.  We were packed in there like sardines.  Most of B Deck and C Deck are bleacher seats, so you are just smashed in with everyone.  The guy next to me to my left was literally sitting on part of my leg at one point.

The game itself was a huge blowout.  By the end of the first quarter it was 34-0 Ohio State.

Halftime show was the the OSU Marching Band playing Beatles songs.

They marched into a guitar formation and rocked it back and forth.  That was awesome!

The beginning of Script Ohio.

Script Ohio finished with the dotted “i"!

The Buckeyes enter the field for the 2nd half of the game.

The only thing about sitting under B Deck was that we couldn’t see the big scoreboard.  Todd took a photo when he walked down to the restroom.

We left at the beginning of the 4th quarter, because by then the score was 69-0 and we wanted to see the new buildings on campus that we’d never seen before.  Group photo outside the stadium.

Todd’s sister Amy photobombing us.

We walked through Buckeye Grove.

Official stadium photo.

It was great to walk around campus, but it has changed so much that I hardly recognized the buildings! 

One thing that Todd really wanted to see was the new Ohio Union.

When we were there it was a smallish non-descript two-floor building. 

Now it’s all grand.

Couldn’t resist a photo with bronze Brutus.

Todd pointing to Akron and Columbus.  I guess he didn’t have a third arm to point to Dayton.  We lived in Dayton for 6.5 years.

This would be a fun place to hang out and study!

Doing the Heisman pose in front of Archie Griffin’s 1975 Heisman Trophy.  He’s the only player to ever win two Heisman trophies.

We walked across The Oval to see the renovated Thompson Library.

It looked new and awesome, with glass walls showing The Stacks.

We also had to see the new Larkins sports complex.  This recreational facility add-on made it so much LARGER than it was when we were there!

Parting shot of me in front of the Ohio Stadium.

Per tradition, we went to Donatos Pizza after the game.  It’s our favorite Ohio pizza that we can’t get in San Diego.  And of course, a Todd Shot.

After dinner at Donatos, we drove back to Todd’s parents’ house in Akron and spent the night there.  Then on Sunday morning Todd’s parents drove us to the Cleveland airport for our flight home through Chicago.  Just to make our trip EXTRA special, and by special I mean the kind of specialness that was the perfect end to our miserable nightmare of a flight out to Ohio…  when we went through security at Cleveland, they stopped me to PAT DOWN MY PONYTAIL.  That is, after I had already gone through the x-ray scanner.  What could I possibly have hidden in my ponytail that the x-ray scanner couldn’t detect??!  And oh, our flight from Cleveland to Chicago O’Hare on American Airlines was delayed by 40 minutes, causing us panic running from one terminal to another at Chicago O’Hare airport.  You would think that’s the perfect end to our nightmare air travel this weekend, right?

No.  I started to feel sick on the flight home to San Diego.  By Sunday night I had a full-blown head cold.  I was so miserable because I couldn’t sleep laying down due to being so congested and not being able to breathe.  So I had to work from home Monday and Tuesday.  I’m fully convinced that if I hadn’t had to spend over 16 hours in 5 airports (most of the time being in Dallas), in close proximity to so many people, I would not have gotten sick.  I really hope karma bites American Airlines’ butt.  I sort of hate them right now.