Rose Bowl 2011

On Saturday, January 1st, Cory and I joined his friend Ryan and headed up north to Pasadena to watch Wisconsin play TCU in the Rose Bowl. Cory is a UW alum, Ryan is a fan of the school, and I'm a fan by marriage, so we were quite the interesting group. But we sure didn't feel alone....there were Wisconsin fans EVERYWHERE. We managed to get tickets to the sold out "official" Badger Tailgate Party, and that ended up being a blast. All-you-can-eat brats (they even had sauerkraut...not a WI party without it), beer, soda, cheese....music from a live band and from the UW marching band...it was quite the experience. I even had my belly rubbed by a stranger for the very first time! This lady in the tailgate party was walking past us with her husband/boyfriend, then stopped, rubbed my belly, and asked if there was a future Badger fan in there. It was a little strange, but not as bad as I had imagined....at least we had something in common....she was a friendly Wisconsin fan!


Tailgating before the official tailgate

Rocking the baby bump with our future Badger fan on board

Taking advantage of all you can eat brats

That's a lot of red!

Leaving the tailgate, on our way to the stadium!

Getting into the stadium was a bit of a hassle....I think all 100,000 people in attendance decided to go in at the same time. The baby bump helped us out once we got near the front of the crowd. I told the security guard I was pregnant and just wanted to get out of the pushing crowd, and he let us right through. Luckily we got through the tunnel and up to the seats just as they were doing the flyover with the F-18's....it was sweet!

One of the pilots, when later introduced on the big screen at halftime, pulled open his flight suit to reveal a red Wisconsin shirt underneath.

It was exciting being in the stadium...I'd say at least 70-75% of the fans were wearing red for Wisconsin. This poor college student sitting near us was wearing his red Wisconsin shirt....but was also wearing a purple backpack that was the exact purple of TCU. The fans around us gave him a hard time when he first came up to his seat, and you could tell that he had heard a lot of that already. It was pretty funny when he tried to explain to the entire area around him that he just happened to have a purple Volcom backpack, and that he didn't know TCU's color was purple until it was too late. Poor guy...it was pretty funny.


The view from our seats

Having fun with Cory and Ryan

View of the game from Ryan's sunglasses


So how did the game go you ask? Not so great....Wisconsin ended up losing to TCU in the end. But we still had tons of fun!