September Recap -- VT game trips

After getting back from DC in early October, where we went to see the Hokies play, I realized that I never got around to our FIRST Virginia Tech trip earlier this year, when we went to Blacksburg on Labor Day weekend.  So I began to do a blog to combine the two...and never got around to finishing it. Until tonight.

The first Virginia Tech football game we decided to go to this year was the Labor Day night game in Blacksburg against Georgia Tech.  Because the game was Monday night, and it was early in the year, we decided to head down for four nights and use the long weekend as a mini-vacation.  We flew in on Friday morning and stayed at a cabin in Pearisburg, VA, one that we stayed in last year that is great when it comes to location (quiet, comfortable, on a river), but horrible when it comes to other things (like cell reception – there was ZERO).  After unpacking we headed over to Blacksburg to reacquaint ourselves with my favorite college town.  Our first stop was at the new Hall of Fame Virginia Tech has built on one side of Lane Stadium.  The sign on the door said it was only open until 3:00 pm, but the door was opened so we walked in. I don’t think we were supposed to, but everyone at VT is so nice, no one said a word to us as we looked around all the exhibits they have for each sport.  As we finally made our way out, a few people bid us well, and then made sure the door locked behind us.  From there we ventured into the Merryman Center next door, which has some football memorabilia as well as a giant Hokie Bird.  This time we didn’t run into Frank Beamer as Sage once did in the past, and we decided not to try our chances of exploring too much and ending up on the Lane Stadium field, as we once did as well.

Doug sizes up against Hokie Bird

After our sports trip down memory lane, we headed downtown, and we did our now-customary food-and-drink tour of Blacksburg.  Our first stop was The London Underground, a great little pub that has a wide beer selection and plenty of dart lanes if you were so inclined. (We weren’t.)  We sat at the bar enjoying some fine beverages, and then made our way up Main Street to Mike’s Grill, home to cheap beer, great pizza, and above average hamburgers.  I’m sure everyone is sick of me talking about how much we love Mike’s, but, well, we do.  Sometimes we can’t decide if we should get pizza or hamburgers, so this time we got a hamburger pizza.  A small pitcher of Yuengling was $3.75, large pizza was $6, and we both left full and very happy.  After dinner we took a long stroll around campus, checking out the new buildings, including a brand-new dining hall.  Compared to the dining halls they had when I was in school, this is like the Ritz-Carlton.  (Check out this story about it in the Roanoke Times.) Pretty amazing how far VT has come from the halcyon days of Turkey Tettrazini Night. Once done with the campus tour we stopped at Kroger to pick up provisions for the weekend ahead, and headed back to the cabin for reading, football watching, ping pong and pinball.  (Oh yeah, the other cool thing about this cabin – a basement with a ping pong table AND a working pinball machine from the 70’s.  Pretty awesome.)

Doug tries his hand at Wild Fyre pinball

On Saturday, I headed out to play golf.  Every year in the past whenever we’d come to Blacksburg I’d always say I wished I had more time to play golf at the Pete Dye River Course, the home course of the VT golf team.  It’s regularly ranked as one of the top public courses in the country, but I’ve never had a chance to play in the past.  This time, thanks to our long weekend, I brought my clubs and penciled in 2 separate times to play while we were down.  Saturday morning was the first, and with my tee time of 8:30 am in hand, Sage dropped me off and then sped off to campus for shopping.  As it turned out they didn’t have anyone to pair up with me that day, but said I would probably catch up to a twosome in front of me.  Catching up to the twosome took all of 1 hole, but they waved me on, saying I could play through.  I thought this was great…until I caught up with a foursome 2 holes later.  There were actually 3 or 4 foursomes in front of me, all walking, and I never had a chance to play through them, nor did they offer.  I wasn’t too annoyed, as I took my time playing the course, which I fell in love with immediately.  The River Course runs right along the New River in Radford, and has a true links feel to it.  Almost every hole is either on or has a view of the river, and half the holes run directly on the river itself.  Thankfully the foursomes in front of me were moving along pretty well for most of the round, but by the time I got to the 16th hole, it slowed down considerably, and that twosome behind me finally caught up.  I said they might as well join me, but they declined, saying we’ve gone this far apart.  (Also, I think one of the two thought he was really bad and didn’t want to play with a stranger.  I can understand the 1st part anyway.)  Regardless I finished the round in just over 4 hours, and while I didn’t shoot a great score (97 for those of you scoring at home), I had a great time, and couldn’t wait to come back in 2 days to play it again.  Sage had to come back to pick me up, and since it was close to 1 pm, we met up at the bar at the course for lunch and to catch up on our days.  She bought plenty of new Hokie gear, and I decided to do the same on my way out of the club house, picking up a nice golf shirt as well as a new Hokie Bird head cover for my driver.  We then drove back to the house where we decided to hang out for the rest of the day.  I watched plenty of football, we grilled up some chicken on the charcoal grill the cabin had, and worked on our ping pong skills.

View of the River Course from the clubhouse

On Sunday we wanted to get out and stretch our legs a bit, so we drove on up to Mountain Lake to do some hiking.  We’ve always loved visiting Mountain Lake, all the way back to when I was a sophomore at Tech.  Mountain Lake is also famous for being the film location of several outdoor shots from the movie “Dirty Dancing”.  It took a while, but the lodge is finally embracing its connection to the movie, even offering up a walking tour of sites that were used in the film.

Mountain Lake Lodge

One of the more amazing/depressing things we saw there was the water level of the actual lake.

Mountain "Lake", with almost zero water

In the photo above, you’ll see that it looks like a completely dry lake bed. The level of the lake has receded what appears to be at least 1/2 a mile.  To get an idea of what it USED to look like, check out the photo below.

File photo of Mountain Lake WITH water (Photo courtesy of The Guardian)

Pretty amazing difference.  The gazebo in the top photo is the same one in the bottom left of the bottom photo.  There are informational signs around the lake explaining that the level rises/recedes based on snowfall, rainfall, and other factors, and that it’s all cyclical in nature, but the sheer volume of how far it’s gone down was really amazing to me.  This article from the Roanoke Times in 2008 suggests that there's a crack in the subterranean earth that drained the lake.

After walking around the buildings, we made our way up to Bald Knob, at an elevation of over 4,000 feet.  The views weren’t great because of the damp, cloudy day, but it was still nice to sit on the cliffs and look out over the George Washington National Forest. We then hiked across the mountain ridge to Bear Cliffs, which has numerous caves and rock openings, but not that many views.  We then hiked it back to the car…all told about 6.2 miles of hiking with about 500 feet of elevation gain.  Not too bad.

Bald Knob

Doug poses on the trail

We drove back to the cabin for hot showers, then headed over to campus for more drinks at the Underground, and then dinner at Souvlakis, our other favorite hangout in Blacksburg.  Without anything else to keep us busy, we headed back to the cabin where the vast array of bad dvd movies awaited us to pass the evening.

Monday morning was game day, but I had an early tee time at the River Course once again.  This time I made the tee time for 7 am, and when I was there two days prior I found out that I had the 1st tee time of the day.  When I arrived at 6:30 am it was still pretty dark, and the clubhouse didn’t open until 6:45 or so.  When they did open I was told I was paired with one other single, a member.  But at 6:55 he still hadn’t arrived and the starter let me go out by myself.  I decided to walk this round, as during the 1st time I played I realized it was a very easy course to walk and find your way around.  There’s nothing better than playing a round by yourself, walking, especially first thing in the morning without anyone in front and no one behind.  I played great that day, shot a 90 on a really tough course, including a 40 on the back 9 where I really had it dialed in.  I was done in about 3 hours, and was back at the cabin by 11 am where Sage was barely just waking up and getting ready for the day.

We headed back to campus for the game in the early afternoon, and had a pregame meal at Mike’s, this time for their famous burgers.  The kickoff for the game was late, around 8 pm, so we did a lot of hanging out in the parking lots, watched the team’s pre-game walk, and got to our seats early to meet all the new people.  Yes, there was another reseating at Lane Stadium in the off-season, and we got moved once again, but this time we ended up back almost exactly to where our original seats were back in 1999 when we first got our season tickets.  Unfortunately we didn’t recognize anyone else from those old days, but the people who did fill in around us were all very nice and friendly, and everyone introduced each other.  The group behind us were pretty loud and rowdy, and obviously drunk, and one made a comment to Sage about how they would “annoy you by being loud” during the game.  I told them, “The only way you could annoy her is if you dumped a drink on her head.”  And sure enough, about 30 minutes later, what happened?  A full Coke went right down Sage’s back.  But even with that, they weren’t too bad (the woman couldn’t stop apologizing about it), and I’d much rather have a group like that than ones who complain if you ever stand up and never get into it. The game was great, with a drive in the last minute to tie it up and then a victory in OT, the 1st OT game in Lane Stadium’s history.  We didn’t get back to the cabin until late, and were up early for our long drive to Charlotte and flight to Boston.  All in all, it was a really fun weekend.

The students rocking out during the Orange Effect

The Highty Tighties march before the game

The weekend in DC at the end of September?  Not as much fun, though we did have a good time regardless of the outcome of the game.  Our flight to BWI on Friday was wicked early – 3:30 am wakeup call early. I’m not sure why we got such an early flight, but I’m guessing it saved us about $20 each, which at the time looked good, but when the alarm goes off that early, one really begins to question one’s sanity.  After the early arrival in Baltimore we drove down to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, as we haven’t been there to visit our old gorilla friends in a couple of years.  We spent a lot of time catching up with the group, and enjoyed the other new parts of the Zoo, such as the new North American Trail, the new lion cubs (which are all 2 years old now), and the cheetahs, just to name a few.  We were sad that the Panda House was still closed after Mei Xiang lost her cub back in August only a week after being born, but we did get a glimpse of Tian Tian as he was eating some bamboo.

Kwame relaxes in the gorilla yard

Baraka the silverback

Kigali and Kibibi

Kibibi looks for some food

Lucy the orangutan

Lion cubs at 2 years old

After the zoo we headed down to Dupont Circle for lunch at Zorba’s, one of Sage’s favorite Greek café’s in the world.  After lunch, we checked in to our room, and then headed over to Ashburn, VA,  to see our friends Graham and Carrie. We had a great time catching up and enjoying a good meal out at Clyde's Willow Creek Farm restaurant.  With good company and great wine, Sage shuttled us back to the hotel for the night.

On Saturday morning we met up with Steve to have beers and lunch before the game, which had a kickoff time of 3:30 pm.  We met at his place, and then drove over to Laurel to eat at a pub whose name is completely lost on me now.  But they had plenty of TVs to watch sports and tons of beers on tap, and it wasn't that bad.

Traffic to the game was very light, and we found a good parking spot in the middle of thousands of tailgating Hokies.  The last time we went to FedEx Field for a game was against Boise St. a few years back, and afterwards we got completely turned around leaving the stadium and trying to find our car.  By the time we did find it, the lines to get out of the parking lots were horrendous, and it just added to a completely miserable night.  This time we made sure we knew EXACTLY where we left the car, and EXACTLY where our seats were in relation to the parking lot and our exit.  The tailgates were lively but a bit subdued after our loss to Pittsburgh 2 weeks before.  We made our way into the game and to our seats early, and as we were sitting down there was a very nice older couple who sat down in front of us.  After a few minutes, Sage looked down the row in front of us, and poked me in the ribs.  "Look who it is!", she whispered.  I looked down the aisle and saw this:

The Return of Vaughan!

Who the hell is that, you may ask?  Well, let me tell you a story; a story that you've all probably heard a million times from me over the years.  When we first got our season tickets to VT football in 1999, we absolutely LOVED the people who sat around us.  There were 3 recent graduates to our left who had wonderful songs about UVa and WVU; there was a great couple in front of us that we really enjoyed talking to (and whose marriage proposal, which was supposed to take place during a Marching Virginians performance during the 2000 Georgia Tech game, only to get rained out during a thunderstorm that left Lee Corso's car dead with a lightning strike); and the row in front of them was a group of 3-4 guys, including one who wore the same #55 Vaughan jersey to every single game, and gave the most intense/painful/wonderful high-fives after every Hokie score.  During one memorable game during that great 1999 season, he jumped up and down so hard on the old wooden bleachers that Lane Stadium used to have that he splintered his seat, breaking off a long, thick piece of the bleacher.  He was half embarrassed, half proud of himself, and at the end of the game he tucked the long piece of wood into his coat and made his way out of the stadium.  It was these great seatmates that made the games so enjoyable to watch and share, and the reason that I lamented the re-seating that Virginia Tech did over the years since that broke up that group.

So when we saw Vaughan once again, it felt like a visit from an old friend...one whose name we never knew but with whom we shared so many great moments of VT football.  We weren't sure if we should say anything to him or not, as we didn't know if he'd remember us.  (After all, we saw him every game/play, as he was in front of us, but we were behind him, and might not be that memorable.)  It seemed that the couple in front of us might have been with him, so I leaned over and asked the woman if she knew him.  "Why yes", she replied.  "He's my son. Do you know him?"  We told her that for many years we sat near him at Lane, and that we really missed not sitting near him anymore.  "He gave the greatest high-fives every every touchdown", I told her. "My hands would ache for days after the games...it was great!"  When I said that, Vaughan's mother absolutely beamed with pride.  I also mentioned the broken piece of bleacher, and she said, "Oh yes, he still has that...it's one of his most prized possessions!"  She finally leaned over to him to say, "I think I found some old friends of yours", and sure enough he did remember us, and we caught up, mostly bemoaning the re-seating and loss of those good old days.  While there weren't many moments against Cincinnati that day to celebrate, we did receive several of his atomic high-fives, and it felt like old times once again.

But alas, it wasn't enough for the Hokies, as they blew a late lead by giving up a big play to Cincinnati with less than a minute left when the Bearcats QB, Munchie Legaux, threw an incredible desperation heave off his back foot that somehow was caught in the end zone.  Three games I've seen the Hokies play at FedEx...and 3 painful losses: 2004 against USC, when VT was leading against the eventual national champions, only to have Reggie Bush run through our linebackers in the 2nd half; 2010 against Boise St., when VT gives up the game-losing drive in the last minute of the game to Kellen Moore; and now 2012.  I said after the game, I am NEVER going to another game at FedEx field again. EVER. And I mean it.

After the game we found our car very quickly (that's what pre-planning will do for you), got out of the parking lot fast, and back to our hotel where we hung out in the hotel bar, downing drinks, watching more football, and trying to figure out if we should crash the Bar Mitzvah or the Sweet 16 party that were both going on at the hotel. I had a feeling that either would lead down a path to an arrest and indictment, so we packed it in for the night.  We flew out the next morning to Boston.  We have two more VT games this year: one in Blacksburg, and then the Boston College game up here in Chestnut Hill.  Hopefully the results of those 2 will be better than this one.