Belk Bowl 2011

A week ago my lovely NC State football team played in the Belk Bowl in Charlotte against Louisville and as I previously mentioned, it was aahhhhmazing! Let's start from the beginning...

Warning: this post will have way too many pictures. but really, who's surprised?

Last year, NC State made it to a bowl game for the first time in my college career, so three friends and I traveled down to Orlando for the Champs Sports Bowl to watch our beloved team kick some booty. It was so much fun and we even went to Disney afterwards to celebrate! Well, since our boys made it to yet another bowl game, we decided that we needed to continue the tradition. Lucky for us, the bowl game was in Charlotte where one of my friends lives, so we all got to stay with her for the night and the drive wasn't bad at all!

So Tuesday morning came and I packed up my stuff, filled my car to the brim with tailgating supplies, put on my NC State flags, and hit the road! For the majority of the 3 hour drive it was raining and nasty, which was really not fun, but then it finally cleared up and I saw some blue skies!

I know, I shouldn't have been taking a picture while driving...

Fortunately the gorgeous weather stayed for the rest of the drive and for the whole day, which was a very good thing seeing as how it was extremely windy and cold so rain would have just made it miserable.

About 30 minutes away from my friends house I hit a ton of game traffic and ended up being stuck in it for another hour or so. Not only was I ansy and ready to get there, but I also had to really use the bathroom, so it was a fun 13 miles. Lucky for me I had some entertainment during that time. There were lots of NC State fans (duh) on the road and there was this one NCSU RV that I kept passing. Well, there was one guy in that RV that looked to be around my age (maybe younger? I'm not sure...) that attempted to communicate with me while in traffic and even ended up writing his number on a napkin and holding it up for me. Unfortunately I was on the phone when he did that and had nothing to write down his number with, rats! But oh how flattering it is to be hit on while in traffic...

So anyway...we all arrived to my friends house, hit the grocery store for some tailgating essentials (food and beer of course), and finally made it to our parking spot!

It was only like 4:30 by that point, so we still had a good 3 1/2 hours til the game started. We set up our chairs, got out the food and drinks, and began to set up the grill (yes... a grill!).

How do you turn this thing on???

I decided that I wanted this to be a legit tailgate, complete with grilling out our own food, so my step dad lent me one of his grills and taught me how to use it. Maybe it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it really is. I've never grilled anything - in fact, I can't even really cook! But let me tell you...those burgers I made were some of the best burgers ever. At least, that's what my friends say and I hope they wouldn't lie?

After we were there for a bit my little brother and his girlfriend(?) stopped by to say hey for a bit which made me so happy! I love hanging out with my brother...and meeting his lady friends. Apparently my brother has been wearing blue lipstick again though. I keep telling him that it's not a good look for him but he won't listen...

The rest of our tailgating time was spent taking way too many pictures, eating, meeting up with more friends, drinking, and being just plain crazy/silly/weird/giggly/younameit.

Oh Lauren and her many cups...

At around 7:30ish(? to be honest I had very little sense of time...) we decided it was a good idea to make our way over to the stadium with all of the other massive amounts of people. After quite the adventure we finally made it to our seats up in the sky.

 

...and then it was GAME TIME!!

But I need to be honest, for one of the first times ever in a football game, I wasn't really paying attention. We were up way high, I was surrounded by some of my best friends, we couldn't really hear the band because we were so far away from them (in fact, I don't think I sang the fight song once in that game...how does that happen??) and we were all just in our own little land of happiness that we were more focused on each other than the game. That's not to say that I didn't love every minute of it though, and don't worry I cheered and paid attention to the big, exciting stuff...like our interceptions and touchdowns! :)

Side note: it's super hard to get a clear picture of a touchdown from miles away when everyone around you (yourself included) is jumping up and down in excitement.

Although I may not have been totally in tune to the majority of the game I was all eyes and ears during the last few minutes. We were winning, but Louisville had a chance to come back with only a few seconds left and I'll go ahead and say it: I was terrified! Buuuuut, our defensive was on FIRE and we intercepted the ball with only 41 seconds left to seal our victory, 31 - 24. Cue the fireworks.

We all jumped up and down and rejoiced and screamed and sang the Alma mater and were incredibly happy.

The whole gang!

It was a happy night indeed. But the fun doesn't end there...

In downtown Charlotte, across from our parking lot, there is this really awesome, huge ornament just planted in the middle of the sidewalk.

And because we are a creative bunch, we decided that we needed pictures with this ornament. This resulted in by far some of the best pictures of the night.

I promise you we were sober.

And this is where our night ended. We drove back to my friends house, paaaassed out, and then woke up the next day to sadly go our separate ways. But a week later I am still laughing at all of the wonderfulness that was this night :) Love love love those friends so much!!

By the way... in case you didn't notice it, there is now a helpful button on the side of this blog where you can LIKE Brittany Hines Photography, so you should probably go do that right now. :)

Happy Wednesday!

B.Hines