Throughout the summer Doug really couldn't tell us when they were going to make the move so it was going to be a last minute weekend thing and most likely in October. A few weeks went by and in late September Doug gave us a target date, October 20. I set aside the weekend to help them move. The weekend before the Ducks beat the Huskies 30-27 in overtime and the Cougars stomped the Beavers 56-37 which resulted in a Cougar-Duck College Gameday Showdown in Pullman. Yes, you heard that right. WSU was going to host its first College Gameday since the live program started in 1993. We waited 15 years for this moment. This day. We all heard the announcement late after we beat the Beavers. I found out on my Facebook that night. I was stoked but saddened I could not make the drive to Pullman to experience the historical moment because I had promised my weekend to Doug already. Huge bummer.
When College Gameday did make it to Pullman a few days before the big game it was like everyone dropped everything to head towards Stadium Way. If you were in Pullman you were there when the bus came into town. I was super jealous of all the posts, pictures and mayhem.
I really wanted to be there. We've been waiting years to have this moment happen, this is why we wave Ol' Crimson week after week. This meant a lot to the people of Pullman, the fans, students and alumni of WSU. This was our year to be great; one game at a time.
We did not have the capabilities to record College Gameday so we missed all of that this morning while we were getting ready to go. I would have to either find it online or ask someone if they recorded it to watch it in its entirety. If you did attend Gameday you were basically up the entire day. You would have to get in line really early in the morning to be one of the people in the crowd. There were hundreds of flags, Gameday signs, seas of crimson and gray, Butch, chanting...this was the game of all games. Someone said it was up there right with the 1998 Rose Bowl. This was worth the wait. This was epic.
Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Desmond Howard and David Pollack told many of the media outlets that Washington State was crazy and festive, high energy atmosphere before, during and after the show. They all said it was incredible and Pullman didn't disappoint.
Corso picked the Cougars over the Ducks and one of my favorite pictures came from that moment.
The Spokesman Review stated that College Gameday at Washington State was seen by almost 2 million people.
He wanted us to be at his house around 9 a.m. He had already started the packing process days ago and has a lot of it staged in the bedroom. Erika, mom and I left my house around 7 a.m. We stopped at Safeway so Erika could get some coffee. I grabbed some maple bars and a milk for the road. Erika rode with mom and I drove myself up. We needed two cars for the "expensive breakables" and stuff that shouldn't go in the moving van to get ruined.
Traffic was alright until we got to Seattle. For some reason before you go over the bridge into North Seattle there is always horrible traffic almost like the bridge is a magnet. It's very weird.
After ducking and dodging idiots, we finally got to the exit and followed the Nuvi and part of Doug's directions (because the Nuvi and most GPS's wouldn't find the correct driveway anyway) we made it to his apartment complex. We found the giant U-Haul truck and found some parking places near the door. We walked up the several flights of stairs and into their tiny apartment. I was shocked to see how much stuff was packed in this microscopic space and how dirty it was. They basically lived on the couch and at their computer desks.
Jenn started packing the rest of the kitchen stuff while everyone else attempted to pack up stuff in the living room so we could get the couch out to the truck. At one point I was just putting random things into empty boxes just to get the stuff done. We eventually got everything away from the couch so we could start taking that down in pieces. The couch was so awkward but I'm glad it fit down the stairwell. We took the bed stuff and a lot of the large boxes down. We got all the big stuff down and into the truck. Doug said, "then we start tetris'ing the weird stuff."
The desks, random clothes bags, desk lamps, shelves and the rest was miscellaneous stuff that we stuck in the truck last. The TV's, computer screens, game consoles, mirrors and canvases (basically all the breakables and expensive stuff) all went into the Expedition and Escape. We finished up with washing the windows, bathroom, living room kitchen, vacuuming, mopping and spackling holes in the walls.
Around 3ish, we had everything packed up, the apartment was clean, they left the keys and we headed out. Doug drove the U-Haul, Jenn drove their car with their cat Freya, I drove the Escape with stuff inside and Erika and mom drove together with all the TV's and monitors.
We left first because they stopped by their apartment office before the left. I went the same way we came up, via I-5. I knew there would be places along the freeway where there would be traffic. We would just have to be patient. I was hungry and hoped we would get some food soon.
We made it through the traffic and finally got out of Seattle. The rest of the time it was pretty much smooth sailing. I called Doug to warn him about the traffic because it would be more difficult in the U-Haul. He said he took 405 through Bellevue and he said it wasn't too bad. I told him to text us when he got closer to Lacey. He said sure. When we got to Lacey mom wanted to stop at Walmart for some stuff and had to kill some time while we waited for Doug and Jenn, who were about an hour behind us still.
We wasted enough time inside the store. I bought a snack because I wasn't sure if we were going to eat anything or not. Doug said he and Jenn were at the house and I told them we were on our way because we stopped at the store for a bit. Doug backed the truck up and we all decided to unload the U-Haul and then our individual cars. Dad met us there to help. We unloaded the truck fairly quickly and stuck everything in the back room near the kitchen for "staging" purposes. They really didn't know where they wanted everything yet. The only thing we knew for sure was where the couch was going to go. We grabbed the stuff out of their car, mom's Expedition and finally my Escape.
The Cougar game started at 4:30.
I went out to the garage to grab my mop and bucket. I brought them just in case we needed to use them to clean their apartment. We didn't end up using them. I went to grab them and then something caught my eye. A car had driven by and out of my peripheral it looked familiar. I thought to myself, no way. NO WAY! Remember that one roommate Ben and I had about a year ago? The one that we took to court and won? She was living with some of her friends at the time and then I found out she was buying a house somewhere. She was very secretive about people knowing where she lived and her address...she even gave us a friend's address to forward her mail to so we didn't know where she was living. We knew where she was the entire time anyway. Mostly, so we knew where to serve court papers but we ended up doing it at work instead. Well, today we found out where she bought her house. That's right, three houses down from my brother's house. Insane right? What are the effing odds!!?? Of anywhere in Thurston county she chose the neighborhood my brother lived in. Granted, she was living there before he even knew he was moving back home. I was beside myself and I'm sure she was crapping her pants when she drove past my Escape a few minutes ago. Just to make sure I inched my way out of Doug's driveway to make sure that was who it was. Sure enough, her creepy boyfriend Tyler was just standing out at the edge of their driveway staring at us. I stood there staring at him. I was not going to acknowledge him. She sat in her car and then scampered away into the house trying not to be seen. I imagine it really bugged her that I now knew where she lived. The funny thing is though, we got what we wanted and she is no longer a problem in our lives. She is now a stranger that I sometimes see at work...there I ignore her as well. I still could not believe it though. I had to tell people. I called Ben and told him and followed that up with a call to Trish. They were beside themselves too.
Doug wanted to buy us all dinner so we drove back into Hawks Prairie and he treated us to Red Robin. I just got my usual and I saw they were playing our game on one of the TV's. I had been checking the score off and on so I knew how dominant the first half was. I just hope they had enough to keep the lead in the second half.
They came back out and let the Ducks have 20 unanswered points in the third and fourth quarter. Cougar Nation was a bit worried there in the fourth quarter only leading by a touchdown. It was a long five minutes after Oregon kicked a field goal. We got the ball back and scored a touchdown keeping the lead out of reach. Oregon got the ball again but turned it over on downs. We ended the game in victory formation.
We won 34-20. This game was epic in so many ways. We rushed the field in victory. It was a perfect day out on the Palouse.
The Cougars were now (7-1, 4-1) with five more Pac-12 games left of the year. Unfortunately, I was not going to make it to a home game at Martin Stadium but this year I would be making my first away Cougar game in Colorado in a few weeks.
Next Adventure: First Time to Canada: Vancouver BC and a Penguins Hockey Game
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