day 4: battle on the bayou--food and football

We had some rather...interesting...food in New Orleans. From bengiets to a muffuletta, and from jambalaya to crawfish etouffe, there were plenty of new things to try. I'm one for trying new things, but that doesn't mean I'll order them again! On the recommendations of our friend, (and dentist) who attended Tulane, he gave us quite a few places to try.

I really liked the muffuletta (a really big Italian-type sandwich) at Masperos; we had a Ferdi special--a ham and roast beef po' boy with debris--at Mother's (which we had to stand in line for over an hour to get in...at 3 in the afternoon!! We tagged along with Daren's friend, Zach, and his son, David, to get into the Bon Ton Cafe, which is said to be Rick Majerus' (who used to coach the U of U basketball team and knew his food well!) favorite restaurant anywhere! It sure did live up to its reputation. The steak was one of the best ever, and Daren got crawfish etouffe, which was surprisingly good. On game day we ate breakfast, which turned out to be lunch by the time you stood in line for-ev-er, at Camelia Grill. Still we ate breakfast, but heard they had killer burgers as well. The guys who work there are good entertainment as you pass the time, and we talked to lots of very nice Alabama fans too.

We took a taxi to get to Camelia Grill on Friday morning because it was impossible to get on the street cars that morning. We were going to catch one on the way back, but first we wanted to walk down St. Charles Street for a bit.

Audobon Park is on St. Charles Street, and like the rest of the city, has plenty of huge old oak trees. That's as far as we got, because it was getting late and we needed to get back, so we didn't make it to all the beautiful mansions. We rode one of the street cars back, just to say we did it, but it was jam-packed so we couldn't see anything.

There are many artists and a market around Jackson Square by the old cathedral.

And then there was the football game...

These are the crazy Utah students who come dressed to games like this whether rain or shine; whether warm or cold. Fortunately for them, and the rest of us, the game was played in the Superdome!!

We sat in the end zone on the bottom level--decent seats, but not great. There were about ten thousand Ute fans in attendance, and another seventy thousand Alabama fans. The Ute fans were all together in the same area. We were a small crowd in comparison, but we really made ourselves heard and represented well!

This (above) was the view from our seats. Photo 2 is the view of our 10,000+ fans (taken from across the stadium behind enemy lines). Yep, that's where they put all of us...in the end zone and barely around the corner. Seriously, I am still bugged about that--couldn't they give us (as in Utah fans) even a few decent seats?!

This was the view from the top of the upper deck--way up there! Heather sporting the traditional "New Orleans beads." They made special ones with the Utah and Alabama helmets on them.

The Utes got off to a strong start and were ahead 21-0 at the end of the first quarter. They never looked back from there. The Utes dominated both sides of the football and the Alabama fans were mostly quiet after the first few minutes. It was so unexpected (for everybody) and the Utah fans were crazy and very loud! We didn't even sit down for the first half of the game. I didn't even get to take a good picture of the game on our end until close to the end of the game, because the rest of the game pretty much took place on the other end of the field--it was crazy!

And there it is. What a victory! NO TIDE!!

The players came up to greet and thank the fans after the game--a great tradition started a few years back that will hopefully continue long into the future. There was no storming the field--the cops were surrounding the field, many on horseback, to prevent the crowd from coming down.

We hung around and watched the presentation of the trophies and the media interviews.

The Utah Utes ended up being the only college football team in the country to go through the entire season 13-0 and stay undefeated. We have the longest bowl winning streak in the country at 8, and the longest game winning streak at 14. We ended up ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press and No. 4 in the USA Today Coaches' Poll. Coach Kyle Whittingham (in above picture sporting the "U" hand sign) was named the American Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year, as well as the Paul "Bear" Bryant College Coach of the Year Award.

I think we got about 4 hours of sleep that night, and headed home first thing the next morning. The boys had a blast while we were gone--they watched movies, played games, went bowling, ate at McDonald's, went swimming, survived a power outage, and each of them got their own turn to go with Grandma and Grandpa Train to have fun and spend the night. Janae was quite a star for keeping up with them while we were gone, and we are so grateful for her! It was funny because later that Saturday evening they all told me they were so glad all of us were back together, but that they did miss Janae just a bit! What a great trip that we'll always remember. GO UTES!