Game One

Michigan’s 2011 season started yesterday.

The weather predictions were all over the place the whole week before the game. As late as Thursday night there were predictions of 60% chance of strong afternoon thunderstorms on Saturday. By Friday morning it had dropped to 20% chance – HOORAY! But it was now forecasted to be in the mid-90s. Hmmm.

As we packed up the van Saturday morning I totally forgot to pack rain gear. But it was like 80* and not a cloud in the sky at 9.30a. I had sunscreen though, which was all I thought we’d need.

Biggie & Rich had a HUGE tailgate set up with some of their friends…complete with satellite dish and generator and margarita machine. It was insane. Thank goodness for the tents because the sun was brutal. Carson ended up shirtless (and a certain coach’s wife commented that she wished she was wearing what he was wearing) and the kids were all rubbing ice on themselves). Our seats are on the pressbox side, which isn’t as obvious now that there are matching pressbox/suites/whatever on each side of the stadium, but our seats are on the pressbox side back when the the stadium had only one pressbox, which is the west side, which means the pressbox/suites/whatever structure blocks the sun starting about 3p…sweet relief.

None of us had rain on our minds at all so it was a shock that right after halftime, the stadium announcer told us that there was a severe storm coming and it would be there in about 20 minutes. We packed up and headed to the car – with two kids in tow, I didn’t want to sit through the rain to watch the rest of the game, and then sit in traffic with soaked kids. I felt bad leaving but the decision was justified a few minutes later when the skies opened up and it started to pour. We got in the car and heard on the radio that they were suspending the game for 30 minutes…which was perfect timing to get us back to my dad’s to watch the rest of the game. The CRAZY thing is that there was NO rain at my dad’s – it was super sunny still! And reports from our neighbors at our house were that it was sunny there too. The game resumed briefly but then they called it for good. Luckily we were winning when they called the game – but my dad is mad because we should have won by more than 24 points, so he is going to extrapolate out what the score should have been.

Anyway, here are pictures. Some I took. Some Carson took. I’ll let you figure out which are which.