Tennessee Trip - BYU Tennessee Game
Leaving Nashville
We loved staying in the Union Station Hotel in Nashville. Such a unique and historic building. Marilee and I wore our matching ‘Tailgates and Touchdowns’ shirts for most of the day until we picked up our Y’all shirts — which were really fun to wear. Love this picture of the four of us!
Five Daughters Bakery
We decided to head back to 12th Street and start our day with Doughnuts at Five Daughters Bakery. Boy, was that a good idea! And guess who else was there? About 15 other BYU fans. This was definitely the place to be, and the Doughnuts were SOOO good!
BYU Tailgate Party
After doughnuts we got on the road and drove the 2 hours and 45 minutes to the Tailgate Party on the grounds of University of Tennessee. We met up with Caroline and had fun wandering, picking up our shirts and clear plastic bags and running into some random friends and acquaintances. Our tailgate ticket included a BBQ pork sandwich, coleslaw and chips . (Adam called it) It was a great Royal Blue party and fun to see the fans come out in the thousands. After an hour or two we decided to take off and head back to the hotel and relax for a couple of hours before the game.
BYU/Tennessee Game at Neyland Stadium
What can I even say about this game?? It was unforgettable! So fun to be in this Stadium that held over 100,000 people. Amazing to see all the fans decked out in orange (except for large corners of blue) to hear the roar of the crowd, and to watch the sunset over the stadium. Wow! Even though we were pretty high up it was a fun view of the whole place. The game was pretty exciting ending in a last minute tie 16-16 which sent us into two breathtaking overtimes — and an epic win. What a game. Fun to experience it with Adam and Mar.
We stayed in the stadium for quite some time after the game finished. We took pictures, rewatched and laughed at the video Marilee took of our reaction to the win and stayed as the BYU players sang the Cougar Fight Song for the fans. Then we headed down to wait for the players and coaches to come out and head to the buses. So fun that so many people gathered to show support. We even read an article posted later of how nice the BYU fans were to the police and security people working at the stadium during and after the game — fun to hear that they were pretty impressed.
After high five-ing the players we left the stadium and headed down the street in search of something to eat. We found the local college hangout and several orange clad Tennessee students said hi and gave us some suggestions on where to eat. Honestly, I’m so impressed with their ‘Southern Hospitality’. It was the real deal. The whole day we felt welcomed. It was neat. We settled on an Italian place still open at midnight and had some Hawaiian pizza and salad while reliving the highs of the game. At 1:00am we took an Uber back to the hotel. What a day!