One funny thing from yesterday, that is Wednesday, was one of the handouts I received was a wood clothespin with the head of one of the guys glued to the end. I clipped it into the V of my top. Later some young lady said he was her favorite band member so I gave it to her; she was ecstatic.
Thursday morning. Woke up a little later 7:30ish; ha. Sheveled while BF looked up possible breakfast locations because this Red Roof Inn did not serve breakfast. Then I also looked. There were 2 possiblities about a mile from the motel and they were across the road and kitty corner from each other. We tried Schultzy’s Place and Deb, our waitress, was tops. I had scrambled eggs, home fried crispy potatoes, 2 slices of bacon and 2 sausage links, whole wheat toast with orange marmalade and hot tea. BF had a vegetarian omelette with hash browns and GF toast. I gave her one of my sausage links and took the other to go. Then we walked over to the other diner and peeked in; the menu said they only serve breakfast on Sundays-weird- so that was off the list for Friday breakfast.
Back to motel. Made up more goodie baggies. Read some more of Alex Cross Must Die. Had some toast and butter that I had brought from first Red Roof Inn, the sausage link and some huge cherry tomatoes that I had brought from home. Rested a bit then it was time to head back to Gillette Stadium.
BF is enamored with use of electronics for in car routing. She had both a Garmin and Waze on phone going. They were giving differing routes. I generally study maps or Mapquest in advance when I’m going on a trip so I know exactly how to get where I am going. Many times I will copy and paste the route into a Word document so I can consult it, if need be. Since this wasn’t my trip, I did none of that. Well, I got out my phone and Mapquested which said to take the same route as Waze said. Which meant not going on I495 instead getting off I295 on US1 which was Washington St which you’ll remember from yesterday is where Gillette Stadium is. Aside: since there likely aren’t a lot of football fans amongst the mmp, Gillette Stadium is where the New England Patriots play; I have to believe you’ve heard of Tom Brady. Washington Street ended up being so fast as most traffic was routed on the interstates.
We parked at the same lot as it was convenient, clean, reasonable for where we were going (saw closer lots for $60, $80 and one for $100; cripes. We did not dilly dally, I just again hightailed it to the porta potty and while it was still clean, it stunk to high heaven; the contents from Wednesday obviously hadn’t been evacuted. But plenty of TP and hand sanitizer. Again a very hot day, mid to high 80s but also quite humid so it seemed hotter than Wednesday. I had taken 2 purple tank tops so since the band’s favorite color is purple which means LOVE to them, that’s what I wore along with my gray convertible pants with the bottoms again stuffed into the pockets. I also wore a pair of lavender smartwool ankle socks. (I do have a pair of purple convertibles but I didn’t take them as I didn’t know in advance of the band’s preference for purple). BF changed into the same purple T but a black pair of pajama type pants that had the names of the band members all over in purple writing. Then we were off.
Again met a lot of people walking along and traded with them or just gave out the goodie baggies. We particularly tried to give them to children meaning 5 yrs-early teen girls. I mean what does a woman, particularly over a certain age, need with those pictures, stickers, buttons, clothespins, etc. FCM: is Roxstar a fan of BTS? If so and she’d like some swag, DM me.
BF didn’t have as much trouble as Wednesday getting the tickets to load, some trouble but not as much, but once again the scanner couldn’t read the tickets so the woman at the turnstile let us squeeze through. At that point I asked her and her partner if they were BTS fans and they said yes; but they’re not allowed to go into the stadium. So I asked them who their favorite band member was then we gave each of them a goodie baggie. They were so thrilled as nobody seems to offer them as stadium employees any freebies.
You’re not supposed or hypothetically allowed to bring any food or beverage into the stadium but I was darned if I was going to pay $7 for another bottle of water. Plus I prefer to drink my filtered Detroit water. I brought more than a gallon of water in the cooler so after washing out my bottle from Wednesday, I had refilled it with my own water that I had put in the refrigerator in the motel room. Then I stuck the bottle along my spine with the bottom of it in my pants. I had my Spartan hoodie jacket wrapped around my waist covering my shirt and pants. The scanner that I walked through didn’t pick it up and the hawk eyes of the people purportedly doing security by the scanners didn’t notice the bit of a bulge around my waist on my back. I learned this trick from a former roommate who was definitely a wild child, how I ended up subletting a room in a house with her as a roommate for a summer term is a wonder. Anyway, we were going to a Sly & the Family Stone concert and she put a bottle of Jack Daniels down her spine into her pants and covered it with a leather jacket. Sly was an hour and a half late but we didn’t care, we were top row of the bleachers in the fieldhouse, and having a fine time sipping that Jack. Hubs, who also was subletting that summer in the same house, came with. At that time he was just a friendly guy who was subletting another room in the house. I was dating someone else. But by the end of the summer, the other guy was an X and Hubs was the man.
On Thursday we were in row 10 and much closer to the middle, probably about the 40-45 yd line whereas yesterday we were closer to the 25 yd line (note: the 50 yd line is the middle of the field), and just being 8 rows lower made a huge difference in being able to see them better on the stage. I didn’t look at the video screens very much. Concert was pretty much the same, mostly same song choices, same fireworks, flames exploding, confetti, pyrotechnics, same screaming, jumping, dancing by the fans but the band wore different costumes and again they changed during the break between each set.
I told BF that I didn’t want to sit and wait for everyone above us to exit so the second they started walking off stage, we were up and getting onto the stairs. We weren’t able to bound right up but did get out sooner than Wednesday. Since we got going walking back sooner, we were somewhat ahead of most people although there were still a lot at same time but a bit sparser so we were able to walk at a fast pace. Occassionally we would catch up to the peloton (BF didn’t know what a peloton was, she isn’t into sports at all) so we would have to wait until an opportune time to pass. Unfortunately, there was poison ivy along the sidewalk part of the way so then we would walk close to the curb, one behind the other. We jumped in the car and made it up the driveway out of the parking lot before many people had made it back so we didn’t have to wait long to turn onto Washington St. On Wednesday BF had stayed in the right lane the entire way from the parking lot to the first interstate and it crawled along. I convinced her to take Washington St way past the first interstate and so stay in the left lane which zipped along almost at the speed limit. So, we made it to the motel just before midnight. So we went to bed about an hour and a half sooner than Wednesday.
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It’s a love or hate situation. I get it from my Dad, explaining almost every detail in chronological order.