Friday, December 30, 2011

Alamo Bowl Trip 2011

We are on the return flight to Seattle from our second bowl experience. Last year at this time we were at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and this year was San Antonio. We have both been to San Antonio before but our expectations were fairly low. I have to say we had a great time! By far the trip exceeded our expectations! First of all the weather was perfect! Low 70's the entire time! We both went on daily runs simpley because it was so nice out.

















The river walk is awsome! There are so many people out and about and they light up the trees for the holiday season - it was increadibly beautiful!














We had great food and met some really nice people along the way. One couple in particular was a young couple from Seattle - he is a tax attorney in Seattle running for congress and she is a former member of the cheer squad of UW. They were traveling with his mom and sister - we had a great time hanging out with them - they were all very nice! Hoping to continue to connect.

We also went to several of the missions and the Alamo which were all really cool.

















The Alamo Bowl itself was really fun! The game was all offense which broke several Bowl records - it was to Dawgs game to loose - they really should have walked away with a win.




















Looking forward to getting home and seeing our pups. We really miss them when we travel. New Years plans are going to be fairly quite - we will catch a movie during the day, go to a basketball game and then have dinner with our friend Bill at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse followed by fireworks at the Seattle Center. Really looking forward to being home.

Happy New Year!

Jim


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Alamo Bowl Update

Published: 12/30/2011 in USA Today. Along with a few pictures that we took at the game. Despite the outcome we had a great time and met some really nice people. San Antonio was a great place to visit at this time of year! Mid 70's on our final day.


SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A thrilling, back-and-forth, record-shattering Alamo Bowl had barely ended when Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III already started hearing the chants.



"One more year! One more year!"

One more year? There's still the craziness of what happened Thursday night to get through first.

Griffin wasn't dazzling in possibly his last college game — and didn't need to be — yet No. 15 Baylor still pulled out an incredible Alamo Bowl victory in the highest-scoring regulation bowl game in history, beating Washington 67-56 in the wildest shootout of this bowl season or any other in memory.

If this was RG3's final showcase before jumping to the NFL, it was a gripping goodbye to watch. One of the nation's most electrifying players was upstaged by an even more exciting nail-biter that shattered the previous record for points in regulation set in the 2001 GMAC Bowl.


"We went out in style!" Griffin shouted to his teammates. He paraded the Alamo Bowl trophy around the field before taking it to the front row of the stands and his mother, who's already been looking at her son's NFL draft prospects.

Griffin said he was still catching his breath after this one.

"I want Baylor nation to enjoy this," Griffin said. "It's not about me. I've got about two weeks. I'll enjoy this the next day, and then the next day, and then I'll make it."


The previous bowl record for a regulation game was 102 total points set in the 2001 GMAC Bowl between Marshall and East Carolina. That game went to double overtime and ended with a combined 125 points — which still stands as the overall bowl record.

Baylor, which won its first bowl game since 1992, and Washington (7-6) also set a bowl record for total offense in a game with 1,397 yards.

Griffin had an unremarkable night, throwing just one touchdown pass and running for another. But Terrance Ganaway starred ably in his place, rushing for 200 yards and five touchdowns. His last was a 43-yard run with 2:28 left to seal Baylor's first 10-win season since 1980.

Washington quarterback Keith Price outplayed his Heisman counterpart, going 23 for 27 with 438 yards and four touchdowns. He also ran for another three scores.

"I think we'll have a hard time this bowl season to see a quarterback play as well as he did," Washington coach Steve Sarkisian.

Griffin was 24 of 33 for 295 yards — and his only touchdown throw came on the game's opening drive.

Blown out in four other games against ranked opponents this season, the Huskies finally made one interesting. Not that it started that way after Baylor ran up 245 yards of offense alone in the first quarter — awful even by the standards of Washington's defense, which is among the nation's worst.

Then the most award-winning QB in the country suddenly stopped looking like even the best one in the Alamodome.

Price, a sophomore who threw a school-record 29 touchdowns in his first year as the starter, began cutting into a 21-7 deficit with a 12-yard scoring strike to James Johnson. Seven minutes later he tied the game when Devin Aguilar somersaulted over the goal line after catching a 1-yard lob.

The overwhelming crowd of Baylor fans — decked in green-and-gold Heisman shirts and armed with signs such as "Superman wears RG3 socks" — stood in stunned silenced. That gave way to disbelieving gasps on the next series, when the typically sure-handed Griffin fumbled after getting popped by Andrew Hudson.

After that, it was practically a free-for-all of big plays.

A 56-yard touchdown dash by Chris Polk. An 80-yard touchdown catch by Washington's Jermaine Kearse two plays into the second half. An 89-yard scoring rumble by Baylor's Terrance Ganaway. Kearse again, catching and darting for 60 yards before getting dragged down, setting up Price's fourth touchdown toss the next play.

Back and forth, back and forth. One after another. In all, five plays covered 50 or more yards, three of them for scores.

"That was crazy," Baylor coach Art Briles said.

For an Alamo Bowl short on drama and light on matchups in recent years, it was a thrilling scoring spree that overshadowed the mere novelty of featuring the Heisman winner. And that in itself was a rarity for a bowl of this stature: Not since Ty Detmer took BYU to the Holiday Bowl in 1990 had a Heisman winner played in a bowl before New Year's Day.

Plenty came to see this one.

Anticipating a surge of Heisman gawkers, Alamo Bowl officials added 800 temporary seats and opened up others with obstructed views that required ticket-buyers to sign a form acknowledging the poor sightlines. Those seats sold, anyway, and the announced attendance of 65,256 was the fifth-largest in the bowl's history.

Others had better seats.


That includes Miami Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland, who kicked for Baylor in the late 1980s but was here on business scouting Griffin in case the fourth-year junior enters the draft. Griffin's parents, two sisters and fiancee watched the nail-biter with front-row seats.

Griffin acknowledged this week his parents are looking at his draft prospects but denies having any substantial talks with them.

Win or lose, it was an impressive finale for Washington after stumbling into the postseason losing four of its last six. Particularly against a ranked team after then-Top 25 opponents Nebraska, Stanford, Oregon and USC all crushed the Huskies by an average of 24 points.


Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

San Antonio Run on the River Walk

What a beautiful morning for a nice run in San Antonio! Both Kent and I slept in and then got up and went for a 7.10 mile run. It's really a great place to run and the river walk is as nice as I remember it being. Plus tons of Husky fans!


Here are a few pictures from our run.


















Today we are relaxing - lunching at the Hard Rock Cafe and then taking in a few local sites. Last night we ate at a Mexican Restaurant where I may well have had the best shrimp dish I've ever eaten! Going back for seconds tonight as it turns out the Dawgs are hosting a party there tonight!

Later -

Jim

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Holiday River Walk

Beautiful walk this evening along the river walk in San Antonio! Lots of Dawg fans in town! Looking forward to an early morning run!





















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Christmas 2011

Christmas has passed and we are on our was to San Antonio, Texas for the Alamo Bowl. The Huskies take on Baylor on Thursday which will be a tough game - I'm really looking forward to the game. There should be a really good crowd there. We are actually flying into Houston and driving to San Antonio from there on a free ticket on Alaska. Makes the trip very affordable!

We spent the Christmas holiday in Wenatchee this year. It was a bit on the stressful side as we had a couple of sick dogs on our hands. I'll spare you all the gory details but lets just say that our truck will never smell the same - twice! It's a good thing we love those guys - that's all I can say!

We were at Kent's sister's on Christmas Eve and his Mom's on Christmas day. His Mom has a new dog - sweet little poodle/chihuahua mix she named Chloe.


We all received nice gifts and opened our main gifts on Christmas Eve and stockings on Christmas day. The pups especially made out good! One thing we dislike is the carting of gifts all over the place. I think in the future we will open our gifts either before we go or when we return.





Kent's niece came back to Seattle with us do we took in a movie - The Darkest Hour in 3-D Christmas evening with her before dropping her off at the airport the next morning. We ran into a bit of snow on the pass headed home but not bad.








We went down to Olympia and saw the movie War Horse with our friends Diane and Buzz and Barbara and her friend Dave. It was a great movie! I'm glad we saw the play in New York before seeing the movie earlier this month.

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday - here's to 2012!

Bring it on!

Later -

Jim


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