We went to the Michigan game up in Washington on Saturday. It's been on our calendar since they announced it. Since it was so close to Katie's birthday it was going to be like pre-Covid days when we would try and take her back to Michigan for a game for her present. Bought tickets for the three of us and her roommate Amber.
Then this week Katie got Covid so she had to back out. And Amber, for some reason, didn't want to spend the day with us without her so she backed out. (Though she ended up getting Covid as well so she would have backed out last minute anyway). So just the two of us.
Sold back two of the four tickets for less than we paid because these two teams have not been living up to last year's records but at least we got a little back from them.
Ended up with a few small travel snafus as far as parking goes. The original plan was we would park at the park and ride in a charging spot and charge the car while we were at the game. Ride the train (like the Max in Portland) in and not deal with the crowds at the stadium. This was not an original idea. The garage was totally full. We ended up going to the airport and parking in the garage there. The good news was that instead of just three electric spots they had four rows of electric spots. The bad news is that all of them were also full. Oh well, looks like we will be charging after the game.
So parking situated we rode the train into the stadium. Super convenient stop. Like right outside the entrance gates. And they were ready for crowds. Lines set up and security to man the lines. Bossy, but efficient. If you can use it for transportation around Seattle I would recommend it.
Got in to the stadium and headed up to our seats. And up. And up. And up.
Now, I knew they were pretty high and it was pretty steep. We bought them through friends and I saw the view from the area. I had even asked Katie if Amber was okay with heights because I thought that they could be triggering for someone who had problems. And I had Brent look to see what he thought since he's the one of us that doesn't like heights. I'm fine.
Normally.
But for some reason the combination of pitch and heights was no good for me.
If I was looking out at the city view or the lake view it was fine, but looking down onto the field was not great. And since we were there to watch a game ...
The two biggest issues were first the people in front of us. Michigan fans as well so anytime something exciting would happen they would stand up. First it was the guy directly in front of me so I would look over to the jumbotron and watch that way. Then the ladies next to him started standing and that blocked the jumbotron so to see I'd have to stand. Stand up, look down at the field, stomach drops like during turbulence in a plane, sit back down, repeat as often as something exciting happens. Which, I guess, lucky for me wasn't often...
Then the second part happened. When the sun went down the light show started. Pulsing lights on the field. I couldn't deal with it, triggering not quite vertigo (thank goodness) but not good either. I'd have to close my eyes when it started and wait for them to turn back on the game lights. Finally Brent was like, you are miserable, let's go. So we left at the end of the 3rd quarter.
Walking up to our seats I was like, this is a lot of stairs, man this is high. Walking down from our seats I was like, this is really steep and I feel like I'm going to slip. Full on shakes by the bottom. Crazy.
I don't like ladders and I don't like really steep stairs that are justthisclose to being ladders and I think that the pitch of those seats and steps triggered that uncomfortable feeling. If it were just high and we were on a flat space I'd have been fine. Brent still wouldn't have been great, but he would have stuck it out anyway.
But as he pointed out we will still needed to charge the car before we could leave so it was fine to head out a little early.
Got back to the airport parking garage and a few spaces had opened with the chargers. Plugged in and discovered they were slow chargers so to get enough juice to leave we would need to charge until 1 AM. Found a fast charger on the map and headed over there. Took a bit of finagling to get it to work, but eventually got it going. Charged for about 45 minutes then hit the road again with enough to get home and a bit of a buffer just incase.
Rolled into the garage with 5% left in the battery. It's not sucking fumes since it's not a gas car, maybe chasing sparks? Either way, we made it.
Long ass day. We left the house a little before 11 AM (ran a quick errand on the way out of town) and got home at around 12:25 AM. The cats were not amused...
And to top it all off Michigan lost. Bah.
So Katie's birthday game was sort of a bust all the way around. But only sort of.
The Washington stadium is lovely. Honestly with the lake right there and the view of the campus? It's just gorgeous. And we got a chance to see Chad and Raquel for a bit. And we heard Nathan (and the rest of the band) play and they are very good. So it could have been better for sure, but it wasn't the worst way to spend a day.
Next time we will be buying tickets in the lower bowl though...eek!
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