QUACK OUT LOUD

What a great week and weekend!  

First my kids came to visit.  Notably: Bear

 ...her Turkey

 ...Max 

...and Squeaky.  

 Not the best photo of this fella... operator error!

They arrived Thursday evening and stayed until mid-day on Friday.

The idea of course is to give them and Randy an opportunity to get to know each other.

The Bear and Randy have met before and spoken on the phone... most notably when I broke down at a rest stop one night and my phone died as soon as I managed to get the information out of my mouth to Randy, who called Bear and worked out rescue.

It's a story you have heard before, but it did create a good beginning to a relationship between them.

We did our usual things... a BBQ of course!

We wanted to have fresh muscles or oysters in a wonderful Asian chili sauce, but alas, there were none to be had that day.  We opted instead for burgers or brats, little smokies in a lovely habenero

sauce or kielbasa in  sweet sauce for nibbles.

I intended to serve some fresh green beans with peppered bacon, but that did not happen and with all the other chips, etc, who needed something healthy in this wonderful heart attack mix?

Mostly we yakked and yakked.

Ah... as in talking, not the other version.

I got some great photos and then they were gone.

Sigh.

I miss them, but we text or yak on the computer all the time anyway.  They are never truly far away.

:-)

We spent the rest of Friday running errands we needed to do... check on a job for Randy, clean up, though Bear did the dishes and left everything else tidy.  We were so full from the day before that we did not even bother with diner... just hit the sack exhausted.

Saturday my eyes popped open at an ungodly hour.

I was so excited!  

My first ever Ducks game at Autzen Stadium.

I did not know the drill and though Randy did tell me when the game was, "my rememberer is broke".

I thought, because the idea of a party before noon does not compute in my brain... that the tail gate party was what began at 12:30.

Wrong.  That was kick-off time.

The others began tail gating at 9:30AM!

YIKES!

I still had my jammies on.

I left my camera at home in my excitement.

But we drove to a shopping center parking lot where the shopping center is gone, but the lot still exists and took our place in line to ride the "Duck Bus".

It wasn't a long ride, but a pretty one.  The mood was energized and everyone gabbed with each other.

The scenery here is beautiful and we crossed the river a couple of times... yeah, the same river... don't ask, I still get lost and don't understand the geography here.

The Duck Bus let us off at the back of Autzen.

No worries... a bit of a walk to where the big bus sized RVs were waiting with our friends and their families.

I was assured that 11:00 beer is tradition and imbibed two.  This is supposed to make the game more enjoyable.  I can't say if that is true because I had a wonderful time but it was my first live game and I doubt that it could have been less enjoyable, beer or not.

Time for us all to part.  They had season tickets that they have had for over 20 years.

We had one game only tickets that we got with a two for one deal through Bi-Mart.

"There are no bad seats in Autzen."

Even if you are not in a prime location, you have a giant screen to watch and the tiers allow you to see over the tallest folk.

We were admittedly in the nose bleed section.

Row 92, on the aisle.

By the time we got up there, I rued the beer and had to use my asthma huffer.

But the view!

We could see everything.

The game itself was fun... ending score was Ducks 72 to poor New Mexico's 0.

As near as I know the Lobos are not even rated and we are last year's Pack 10 champions.

Not what you would call a challenging match.

I did feel bad for the Lobos.

But tons of fun.  I enjoyed everything.

Autzen is a very loud stadium and its fans are fanatical.  Every single time the boys of fall line up, the sound begins... all fans wind up with yelling 

"Oooooooooooooooooo!" in a crescendo until the ball is set into motion.  Every single time.  It is an incredible sound meant to encourage our boys and unnerve the enemy.

When the slaughter of woeful wolves ended, we made our way back to the RVs for a bit more nosh and mingle, then we were off to the Duck Bus for the ride home.  Spirits could not be higher... and neither could some of the passengers.  Hee hee.

We're talking happy fans.

So what did we do with our evening?

Well, our arch nemesis... The Oregon Beavers

were on the tube playing Texas Christian and even though the plan is to grind up those nasty Beavers in our Civil War game, we are after all, Oregonians and had to back our state.  Yep, Beavers for a few hours, but TCU took it 30-21.  Oh well.

Can you ever get enough college football?

Nope.

Then we watched USC vs Hawaii... a much closer fight, with USC winning 49-36.

There was another game, Oklahoma vs Utah, but the old gal fell asleep part way into it...

we were watching in bed by then.

It was a long, delightful day.

Today I have a couple of aps to fill out in the hopes of working at Uof O.

Now wouldn't that be a hoot?

And maybe a discount on tickets!

Oh, the title of this post comes from one of the many great fan shirts we saw... QOL (quack out loud!) .

But I think my favorite one was " High on quack, cranked on Duck".

That pretty much says it all.

Okay, so you know we are getting married.

We want a casual wedding... BTW, I hate weddings.

So far the plan is to BBQ... now who would have guessed that?  We're thinking shorts and flip-flops, make the ceremony as brief as possible within the law.

Got any ideas for decoration or amusement?

Hey... no joke there was talk of Elvis performing the rites!

Any idea is fair game.  Our main theme is to be together with friends and family and have fun.