A Wedding, Football in a Hurricane and a Birthday Weekend

October

October started with something that we seldom get to do, go to a wedding during football season, but after months of weekends full of football practices and games, the first off weekend we hopping in the car with Tom & Derley and headed to Virginia Beach to celebrate Sophie & Brad's wedding in Virginia Beach.

It was such a beautiful wedding and it was great to see her even for a minute and catch up with other former and current HokieVision students during the wedding.

The trip was super quick as Tom & Jed had to be back at work on Sunday but it was worth the trip and was an honor to be invited.

We all quickly jumped back into football season, the next weekend heading to our first ACC road game in Chapel Hill. I decided to make the trip down just for the day. I thought it would be fun to go cheer on the Hokies but little did I know what  I was really getting into. UNC decided to still host the game despite the hurricane that was coming through the area!

Boy was that a memorable game! With crazy wind and rain it was difficult to take many pictures but I had to take a few.

The best part was the final score 34-3 HOKIES! It was absolutely worth the trip.

That Sunday, Jed and I took advantage of a few hours off and hit the road to see if we could catch the changing leaves of fall. The leaves weren't great but the random adventure that landed us in Abingdon watching a Something Wicked This Way Comes at the Barter Theatre was a great quick get away.

After a sad let down game the following weekend in Syracuse, the Hokies were back for the beloved Thursday night football game. It was time to show the new football staff what Lane Stadium can be. We had a ton of people make the trip to Blacksburg for the game.

Lane Stadium and our Hokie football team did not disappoint. It was a spectacular display both by fans and team to bring home another Hokies victory, 37-16 again the Miami Hurricanes.

Later that weekend, we headed south again to celebrate more Castro birthdays. We met up in Asheville, NC at Biscuit Heads before finding a fall festival area.

We found Steeps Hillcrest Orchard, this place was so fun. We spent the day playing in hay and picking buckets of apples. It was really starting to look and feel like fall.

Football Road Trip 2.0

October 23rd-26th

For the second year in a row, Jed & I were able to hit the road to watch football. This has been so much fun for the last two years. This year it started with a Thursday night game in Lane Stadium. We had a great time smoking wings, grilling out, playing game and just hanging out with friends from all over. It was a great tailgate.

We tried smoking wings all day

The atmosphere was great and the game was a lot of fun but the outcome was not what we were hoping for. It was not pretty and we lost the game to Miami 6-30.

Friday we both finished up a few things at work and headed north to check out other football games for the weekend. We made it as far as Bedford, PA before we decided to call it a night. As we searched the area for local football games, we found Tussey Mountain High School (8-1) was playing Mt Union High School (8-0) about 30 minutes from our hotel. Clearly we had to go check out this game!

It was so much fun!! The crowd was way into it and it was a great game. Tussey Mountain was winning when we left with about 5 minutes left to play (we wanted to beat the rush to there adorable down town pizza place). The score apparently went back and forth and we found out from some fans afterwards that Mt. Union ended up winning the game.

There was a bit of disappointed in not staying til the end until the pizza showed up at our table. It was really, really good and it was great to sit and hang out while the traffic died down and we learned a lot from the locals about the area, sports and rivalries'. If you are ever in the area, definitely stop and eat at the cute little pizza joint right on Main Street. (It has no name!!)

Saturday morning we were back on the road again heading up to State College, home of the Nittany Lions. We spent the afternoon walking around the town and campus. It is a beautiful campus with plenty of changing leaves everywhere.

They had a lot of art all around campus. It was great to explore and enjoy the beautiful weather.

We were able to get a picture with the lion statue and eat ice cream from the Penn State Creamery.

That evening, Penn State played Ohio State in there White Out game. This was very impressive. I am not sure I have seen a better White Out event. We found some white and joined the crowd. The atmosphere was so much fun and the crowd really gets into it.

It was a great game and even when into overtime. Ohio State ended up winning in the end, 31-24 in the second overtime.

We had about an hour to drive to get to our next location and even though it was super late, it didn't matter, we were wired from the game so the drive to Johnstown, PA when by really quickly.

On Sunday morning, we got up and out and headed to the Flight 93 Memorial. It was a cold morning but we spend quite a while exploring, reading and learning about what happened in and around this sleepy town and on Flight 93. It is a very powerful memorial and I am really glad we made the trip.

The large boulder is the marker of the impact point

It is still so difficult to wrap my head around what happen so many years ago and how they are still working on the memorial for this site so many years later.

Our last stop on our football road trip was to catch an NFL game in Heinz Field. The Steeler's share this field with the Pittsburgh Panthers so we have both been to this stadium to watch the Hokies play but never to see NFL. It is a very different feel.

Before the game started, we had enough time to hit a must in the city, Primanti Bros.

After lunch, we headed to catch up with friends before heading into the game.

Art on our way to the game

We had so much fun at the game and Ben Roethlisberger became the fourth quarterback in the NFL to win 100 of his first 150 games.

Unfortunately, we were not able to stay til the end to celebrate since we had such a long drive home but before we hit the road in the 4th quarter, we found some family also in the stadium to watch the Steelers beat the Colts.

 I absolutely love our football road trips, checking out different little towns and meeting new people. I can not wait to see what other stadiums we can hit in the future.