...And cacti.
All of the cacti.
As you may or may not know, dear Reader, good ol' Baylor U made it to the Fiesta Bowl during this past football season. As one of the few BCS bowls in the country, we were all pretty thrilled to be bringing the Baylor Nation to Glendale, Arizona.
For all of you non-sports aficionados, not every bowl game during bowl season is a BCS bowl. Going to a BCS bowl = good. Moving on.
As a member of the half time entertainment, otherwise known as the marching band, we were invited to various kick-off parties, not to mention that bowl regulations for bands say that we have to be there three days early. That means more practice time for us. Yay.
I'll give you the day by day. Now I must warn you, this is a rather text-and-photo heavy post.
12.29.13 ~Sunday
Leaving at four in the morning, my parents and I made the ten hour drive down to Baylor to meet up with the band. Out of those ten hours, I slept for about eight of them.
After saying good-bye to the parental units, checking in, and picking up my merch (bowl game t-shirt, jacket, meal money (per diem), luggage tag...), we all grabbed our catered sandwiches from Jimmy John's and piled onto our charter buses for the twenty-one movie filled hour journey to Arizona.
Our bus was Bus #5, home of the trumpets and the color guard.
I called it the Grumpet bus.
(Sometime between Sunday and Monday, we stopped at a couple of gas stations in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes I imagine the faces of the staff as they watch six charter buses pull in, and their curious gazes turn to horror as the miniature army of 300 zombified band members swarm inside, stumbling to the bathrooms or to the shelves upon shelves of Red Bull.)
12.30.13 ~Monday
We piled off the buses into the warm Arizona sunshine. Our location? A swanky mall where we were to eat lunch. Unfortunately, it was really crowded that day, so band members quickly formed groups to navigate the food court. Safety in numbers, right? After a delicious meal of Panda Express, back onto the Grumpet bus I went.
It was time for practice.
But not without a stop at the hotel, though. Even though we were running behind schedule, we were given an hour to say hi to the roomies, get rid of the luggage, and freshen up before practice. After practice would be our first performance of the night: The Tostitos VIP pep rally. Everyone washed their faces and pulled on their rally uniforms (which includes a polo shirt).
On location at Chaparral High School.
Practice was at a local high school. We ran through drill on the field for a while, then loaded up the buses again to head to the pep rally. Once there, we were told to mingle with the marching band of the
opposing team. The University of Central Florida Marching Knights, to be exact.
Mingling was a bit of an awkward experience, I mean, both marching bands had gotten in that day, and we were ready for sleep...in an actual bed. I did, however, find out a pretty cool fact about UCF's color guard. Since they're an east coast guard, they use poms in the stands! Even the guys on the team were carrying their own set of poms around.
Mingling. See that awkward nose near the top of the shot? That's mine.
Luckily, Tostitos provided us with some snacks (not Tostitos, I'm afraid), so we felt a little better.
Right before the festivities began!
Then...the battle of the bands. Baylor vs. UCF. The mascots and cheer squads wove in around us, and champagne-toting VIPS spectated from afar.
Then of course, there was this thing.
Meet Spirit, the official mascot of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Run, Bruiser, run!
After the epic showdown...dinner time! By that time, it was about 9 p.m. We were all ravenous. As it happened, the Grumpet bus missed a turn to our restaurant, and we got to tour suburban Arizona...in the dark. While the residents stared on in horror, the Grumpets proceeded to have a sing-along.
We made it to a delicious dinner though. There I learned that eating a half a hen is quite a bit harder than it sounds. Because it was actually half of a hen. It wasn't too bad, though. And the dessert of cinnamon ice cream and apple pie was out of this world!
But the best part? There are actually two. One, the way you enter Rustler's Rooste is by going down a slide into the belly of the restaurant!
A fellow guardie enjoys the slide.
Two, there was a dance floor. I'm going to mention that quite a few of the band members, including myself, are a part of Baylor's swing dance society. You can probably guess what we did then.
After an all around good time, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed rest.
12.31.13 ~Tuesday
You know what's funny? All of my roommates at the bowl game are in the swing dance society. So to warm ourselves up for the day...we danced.
Practice that morning. Luckily it was warm enough to wear shorts! Thank you, Arizona! After a lunch of sandwiches, we ate on the bus back to the hotel for some much needed down time. One of the roommates decided to teach me a particular swing dance called the shim sham. We worked on it all afternoon, that is, until we had to get ready for the night's double performances.
Pre-game Run On: Practice Edition
(more like High-Step On)
It takes a color guard member about three times as much time to get ready for a performance as an average female band member. At least, it didn't take my flute-playing roommates too long.
Our first performance was the Baylor pep rally. I was pleasantly surprised at how many Baylor fans showed up. Hundreds. And the student bus hadn't arrived yet!
Dancin' at the fence.
After plenty of cheering and listening to speeches, we had a dinner of NOT SANDWICHES. I'm not complaining, but rotisserie chicken from Boston Market, while delicious, is a tad hard to eat on a bus.
We munched as the buses carried us to our next destination. The zoo.
I had never performed at a zoo before!
Both bands were performing that night. A definite plus was that we had room to spin. Usually when the color guard goes to events, we don't have room to do anything with the flags, so we gently set them down and dance around to whatever song the band is playing.
We really did spin, but we were just holding the flags when the picture was taken.
When our performance was over, back to the buses for a night of fun at a place called Main Event! To simply describe it would be saying it was like a Chuck E Cheese's for adults. They had snacks, but also video games, an elevated rope course, bowling, and lazer tag. Our band director had reserved a corner for us as a New Year's treat. I mean, we could get all the soda we want, as well as free bowling, ropes, and lazer tag!
For the games, a card had to be bought previously. I never got around to doing that, but my guard captain let me swipe her card a few times. The ropes course was pretty easy, as I had done quite a few of them before, but it was my first time at lazer tag! I...didn't do so well.
(But I'm getting better! I've played a couple of times since!)
So ringing in the new year was pretty exciting, but I was ready for some sleep. After all, the big game was the next day!
A small New Year's present from our guard coach.
1.1.14 ~Wednesday
THE BIG DAY HAD ARRIVED. We had practice that morning, sandwiches for lunch (by then, it was a running gag), and bustled around the hotel pulling on our uniforms.
The stadium was much farther away than all of us had initially thought, many people decided to take advantage of the extra time and take a snooze.
Getting ready to head to the tailgating shows! Can you spot the stadium in the background?
Two tailgating shows awaited us when we arrived. We had to walk quite a distance to get to them, though, wading through somewhat drunk tailgaters.
The two pep rallies were more like one huge mega tailgating pep rally.
After the tailgating shows were finished, after going through security check (Hey! Just because we're the halftime show doesn't mean that we don't have to get our bags checked!), snagged our sandwiches for dinner, took advantage of the nearby port-a-potties, and got settled in our seats...where bags of Tostitos awaited us upon arrival!
Finally! The chips! The moment we've been waiting for!
Once the meal was done, we got ready for pregame. BUGWB was first up. As I was making my way down from the stands, I saw three cloaked figures holding swords. No, no those weren't bad guys. Those were UCF's drum majors! One even smiled at me.
Pregame was a success!
Pre-game Run On: Performance Edition
Go, guard, go!
As I was leaving the field, I glimpsed UCF's color guard waving at me from their starting line on the field. They were giving me the thumbs up and mouthing "Good job!"
People can be so nice.
Until one of UCF's drum majors proceeded to stab the field.
You read right, folks. The drum major went and ran the field through with a sword.
I suppose that's allowed. Especially when the drum majors wear masks that make them look like they don't have faces, and especially when they get an announcement following the butchery of the field saying, "The knights of UCF would like to do battle with the bears of Baylor."
What.
It's official now.
Practice in the equipment room...that you could easily drive a semi through.
When we entered the equipment room, though, our mascot, Bruiser was still putting his pads on. The bear head was lying on the floor nearby. So, of course, one of the color guard had to scream, "OH NO. BRUISER'S BEEN DECAPITATED!"
Foreshadowing to the game ahead?
Eventually, we were all crying into our chips. We weren't completely slaughtered, but we did lose.
The ride back to the hotel was somber and silent. Probably because we all cried ourselves to sleep.
Even though this is just football, losing is still a hard pill to swallow.
At least the halftime show went well. I was even given another thumbs up by a male UCF guard member...One of the same ones who had waved at me before!
Waiting in the tunnel before halftime.
1.2.14 ~Thursday
Breakfast with the roomies at a nearby Einstein's. Those bagels, though. Deeeee-lish! I was not traveling back with the band. As an out-of-stater, I had the option to fly (thanks to a reimbursement!). So one of my dormmates from school collected me from the hotel, where I had been lounging around for a while; the band had already left.
RGIII was at that airport at the same time I was. But his gate was on the other side from where mine was, so I couldn't go creep on him. Darn. That was the second time on the trip that I had missed him. The first was when he walked by the storage room when I was tucking my flags away.
Another funny thing? A fellow Grumpet was on my flight home.
I made it safely from pleasantly warm Arizona to bitterly cold Missouri, where there was still snow on the ground. I was excited to see my parental units, though. They had so graciously come to collect me at the airport.
Exhausting as the Fiesta bowl was, I'm glad I got a chance to experience the madness for myself. Even though we lost, it was an amazing experience.
I must say, I absolutely love what I do.
BUGWB Color Guard 2013...minus one.
Oh, and one more thing.
He's watching you. Alllllways watching.
*Pictures do not belong to me. My guard coach is the master with the camera phone here.
