The Huskers in the Rose Bowl. Well actually it's UCLA's home field so it's inevitable Nebraska plays there.
But first we go to San Bernadino to see the world's first McDonalds. Well, its a museum so no Big Macs were for sale. It's got it all. Ronald McDonald, the arches, the Scooby Doo bus, wait what? Seems the owner collects anything he can get his hands on. You have statues of Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tasmanian Devil, the Hamburglar, you loved it as a kid? It is here. The museum is full of old McDonalds uniforms , matches, ash trays, 1984 Olympic contest tabs, the cast of the Founder, a movie that proved Roy Kroc as a moral challenged vulture capitalist. It was well worth it but don't touch anything outside or you'll leave skin as a souvenir (its fucking hot).
The Rose Bowl is in Pasadena. Being from Nebraska I have no idea where that is. So we took the Matro Rail, LA's version of the Chicago L or the NYC subway system. It's a train (sort of) that moves quickly through the shitty neighborhoods a lot of cities. After 45 minutes or so you get off at Memorial Park in Pasadena. You follow the crowd about a half mile to the shuttle buses which will take you to the Rose Bowl, another couple miles or so. You get off and the Rose Bowl looks tiny. Max informed us it's built into the ground. Max knows it all.
The staff at the Rose Bowl was so damn nice. It put Nebraska Nice to shame and since Minnesota Nice doesn't exist (see previous post), it was pleasant surprise to hear "Welcome to the Rose Bowl" numerous times. Being in Max's 15 jersey, I was subjected to a good natured "Hey Raiola you'd better get out there" instead of the ""Hey Raiola, how many tampons you got in" after Minnesota kicked our ass.
The Bowl itself is older than dirt. The steps up are HUGE (thank gawd its in the ground so to get to row 61 was only 20 or so rows) and the climb is exhausting for decrepit old Nebraskans. But we made it and again once I reached our seats I wasn't moving.
The spectacle at the Rose Bowl was great. The sight of the mountains in the background was every bit as great as described. The place is gargantuan, but they tarp off the end zones to make it look less empty. There were 20,000 Nebraskans there making it a faux home game. The UCLA fans live in Los Angeles where there's stuff to do so when they lost it was like, hey great game huh? Had Nebraska lost it would have been the walking dead back to the train.
The train. Oh that train. It didn't work. So we sat there for a good 45 minutes waiting for something that wasn't coming. Being entertained by a rich looking nice man who wouldn't shut up about how fucked up Los Angeles government was, along with San Francisco and New York. His "Ya know Trump is right" lost me and Max as Max's Mom continued to listen. Thank goodness we found a bus to go to the next station, or the guy might have started in why Social Security was communism or something. The bus took us to the Lake Street station, located outside between the freeways so you had to watch LA traffic wizz by on both sides while freezing your ass off,
But the train came and we rode back with Husker fans and the homeless to Pomona.
I was exhausted.
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