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Trip Report with Pics... Cu versus Washington

tante

Club Member
Club Member
Sorry this is so late guys. I hope you enjoy.

The trip started Wednesday night in Portland. We took the light rail from the airport to get to our hotel downtown. We landed around 10:15 PM and I felt pretty safe walking around at night. If I were to do it again, I would just take a cab since we waited almost 25 minutes for the train and then a good half hour for it to get downtown. But I think it was around $3.00 per person, so if you are on a budget then the train will work. We stayed at the Heathman hotel in Portland and it is very nice. Great location and nice rooms.

Thursday we explored Portland and wanted to see why it was called the microbrew capital of the world. We started at Deschutes around 11:15 in the morning, followed by Rouge and then Bridgeport. We wanted to go to full sail, but they serve out of McCormick & Schmick's next door and I found it super lame so we went on a pub crawl back downtown. There are really only 3 breweries in downtown proper in Portland and the others are over the bridge, so I wasn't over impressed. Deschutes was by far the best and most drinkable, followed by Rouge who makes good beer but they are not sessionable and bridgeport was my least favorite. Best beer for the people who are taking notes was a fresh hopped Octoberfest from Deschutes. They but a little lambic yeast in there to give it a sour taste and it just turned out incredible.

We ate food at the food trucks around downtown and I thought it was amazing. To see 50 food trucks lined up selling everything from burgers to yuca fries. You name it they have it. Great for a group of people or if you just want to try a lot of different things. I really hope this is something that denver does someday, but Portland really seems to embrace it.

Friday we caught from Portland to Seattle. It took around 3.5 hours total and wasn't as nice as the trains they have back East, but the views were pretty good. For the last hour or so, it basically followed puget sound and was more relaxing than driving. We took 2 6 packs of 21st amendment and 1 of red hook for the ride and managed to drink them all, which would never happen driving with all the bathroom breaks. In the future I may do a San Fran to Vancouver trip stopping in Portland and Seattle. In Seattle we stayed at Hotel 1000, which was also great. My buddies stay up the hill at the Renaissance. I think I went into cariac arrest twice climbing that hill. I really forgot how steep the hills can be there.

Had a great treat on Friday night and got to tour husky stadium, which is where I will start my pictures:

This is the tunnel the player run out of. The locker rooms are super far away from the field, but this is similar to the "bricks". They have posters of their big bowl game wins on the wall. I think they start in the 30s.

tunnel.JPG

This is the view the players see when the step on the field. You can see how much real estate the track takes up. If you look close you will notice a purple ring on the track. This is where the stadium will be once it is rebuilt making it a much more intimate setting for watching the game.

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This is the visitor section as viewed from the end zone. You can really see how far it is from the field and I'm sure it detaches you from the game.

visitor.JPG
 
this picture looks back into the tunnel that both teams run out of.

tunnel2.JPG

This is one of my favorite shots. It is the PAC:12 logo on the field. Damn the logo looks good. The field has this really cool artificial turf that is completely different than the turf that folsom had years ago.

paclogo.jpg

This is the only video board in the whole stadium and it looks around the same size as what we have above Dal Ward, maybe a bit bigger.

fieldlogo.jpg
 
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game day:

We had brunch at Ivars, which is actually next to campus and then took a boat to the stadium. I think it was about $65 a person once you tip and totally not worth it, but it was one of those once in a lifetime type things to do. The boat ride took about 10 minutes total to get to the stadium and departed one hour before game time. In true Tante fashion we had about 20 beers to drink in the hour before the game and only 4 people to drink it. We had DFH 90 min, DFH pumpkin, Ninkasi IPA and one other that I can't remember. Here is the boat:

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It was really cold so I stayed in the boat until the final few minutes to take some pictures. There was a few CU fans on board the boat and they were all nice to talk to. The WSU fans were all nice and we had absolutely no problems. The biggest disappointed was you can't really see the stadium as you approach via water. You only get to see parts of it between the trees. One cool thing is the Washington crew team practices on the lake and the boathouse leads them through this canal thing the boat took. They write these messages on the wall and you might be able to make out a few.

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Now this is how you party if you are going to a game in Washington. If I were ever to go back here for a game, I would definitely rent a houseboat and do it this way. This was the only CU flags I could see on the water, but there were hundreds of boats so there could have been more.

cuboat.JPG

As we get off the boat we walk through what I thought was the main tailgate area, which was about the size of Franklin, but all asphalt. Apparently on the other side of the stadium (and basketball arena) there are bigger lots, but I didn't know about it and this was close enough. The Washington fans basically ignored us as we pounded beers before the game started.

tailgate.JPG

Here is the visitor seating. It is only partially filled and almost everyone is wearing coats. I was hoping for a bigger turnout, but we still put up 2k fans and we were loud at first, but once Washington got on a roll the fans were dis-interested. Part of it has to do with how far from the field they were.

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so here is our boys going in for their first score. Behind the field you will see white tents and that is the beer garden. They have a rule that you can't drink beer and watch the game, so they serve beer and you can't see a thing. The beer garden is on what I think is their practice field and is a pretty cool idea. They only serve until the start of the 3rd quarter so you gotta hurry if you want a halftime beer because it is not that easy to get into. You can also enter and leave the stadium and they just scan your ticket out and on the way back in, so it works pretty easy as long as you don't lose your ticket.

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I'm smelling a touchdown coming. The game actually started pretty cool and the Washington fans we sat near were all nice to us. The guys behind me though that Stewart was a definite NFL player, which would be nice, but he is definitely top 3 or 4 in the PAC. The Polk kid from Washington was really good and we will see him on Sunday next season. As for the fans, they seem to rip everything off from other teams. They do the Georgia bark (the sounds system there is awesome), and the FSU chop. It is all just really weird. The stadium can get pretty noisy, but I think a LOT of it is from the sound system. The sun came out in the 1st quarter and it turned into an amazing day, too bad our boys didn't play better.

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Here is a pic of their one and only video board (as far as I could see). Washington fans sit below it, so it is really the worst seats in the house. They are a lot closer to the field which is nice, but it would be impossible to see a replay.

vboard.JPG

This is a pic outside the stadium as we left early and found a bar to watch other games for the day. The construction you see them doing there is putting a light rail stop right in front of the stadium. The 2nd deck on the left was built in 1987 or so and will stay, but the entire rest of the stadium will be torn down. It is really in a great location and will get better once the light rail and rebuild are complete.

stadium2.JPG
 
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Nice start - you should know that Denver DOES do Food Trucks during the late spring, summer, early fall down at Civic Center Park. Usually there are about 20ish down there on Tues and Thur i believe.
 
Nice start - you should know that Denver DOES do Food Trucks during the late spring, summer, early fall down at Civic Center Park. Usually there are about 20ish down there on Tues and Thur i believe.

It's lame the way they do that, though. Why they won't allow food trucks to just pull up somewhere, I do not understand.
 
Very cool report and pictures. Can't wait to come to Boulder soon. Probably not next year as we're planning on making the LSU trip... we'll see though.
 
As I suspected, not one hot chick in the whole goddam state.

Come on now, this girl is back.

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There are really only 3 breweries in downtown proper in Portland and the others are over the bridge, so I wasn't over impressed.

Just for future reference and for anyone coming to Portland next year for U of O: Tug Boat, New Old Lompoc, Lucky Lab and a few Mcmenami are all downtown in addition to the ones that you mention, but the best breweries (HUB, Alameda, Hair of the Dog) are all across the river.
 
Just for future reference and for anyone coming to Portland next year for U of O: Tug Boat, New Old Lompoc, Lucky Lab and a few Mcmenami are all downtown in addition to the ones that you mention, but the best breweries (HUB, Alameda, Hair of the Dog) are all across the river.

you are confusing brewery with brewpub. I heard burnside was good as well and wanted to try Hair of the Dog, but just didn't want to venture out that far.
 
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