Ok, so personal story I want to share about those 1996 bowl games:
I was a Senior at Ohio State in 1996 and got a ticket through the school's lottery for students (more on that in a separate post). In the mean time, my dad talked to a friend who knew a guy who was in the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and my dad got four tickets for our family (Mom, Dad, Brother, and me) to go to the game.
We drove to LA, met the friend-of-a-friend who had our tickets and got our tickets a few days early then drove up the coast to Hearst Castle and Morrow Bay California. That was beautiful. It was mating season for the Elephant Seals and watching the male Elephant Seals fight (think Sumo Wrestlers but like 2,500 lbs) was great. Hearst Castle and Morrow Bay were also highlights of a trip that had LOTS of highlights.
We did NYE in California (if you have never been there for NYE, it is interesting because they do NYC NYE at 9pm, then Chicago NYE at 10pm, then Denver NYE at 11pm, and if anybody hasn't already passed out by then, they have their own NYE at midnight.
We watched the Rose Parade then walked down to the Rose Bowl for the game. Ohio State won, of course and after the game we headed for home. NYD was a Monday and I was off school on Tuesday, January 2 but I had classes on Wednesday, January 3 as did my little brother who was still in HS.
After the game we headed up I15 toward Barstow, CA to catch I40E toward home. We had to gas up somewhere along there. I need to explain this to people who are not familiar with California. If you haven't been there, you probably think of California as packed with people because they are the most populous state. That is only somewhat true. First, it wasn't nearly as populous 20+ years ago and secondly, something like 90% of the population lives in the coastal cities. The rest of the state is (or at least was) mostly sparsely populated desert. Anyway, we stopped for gas in some tiny town with two gas stations. IIRC, gas at the time was selling for about $1.25/gallon and in California it was about $0.50/gallon higher. One gas station had a price of $1.779 but they were closed. The other one was charging something like $2.75. I pointed out that the other station was about a dollar cheaper. The guy working there said "Yep, they open at 8am and at 8am I'll be charging $1,779 but at midnight it is $2.75. We paid the ridiculous gas price and drove on.
If you are not familiar, Barstow, CA is the western terminus of I40. Some jackass from CADOT decided it would be really funny to put a sign about half-way down the ramp from I15 to I40 that says "I40 East, Wilmington, NC 2,554 Mi". Let me tell you, that is one depressing sign when you have to drive most of that to get home.
We spent the night of 1/1/97 - 1/2/97 in a motel in Needles, CA (right on the CA/AZ border) then got up the next morning and drove all the way back to Columbus where my parents and brother dropped me off (then they drove the rest of the way home). Tuesday morning, January 2, 1997 we stopped in Kingman Arizona to buy an Arizona Newspaper with the Rose Bowl result on the front page.
I40 is almost 400 miles each across Arizona and New Mexico. The Orange Bowl was Tuesday evening/night so we listened to it on the Radio across Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle.
@OrangeAfroMan will appreciate this, we were rooting for a very sloppy UF win, LoL.
I drove through the night and I remember driving through OKC in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. We had a CB radio in the van and I was talking with a lady truck driver who was also unfamiliar with OKC. Everyone in the van was asleep. When we left OKC heading NE on the Oklahoma Turnpike (I44) the speed limit increased to 75 MPH. I ran up to about 80 and set the cruise. Pretty soon the headlights of the 18 wheeler that I had navigated through OKC with were on my bumper then this lady passed me and she had to be doing 90+. It was so windy that when I got above about 80 MPH the van was getting blown side-to-side across the highway. I dropped the cruise back to about 80 MPH and told the truck driver to have a safe drive and that I couldn't keep up.
We got to Columbus in the early afternoon on Wednesday, January 3. It was a great trip and as I sit here in my office typing this there is a picture frame on the wall behind me containing my ticket stub, an Ohio State logo, and a picture of my Mom, Dad, Brother, and me under the Scoreboard showing the final score.
