Rochester to Syracuse

The day started with what you're supposed to do on vacation, sleep until you can't sleep any more. So that's what we all did. Once we got up in the morning, er, afternoon, Andrew and I headed over to the George Eastman House. As the name implies, it was Eastman's mansion he built in Rochester with all his money he made from the Kodak company. A slightly eccentric, slightly insane person, if you ask me, he had lots of pretty crazy ideas. But he also was a big fan of music and, well, photography obviously. His mansion, however, was like walking though a real life game of Clue. Every time I went into a room, I half expected to see a dead body on the floor. Fortunately, we did not find any. Nor did we find any secret passages, which I have to say was quite a disappointment. There was also a special exhibit of Ansel Adams photography. While some of that was interesting, I have to say that of all art forms, photography is probably the least thrilling to me. But it was still an interesting place to visit.

After that we walked back to Andrew's parents place, and got ready to head out to Syracuse for the football game. It took a good 2 hours to get out there, both with the traffic, waiting at the I-90 toll booths (yes, it seems wrong to me too), and passing by the New York State Fair which was going on just outside of Syracuse. We made it through the sea of orange everywhere and pulled into a parking garage, we made our way up towards the Carrier Dome, walking past the Sheraton where the UW Warm-Up party was. The band had just played and was hanging out on the lawn just past so we stopped and said hi to the few remaining people we knew, as well as Brad and the crew. We made our way across the Syracuse campus, which is actually quite a nice campus, and over to the Carrier Dome for the game.

The Carrier Dome reminds me of the Kingdome, in as much as it's a big, round, cement monstrosity with a domed roof. OK, so not quite as big, but still a monstrosity. But we found our seats, near the back of the UW section, just behind and to the side of the UW Band. The game was quite an adventure, but a rousing success with a 42-12 UW victory. Looks like some good potential for the UW season, now we'll just have to see how we do against Boise State and Ohio State in the next two weeks. Some of the non-game highlights were watching the Syracuse fans filter out and become virtually non-existant by the time the game was over. Before the game started, the Husky legend, the Dawgfather himself, Don James, comes and takes his seat in the UW section, as thunderous applause comes from the rest of the Husky fans in attendance. Though apparently, Real Dawgs Wear Yellow, as DJ decided to wear a canary yellow polo. :) I guess he can wear whatever he wants.

The band made quite a post-game performance to a vastly empty Carrier Dome, as the UW fans started to filter out. Syracuse's band wasn't much to be impressed by, at least by Husky Band standards. Though Syracuse band members seemed to enjoy the Husky Band's post-game performance too, as they watched on.

After the game, it was another 2-hours or so getting back to Rochester, with a late night stop at McDonalds for some much needed food. Then much sleep ensued. All in all, a highly successful day of vacation.