Road to the Championship, Part One

"Every fan likes to think that they helped their team win the game.  

In our case, we're sure of it."  ;)

~The Happily Ever Johnsons celebrating the 2011 Crimson Tide

Last Saturday our alarms went off at 5am.  T and I had slept 3 hours the night before.  E-Bear came stumbling out of his room, still half asleep.  G-Bear rolled over and said, "is it ok if I just lay here in bed for a few more minutes?"  But none of us were crabby.  As we hopped in the car with our friend and airport chauffeur extraordinaire, Mr. Peter, we were already cheering.   We were on our way to New Orleans to help cheer for our favorite team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. 

Two plane flights later, we were in Birmingham and on the road with our Nana to the Big Easy.   When we stopped at the Chick-fil-A in Meridian, MS, it felt like we had pulled into an Alabama tailgate party right outside Bryant-Denny Stadium.  The restaurant and parking lot were overflowing with 'Bama fans headed to the city.  Never mind that the game was still over two days away!  The kids loved picking out all the Alabama A's as we traveled.  At home it is a big, rare deal to see another Alabama A!  Here, there were 'Bama fans like us everywhere!  

By the time we pulled into our hotel, we had been traveling for over 14 hours.  We had waited for an hour to get off at our exit in Saints game-day traffic.  But as we crawled into bed after our pb&j hotel room dinner, none of us were complaining. We were ready to rise, shine and cheer on the Tide again the next day.