Glad to have made it to my first Rice Bowl game--Liberty Bowl in Memphis!

Enjoyed meeting a few Parliamentarians. Tried to promote the board to the many I spoke to who did not know about it. Good to finally meet OptomisticOwl. He's a very pleasnat fellow, and so was Mrs. Optomistic!

Was glad we beat the Thundering Herd in the CUSA championship game to get us there, and got to watch that with a bunch of Rice alumns here in Atlanta area.

Have 2 opportunities to upset in national games of prominence next season in Notre Dame and Texas A&M minus Johnny A88ball.

The MSU crowd I ran into all over town and rode to the game with on the Peabody shuttle were all very polite and pleasantly respectful even though I was in Rice gear.

Finally got my all-blue "R" hat from the truck driver of the Rice truck outside the Hilton: whoever you are: Kudos and Thanks!

Drove up to the St. Louis arch with my son afterwards and he got to ride a camel (really!)*, see his first snowstorm, and eat KFC in Kentucky, dip his hand in both the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, see Metropolis (home of Superman) and see the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral (over 41 million mosaic pieces--took 81 years to build and my absolute favorite church, even topping ST. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in Rome!)

All in all, wish we'd won the game (MSU played very well so tip your hat to 'em), but I had a very fun and blessed New Year's trip with my son. Thanks to the players for giving me an excuse to do it all. Hope we can go somewhere interesting next year.

Happy New Year to all the Parliamentarians. Go Rice!

* just outside St. Louis in Belleville, IL is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows (ironic on this trip) who had a multi-million light nighttime Christmas display paralleling the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the Census and birth of Jesus, so they had set up a childrens' petting zoo tent with camels, donkeys, goats, et.al. and an opportunity for the kids to ride on real camels and donkey's which was quite a fun and unexpected treat. Thanks to my friend who usually drives to Iowa for the holidays for mentioning this stop to me. Well worth it.

Sounds like a great trip!

(01-09-2014 06:04 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Good to finally meet OptomisticOwl. He's a very pleasnat fellow

Thanks. This will come as a surprise to many here, I think.

Good meeting you. Glad the rest of the trip was better than the game.

(01-09-2014 06:04 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  * just outside St. Louis in Belleville, IL is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows (ironic on this trip) who had a multi-million light nighttime Christmas display paralleling the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem for the Census and birth of Jesus, so they had set up a childrens' petting zoo tent with camels, donkeys, goats, et.al. and an opportunity for the kids to ride on real camels and donkey's which was quite a fun and unexpected treat. Thanks to my friend who usually drives to Iowa for the holidays for mentioning this stop to me. Well worth it.

The in-laws live about 30 minutes east of there. We were there for Thanksgiving and will be there next year for Xmas. Thanks for the tip - we'll have to check it out next year.