well, well. it is 2006 and the fine folks here at made fresh daily are happy to see it. as you may or may not know, we spent the new year's holiday in miami to boogy down with the stars and see
the mighty nittany lions beat bobby bowden and his florida state criminoles. as one might imagine, our time in south beach was 100% fab and chock full of sunny days, scantily clad beachcombers, and pizza (that's right pizza and damn good pizza i might add). while the goal of the trip was to come home orange bowl champs, we figured that we might as well see what
mishca b and co. were fussing about with this south beach business.
the first order of business was to touch down in fort lauderdale and get our rental car so that we could get to the hotel. it goes without saying that when we roll, we roll in style so we obviously were met in the garage by southern florida's finest auto (lil' blue beauty),
a 2004 chevrolet monte carlo. this whip had so much power i was afraid to let ashley behind the wheel. however i would have to wait to let those horses run as ashley booked the car and she is a stickler for the rules, which stated that she must drive. we cruised the strip in fort lauderdale for like 4 or 5 strip malls and then decided that we needed to get back to the room to formulate our new years gameplan.
our well laid plans went to pot almost immediately as
ashley got into her secret stash of seagram's wine coolers and proceeded to get blasted with a capital blast! for proof of this mess check this out! needless to say ms. manion and i did not see mr. dick clark's triumphant return to new years.
new years day saw ashley and i shake the sweet sugary wine cooler induced cobwebs and head for south beach. we packed the family cruiser and set out for south beach. after a long night of partying we had developed quite an appetite, so we decided that a road trip was in order. as a general rule of thumb, we make a point of becoming acquainted with finest pizza parlor's in every town we travel to and/or through. being that we were in miami, that meant only one thing...
frankie's pizza. after 2+ hours of driving through metro miami and making an unscheduled stop at the original orange bowl, ashley finally bellied up to the counter at frankie's and gorged on a perfectly constructed pie. compliments to the boys at frankie's on a job well done, well worth the long, strange trip.
full of jet fuel we set out for south beach to take in the sights and sounds, ditch our lil' blue beauty, and check into our hotel. we dotted all the i's and crossed the t's and managed to fight our way through the throngs and finally take our rightful place in room 310 at the hotel. whereas the time preceding our arrival at the hotel was full of jetsom and flotsom,
the todd oldham designed, former tiffany owned digs that were to be our south beach outpost, was a virtual oasis. we used the remainder of our day to walk the beach, eat at a restored wilkes barre, pa diner, and search in vain for a sean penn owned watering hole. ahh the rigors of vacation.
the next day saw ashley and i preparing for the daunting task of attending a penn state pep rally at the miami beach convention center, by first taking in some sun and fun on the atlantic and then moving to the rooftop pool back at the hotel. i guess ol' momma nature knew we were coming, cause she set us up lovely, 80s everyday and never a cloud in the sky. reeking of coconut scented suntan lotion and ready to focus on the orange bowl, we headed to the pep rally. not much to speak of here, other than the fact that
some weird-ass dude dressed in an orange costume kept following us. finally we relented and let him take a picture with us and headed out. we proceeded to head back to miami and arranged a sweet meal in little havana at narcissa's. this place was mad cool and even offered it's customers heightened security (see window treatments). our bellies full of plantains and ropa vieja we headed back to the beach and sought out some place to party down. we did not have to look far as we landed at the clevelander and joined the psu party that had been ragin' for the previous 2 days. the petroff/manion clan lived la vida loca and watched the ohio state university kick the fighting irish's teeth in. it should be mentioned that notre dame losing is the equivalent of half a penn state win, so i left the clevelander smiling ear to ear. our travels then took us to the crobar, where psu legend o.j. mcduffie was hosting (more like lending his name and collecting half the door) to a party. the space was ridiculously crowded and loud, so we resorted to taking photos of one another and pretending we were hanging out with lindsay lohan down the road at the shore club. we retreated to the hotel and had a few libations in the garden patio with matt 'meech' petroff and then called it a night.
finally the day had come. a chance to validate a fantastic season, confirm that the football program was indeed back in a position of prominence, and take our picture all through pro player stadium. we arrived at the stadium around 4 o'clock and took a few minutes to get our bearings. keep in mind we are used to tailgating in happy valley with 115,000+ so we know how to handle ourselves in said situation, however being strangers in a strange land we needed a minute. after we figured out our course of action, we found ourselves nestled into the comforting bosom of the penn state alumni tailgate in the west parking lot. knowing that we were behind (only starting at 4pm), we had to kick it into overdrive and get down to brass tacks. brass tacks in this case meant grabbing multiple hot dogs, hamburgers, yuengling and margaritas (yes thats right, margaritas at a tailgate. forgive them, they are indeed the florida alumni after all). we satiated ourselves and headed over to see the blue band blaze through another killer (industry term) set. like a pied piper we were lead through the parking lot by the sounds of '
fight on state' and '
lion fare' and found ourselves at the gates of the stadium. after
slapping far to many gratuitous high-fives with strangers wearing blue and white, we took the leap and headed into the stadium.
being unfamiliar with pro player stadium, ashley and i had no idea where our seats were in the stadium but we were only concerned with getting in to see the triumph in person. as we entered at the concourse level we were directed to head south and follow the numbers as they descended toward the field of play. long story short, we ended up more or less sitting on the penn state bench handing out gatorade to the players. the scene was total bedlam and the fine folks at the orange bowl put on quite a show, but nothing could top the final play of the game. after chewing my fingernails down to the cuticle and taking several years off my life, the euphoria of seeing mrob throwing oranges into the stands and seeing penn state...orange bowl champs on the score board has provided me enough fodder for sweet dreams for months to come.
as i went to bed swaddled in my blue and white pajamas, cuddling my joepa beenie baby, i slept knowing that 05 was rung out in style (what style is debatable) and that 06 was looking good.
