College Game Day Road Trip - E104

Clancy Denton (00:00)
On today's episode of The Loud Quiet, College Game Day Road Trip.

Rick Denton (00:04)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Loud Quiet. You know, lot of you are regular listeners, regular viewers. You may not know that there's actually a The Loud Quiet newsletter. For those of you that didn't know and haven't signed up yet, if you sign up now, there's actually a free travel tips and travel gear guide that we've got put out there. If you head over to theloudquiet.com, you'll be able to sign up for the newsletter right there. And that download of that travel tips and gear.

will be in your inbox shortly.

Clancy Denton (00:36)
Yes, and last week's episode we were actually on the road, if you watched or listened. And this weekend we were, in quotes, on the road again. don't really call it a road trip. It turned into a more of a trip than we thought it was going to be to the luxurious land of Waco, Texas.

Rick Denton (01:02)
There's a lot of people that are Waco lovers.

Clancy Denton (01:05)
Yes, I have multiple friends that live there.

Rick Denton (01:08)
It has transformed for sure.

Clancy Denton (01:10)
⁓ when I was there in school, Chili's and Olive Garden were your big restaurants. If you wanted to take it up a notch, was Olive Garden, Chili's, or Golden Corral, which I have also talked about sticking things from the candy bar in my purse at Golden Corral to take back to the dorm room.

Rick Denton (01:29)
So, go find that episode.

Clancy Denton (01:31)
It's definitely changed and we did eat very well. We really wanted to talk about is this idea of friendships in the empty nest. That has now morphed into something a little bit different than, than we have yet to experience with Tanner. It's just an interesting twist in that.

the parents were friends and now the children are dating and have been dating for a while now.

Rick Denton (02:09)
And there's a whole history to how this came about. And so we'll be talking about those relationships. We talked about Waco. We're going to get into the, game day is like there. Cause we had a really good time.

Clancy Denton (02:18)
I know some of you that listen know this story, an interesting origin story of Tanner and Addison's relationship.

Rick Denton (02:28)
we were friends with the parents first. And I think that's important that we, and we make a very strong notice, we were friends first. We had started a life group, which for those that aren't familiar with life group, that's a group of people inside of a church in a smaller community that get together on a regular basis to live life together. And we've come to really develop some very close relationships with people inside of that life group. And one of the couples in that life group,

Brian and Brandy, well, they have kids that graduated from Baylor, one of whom has gone on to graduate studies at SMU, which seems like a, huh, well, our son is at SMU, your daughter's at SMU. I bet they'd like to have similar friend groups.

Clancy Denton (03:13)
And Addison moved here and she graduated early. so none of her Baylor friends were moving to Dallas yet because they were still in school. So that's when we said, okay, great. Tanner is super social. He is always welcoming to people, adding them to his group. The child will talk to anyone. So, you know, we were like, Hey, let's just introduce them.

and then he can introduce her to some of his.

Rick Denton (03:43)
Purely a pull them into social circle. I know there's a lot of folks that are listening. ⁓ okay.

Clancy Denton (03:49)
No,

we hadn't even, we had never even met or seen Addison before. so one night the parents were like, okay, let's all go to dinner. Well, the kids just happened to hit it off as friends first, and then it developed a little bit more into dates and Tanner took her to the law prom. Well, the next day after the law prom, we all get a text.

We are all going to the ASU Baylor game, which is in the end of September. Now this was back in March. We're like, okay, sure. know, well, guess where we were this weekend at the Baylor ASU game.

Rick Denton (04:35)
something and I love college football. also really enjoy college football while I'm sitting on my couch in my air conditioned house, but with a son who is an alum and with his girlfriend who is an alum.

Clancy Denton (04:46)
His mother is also an alum. ⁓ And her parents are also alums of Baylor.

Rick Denton (04:53)
I guess I'm the only outline.

Clancy Denton (04:57)
I have.

I have meh feelings about Baylor. For those of you that know, I was there for two years and then you go to Dallas for the nursing school for two years. I did not love Waco. Let's just put it that way. So I was happy to get back to Dallas and I have never been back to a game. We have been on campus once with the kids, but we were not.

let's have season tickets because you had a ton of friends that went to Baylor as well. You almost transferred to Baylor after your first semester.

Rick Denton (05:31)
And of course, my allegiance is to UT. If I were to go to games or anything like that, it would have been Texas. And with my undergrad being Duke, we weren't going back. Well, certainly you're not going back for football games and then basketball. couldn't get a ticket anyway. So we just never fell into that, go back to the sporting event on the weekend for all of those reasons.

Clancy Denton (05:52)
Well, that and we had children that had sporting events every single weekend. So we were not, even if we wanted to, we wouldn't have been able to.

Rick Denton (06:02)
That

is one of the delights about The Empty Nest is now we can do, and I don't know, does this mean we're going to be doing more game days? Maybe. It is a lot of fun. It just was never a tradition that we could do.

Clancy Denton (06:16)
Tanner and Addison both have a high allegiance to their alma mater. What?

Rick Denton (06:23)
a wonderful way of saying it.

Clancy Denton (06:25)
And they are both competitive and they are both so into sports. is unreal watching them text in some of the group chats that we're in too. They know stuff about the sports things that are breaking before any of us do. it caused me a little bit of anxiety going into this weekend.

Rick Denton (06:52)
And everybody's got some vigor in them. I just happen not to have any dog in this particular hunt. I'll root for AHU because it's Tanner, but it's not deep-seated passion. This is also, you think about evolution of friendships and the difficulty of finding friendships in the empty nest. Well, this is kind of kicking it up a notch when you're talking about traveling together in the empty nest because the game time ended up being an evening game. And while Waco's only an hour and a half, two hours away,

If a game's gonna wrap up at 11 o'clock, well, it might be worth just spending the night there and wake up. This became, it's a trip. Once you involve a hotel.

Clancy Denton (07:27)
It's a trip. the kiddos went down the night before and they were staying somewhere where we weren't staying. Yes, we were literally all six of us together pretty much from we left Frisco at 10 a.m. then we picked them up at 11 45 and we were together until 1 a.m. It was a long, long,

Rick Denton (07:52)
of 1 AM.

Clancy Denton (07:55)
fun day, but long day, but we were all standing in their Airbnb, excellent Airbnb if you need a place in Waco to stay glorious in their Airbnb was so nice. We all were like, why didn't we stay here? I were standing in their little living room and I said, okay. So we're all just going to have fun today, right? And Tanner and Brian, Tanner extended his hand and said,

20 bucks, 20 bucks, so they bet on the game with each other.

Rick Denton (08:29)
Because we knew that there, and I'm only going to speak about my son, but there's a potential for being very vibrant about one's school. And vibrancy, especially when you're in enemy territory, and he seems to have a positive relationship with girlfriend's father. It all seems very warm. you know, everybody has their limit. And we just sort of whispered in our son's ear, you know, be aware.

We're just here to have fun today, right guys?

Clancy Denton (09:01)
Yeah, and Brandi said, well, the one thing we can all agree on is that we're all for SMU today. And Brandi and I, again, she went to Baylor, but she doesn't care. We were just there for the fun and hopefully to not die in the heat. And shout out to Brandi for mentioning, I'm going to order this little fan, because yes, that fan was amazing.

Rick Denton (09:22)
We'll put a to that fan in the show notes because it was awesome.

Clancy Denton (09:28)
But yes, Tanner is very passionate. Tanner is also very loud. Like, the child has one volume and it is loud. And we were sitting smack dab in the middle of Baylor people. There were a few smatterings of ASU in our section. Now ASU did have a good showing. I just was like, please don't let this turn into something that I don't want it to turn into.

Rick Denton (09:53)
Well, please don't let this turn into something that stories could and legends could be told about later. thankfully, there were no stories, there were no legends. it is interesting though, when you do spend that much time with what has become an extension of friend group to be with not only our friends, but then our friends' children, and it's our children, and then our children happen to be dating, all of that woven together is the stuff that has the potential to be recipes for

stories down the road in the end. This was just a fun day. It is. And it was just an overall great fun time.

Clancy Denton (10:32)
This was one of the first car trips with other couples that I've been on where we literally did not stop talking from the time we left to the time we got home the next day. I mean, it was pretty much you just don't run out of things to talk about. ⁓

Rick Denton (10:54)
I think the front seat found itself being a little more on the way back.

Clancy Denton (10:57)
Okay. ⁓

well, okay. Yes. Now if Brandi and I wouldn't have kept talking on the way back, I probably would have fallen asleep. So, cause again, a.m. is not easy when you're a 50 something year old getting to really watch the dynamic of Addison and Tanner, because this is the first time that we've been with them for a long stretch of time. And, and Brandi and I both just said, they just have fun together. They're just

They just have fun. They're just fun. They take care of each other. They're just a fun couple and they're a fun couple to be around. And kudos to the parents on both sides because I think that probably comes from us. it's all from us. So it was also fun watching them at the game because when one team would do something, they both would say, that was a great play. That was good.

until the end where it started to get a little, a little heated at the game. And so there was a lot of high energy and tension at the last minute. So yeah, the rivalry between them was fun to watch. And the question last week that I put out on the Facebook community group was, have you experienced any kind of rivalries?

Rick Denton (11:58)
We've ended on our last second period.

Clancy Denton (12:18)
college football, basketball, any game rivalries in your family. And we had several that answered. Erin, her daughter goes to Arkansas and they are A alumni. And so she said, yes, since that game has started back up, that every year is always a big rivalry. Amy said on Thanksgiving weekend this year,

Mizzou plays Illinois and she said her older one went to one of the schools and her younger daughter goes to the other one. So that's going to be a good sibling rivalry on Thanksgiving, which we have one of those two because our daughter goes to Arizona and our son went to ASU and they always play the Saturday after Thanksgiving. So we understand the sibling rivalry. And then Courtney said she has her daughter.

versus her sister. So it's the niece versus the aunt with Auburn versus Alabama. So yes, that it always makes for fun times when you can have those little rivalries within the family. Yes. The smack talk between Tanner and Tegan starts. It'll it'll start again the week usually before and it's fun to watch and see who comes out on top each year.

Rick Denton (13:29)
as long as it stays fun.

So it was. This was a day and it was a game day. And we weren't able to do this before empty nesting because of all the schedules and stuff and the factors of life just didn't take us down that path. I gotta tell you, now having done a couple of the SMU Boulevard tailgates and then going to this tailgate, this was a lot of fun. Baylor sets up where they are, the Brazos River goes right behind the stadium, so there's water there, big grassy areas. I'm ready for some trees to grow in the grassy area.

We ended up going ⁓ to a tailgate that was one of Brian and Brandy's friends where they had, imagine the big trailer and you show up and the tents are already there and this trailer's got two big TVs on the side. They've got an air conditioned section inside the trailer. They even have their own little RV style potty in there so you didn't have to port a potty.

Clancy Denton (14:37)
What the kegery? mean, they had that. getting there. I getting close with the kegery.

Rick Denton (14:44)
They had a a and they joked about this they had a little secret door on the side of the trailer that you open up And there's a keg right there Dispensing a glorious beverage to enjoy. Yes the tailgate with one of the things about going down a gate I said early we Don't do this. We don't know it That's one of the greatest things about traveling with someone who does know what they're doing Brian and Brandy knew exactly where we were going what to do where he's got a

parking lot or I shouldn't even call it a parking lot. ⁓ There's a house and some of the houses that are relatively close that this woman has that you get to park in the small area that's behind their house. Well, she was up there at the front and she knew Brian, Brian knew her and she was offering us drinks and telling us, you know, how are things going? And even when we left,

Clancy Denton (15:15)
They're in yard.

Rick Denton (15:38)
there to go walk to the stadium. said, nobody gets their free beer. She was passing out beer. So it's great to go with someone. doing that at any other parking lot associated with the stadium. No, if I ever go to Baylor game, I'm going to that ladies lot.

Clancy Denton (15:42)
Yeah.

Yeah. that's, so for those of us who went to Baylor and many, many years ago, the football stadium has changed locations. It is now close to campus. Kids can walk. It's so much nicer. But even when we are pulling into that ladies go into her backyard, Eileen Debra de Brandy, I said, yeah, remember we used to park in everyone's front yard over by the other stadium. Even when we got to the tailgate, the couple that runs the tailgate, we're just.

nice and friendly and you know yes it was hot and there were some bugs. the only two people that the bugs affected were Brian and Rick.

Rick Denton (16:34)
We're talking about the bug.

I showered that morning. guarantee I showered that morning.

Clancy Denton (16:45)
So yes, everyone was clean. Everyone had taken a shower that morning. But Brandi and I had gone into the air conditioning trailer and come back out. And I just see out of the corner of my eye, Rick's over there swatting at something in his face. And then all of a sudden, Brian starts doing it. And we're like, what is going on? Y'all look like...

Like some sort of patience than having some sort of reaction to something. And it was only you guys. And then y'all would walk over by us and they would follow y'all wherever you were going or like, get away from us. We don't have the bug.

Rick Denton (17:29)
Those bugs followed us all the way over from that parking lot. walked a half mile from the parking lot. I have to imagine that it looked like for those that are Tommy boy fans, had to look like when getting out of the car, sweating out there bees killer bees. Y'all described us as pig pen from the peanuts.

Clancy Denton (17:39)
The bee!

It is, was like a cloud following you all. We all were just like, why did they choose you guys?

Rick Denton (17:53)
Did

not go away until we got into the stadium. was, so I said it was a great day. Those were driving us just, well, were, were really. Insert bad dad joke here. It was basically a mini adventure. This was a little trip for us. Yeah. We, we'd like to talk about, and we'd like to experience these big grand adventures. Get on a plane, go somewhere exotic or even just semi Arizona.

Clancy Denton (17:59)
Minus the bug.

Yeah.

Rick Denton (18:24)
Well, Game Day can be a really nice adventure too, especially in the empty nest one. You can say yes.

Clancy Denton (18:31)
easily.

What I do love about this one was that, yes, it was so nice that we were with a family who have done this so many times. And then now next year, when now we're all talking about going to the ASU Baylor game that will be in Tempe, we've already got all the plans laid out. And now we've said, okay, we're going to have to go for a week for all of the things that we want to do.

Rick Denton (18:58)
Yeah.

Clancy Denton (18:59)
And I think Vegas got added in there somehow. That will not be happening. But yes, it's going to be a fun tradition.

Rick Denton (19:08)
They made sure that we went to George's, which is such an important part of the Baylor tradition that was great and some phenomenal fried stuff with everything. The cocktail bar that we went to afterwards was really nice. And then Milo?

Clancy Denton (19:22)
Is that the name the I think it may just be Milo.

Rick Denton (19:24)
We just

mile low for brunch the next day, which really showed me, and I didn't, I don't have a lot of Baylor or Waco experience, but what I knew of it through the eyes of my friends that went to college there and through the stories that you showed is it's really grown up as a city. There's a lot of neat restaurants and that's, what do we talk about travel all the time? It opens your eyes to things. Waco broke the stereotype for me. I had a vision of Waco that is change.

Clancy Denton (19:37)
You tell.

Rick Denton (19:54)
now that I've actually traveled there. You know, something else, there's something actually really special about bringing tens of thousands of people to enjoy an event, ⁓ spectacle together, and to be a community. Even though you're actually on opposing sides, because you're right, there were plenty of ASU fans there as well, it still was this unified spirit of enjoyment going into the game, going out of the game.

that feels relatively unique, heck, in this world in general, but unique because of sports.

Clancy Denton (20:24)
Yeah, and I'm always glad to see no one

got stupid. Now, that probably helps that the Baylor Stadium does not serve alcohol.

Rick Denton (20:37)
What

did they, Brian was saying it's one of three stadiums in the nation? There's only a very few that don't.

Clancy Denton (20:44)
So I'm sure that helped. But as we were even leaving the game, which again, it was a very high energy ending to that game and the host city lost. so as we were leaving though, everybody was just, there was no shenanigans. There was just nothing. It's just nice to see that community feel on the big scale, but then...

also seeing it in this smaller little ecosystem that we've now created and that we just all do generally have fun together.

Rick Denton (21:22)
Do you think that's something that's unique to that environment? This was taking place in the midst of a very high conflict period in our country and the world. They're probably in that stadium alone. There are probably people that are extremely opinionated one way and extremely opinionated the other way on whatever the topic is. And they all came together to just enjoy that moment. And that, that just felt good that that's something we could do together. It's.

It was this unified experience in spite of everything that was going on. ⁓

Clancy Denton (21:55)
Sports tends to be a unifier. know in some places it's not, but...

Rick Denton (22:02)
I'm looking at you, Philadelphia. ⁓

Clancy Denton (22:05)
There's also some soccer rivalries that are very, but it was just a nice atmosphere. The entire day was just nice. No one at Georgia said anything that we were all in our ASU gear. And yes, I did wear ASU colors, but I did have a little Baylor scarf representation, but no one cared.

Rick Denton (22:28)
When they did it was in good spirit. That's what's fun. Let's rib each other. Let's have fun with that.

Clancy Denton (22:34)
It was just very, very good all around. Even the traffic was good, which on 35, you never know what you're going to get.

Rick Denton (22:48)
I it. I think we should wrap up there on a very, very good feeling.

Clancy Denton (22:53)
Some of you may be starting to get into that phase of your children having significant others. There's many of you who've already had children that have married. Yeah, there's grandkids. We know we run the game, but this is a new phase for us and it's fun. I think we're just really enjoying this aspect, another added aspect to the empty nest.

Rick Denton (23:07)
There's grain

Clancy Denton (23:23)
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Loud Quiet.