I bought two tickets to the Stanford-WSU game in Palo, Alto, CA. and I'm taking my dad to the game. We're pumped to see historic Stanford University, see the game in a great venue, and tour the scenery of Northern California! Look forward to seeing you guys there and hoping for another win against the Cardinal. Should be a good game against an improved squad!
My crew has always enjoyed our trips to Palo Alto.
Stanford does have a nice campus, we've walked around it quite a bit. They have tremendous athletic facilities for a huge variety of different sports. You name it, Stanford competes in it. As passive as their fan base can seem, there are enough of the deep pocket fat cats who like to donate that they are second to none in those terms.
A similar place (in that respect) I've visited was Ohio State. Both those schools do their athletic facilities proud. And both cover almost every sport the NCAA features, plus some club sports the NCAA doesn't feature.
Having said all that....the football stadium at Stanford leaks like a sieve when it rains hard. We were down there the first year the Cougs played in the new stadium. We sat under cover and got soaked to the gills. Water was cascading down between seams, hitting the floor and bouncing back up shin high. My rain gear, sitting under cover, got overwhelmed and I was a wet cat by the end of that game.
The only thing we could figure was that the earthquake safety codes might have forced them to leave more space than normal between sections? It hasn't rained that way at any of the subsequent games that we have attended down there. So I dunno if they did anything to fix that situation, or not?
We usually get there fairly early and park across the road from the stadium, in the Palo Alto HS parking lot. A minimal fee for quick and easy access. Just a walk across the road (El Camino Real) and you're right there. There's a traffic light at the corner (El Camino Real and Embarcadero? Rd) and plenty of other foot traffic, with cops directing traffic, so it's not like you're doing a mad dash across a busy road.
Typical parking for the game is otherwise on campus under the trees. Some is close to the stadium, some is a hike away.
All in all, we have been going down to 'Furd for games (and to Berzerkeley, too) for more years than I care to remember.
I even drove down to the Bay Area with some friends on a whim, one Thurs night, after an IM football game, when I was a junior at WSU. Epic trip. One of the guys I was with was a football player who was out injured that week. We drove straight through the night and stayed with another friend who had graduated the year before.
I'll never forget the look on Jim Sweeney's face when we walked up to him, in the parking lot of the team motel (Ricky's Hyatt IIRC?) and hit him up for game tickets on Friday. He didn't blink an eye, just reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wad of tix. "How many do ya need?"
Those tickets were in the middle of the high rent district in the old 100.00 seat Stanford stadium. Sitting in the rows right behind us were WSU "dignitaries". The Pres, the AD and Bobo Brayton, among others! I swear to God true story! We had brought in a cooler with long neck Budwesiers (loooong time ago, guess it was OK back then??) When we cracked the first one open, Bobo leaned down and asked us if we had one for him!!
A truly epic trip. But we lost the game....
