Red River Rivalry... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So saturday we had a VERY interesting day! Ben and I got to go to our first ever TX vs. OU game. We were both so excited. This game is a HUGE deal to the Cox family and there has been at least one and usually several family members represented at this game for oh the past 15? 20? years. It's a BIG deal! Like I said this year was mine and Ben's first experience! The group consisted of mamaw, Jarod, beth, my dad (who had to drop out at the last minute due to illness), ben and myself. So here's the group early saturday morning decked out in our longhorn attire! Ready to go beat some sooners! So we get down to the state fairgrounds and what I forgot to mention before is that we went without tickets to this game...I was assured by family members who have been attending for many years that we would be able to get them on the street before game. The question was just how much they would be. So we get down there and park. The girls go to Mcdonald's to wait for the boys to "do their thing". They come back rather quickly, I'd say within 20 minutes and have 6 tickets!! There was also a friend of Jarod's going with us! So great we head off with our tickets to the fair. For those who haven't been thee are two separate tear off parts to the game ticket. One stub to get you into the fair then one to get you into the game. So they take our stub for the fair and we go in and start having a grand old time! The atmosphere at the fair is NUTS! A sea of burnt orange and maroon! Absolute craziness but so much fun! We stop to get our first corn dogs of the day and to get some photo ops with BIG TEX.

Beth, Ben, and mamaw kind of in front of Big tex with a mean Sooner fan in the back! 

Us in front of Big tex

Beth and what will be Jarod when Kim photo shops him in! 

Mamaw and beth with Fletcher's corny dog's! These are the best ever!

This is what it looked like getting through the gate to go into the game and this was just ONE gate. Craziness! So here's where this story takes a different turn....We get into the game and go to our seats only to find OU fans sitting in our seats already. We both compare our tickets which are IDENTICAL! Same section, row, seat number. Exact same tickets. Long story short there is a federal marshal there who lets us know our tickets are counterfeit. Some scalper/ counterfeiters had a BIG day and sold the same counterfeited tickets over and over. What is amazing is that they not only got us into the fair, they got us into the game and even when the federal marshal was holding supposedly real and fake tickets in his hands...he could tell no difference. Bad news for us. Bad news for all fans who scalp their tickets day of the event. Now with technology these tickets can be done PERFECTLY! The good news is that the federal marshal told us that as far as they were concerned we paid a lot of money to see the game and they weren't interested in throwing anyone out however we weren't gonna have seats, we were gonna have to find a place to blend in and stand and watch the game. So first half, we find a pretty decent vantage point to stand and watch the game ...the only problem is the event people keep coming by and making us move back or away. We are not the only ones, this happened to MANY MANY people and there is an entire crowd of standers! So they make us move, we move back and the whole first half is spent playing the dancing game.

Marching Band before game starts from where we stood. 

Not sure if you can tell, they spell out TEXAS! Awesome!

See...not too bad!

Ben finds he can see even better from this vantage point! Yes he climbed up onto the stadium! 

This summarizes what the first half was like!

So halftime comes and we try to move out of the way of the crowd cause everyone is coming up out of the bleachers and it is just total chaos so we find a place to sit...

On the ground, next to a trash can...LOVE mamaw's spirit! Hook em!

Everyone crouched by the vendors door and trash can! Love it, these are true fans!

Second half was a little bit better than first. We broke up into smaller groups and stood in palces we were allowed to be standing. Jarod and Beth went and stood in a doorway somewhere and Ben, mamaw, and I stood behind a handicapped area where there was actually standing allowed. Height came into huge play! I have never felt so short in my life, I always thought I was tall but being over 6ft was a huge advantage for the day's events. I kind of got tired and stopped taking pictures but I have the "eyes of texas" and some cool pics of when the horns WON on my phone but can't figure out how to get them to the computer at this moment. After the game, we went back to the fair for a fried food extravaganza. There were fried peaches and cream which i didn;t have any of but I heard were delicious, many corn dogs, chicken fingers, turkey legs, corn on the cob, and a big pretzel. Fair food is amazing. Here is my last pic of beth with her corn on the cob. 

All in all, despite the drama it was a pretty great day. We had a good time and it will definitely be a great story for a long time! Just the atmosphere and the experience was worth it for me! I definitely want to go back next year....WITH TICKETS! Like ben's shirt says..."Go early, stay late, be loud, wear ORANGE!"