Well, it only took me 16 and 13 years to get my kids down to Auburn!
Of course back then, they were babies and we weren't traveling all that way to sit in the hot sun with babies who didn't understand football, and then we lived in Germany for almost 5 years, and then there was that pesky pandemic...
Let's finally go to Auburn, shall we?
When we landed in Atlanta, we went to the rental car counter to pick up our compact car from Sixt. They told us that they didn't have any compact cars, and that we could either wait an hour (or however long it took) for someone to return one, or we could pay extra to upgrade. The kids were mortified when I said, "Well I fail to see how that's my problem!" We didn't have time to wait as we were already on a tight schedule, so we just paid the extra and I promised to write a bad review about them all over the internet!
After our rental car debacle (never again, Sixt!), we did not pass go, and we did not collect $200 - we drove straight to Momma Goldberg's! (Ok just kidding, we stopped to drop our bags off at the hotel first!) I TRULY miss southern fountain Diet Coke!
I had a Momma's Love for the first time in over a decade and it was amazing!
After a delicious lunch, we had a delicious dessert at Toomer's Corner - lemonade!
YUM! A tasty treat on a really humid day.
Auburn has a cute Walk of Fame called Tiger Trail and you'll find all of Auburn's best athletes in every sport! (Or in Bo's case, multiple sports!)
Ah yes. I remember, because I was there!
Auburn has changed a lot since I was here, but the one consistent thing about Auburn is always Toomer's Drugstore!
After that awful man poisoned our trees, we spent years trying to save them, but they just didn't make it. So they were removed in 2013 and replaced in 2015 with trees that were genetic descendants of the originals. Of course, in 2017 some dumb LSU fan lit one of them on fire, so they had to be replaced again. It took a few years for them to really become stable enough to roll again, and the Auburn-UMass game was the first game where fans could roll the trees again!
Grant, sipping on his Toomer's Lemonade in front of Langdon Hall, where we used to see free movies. He didn't step on the seal behind him, because if he had, he won't graduate in four years and he would not find his true love at Auburn! (Something tells me he won't anyway!) Natalie was telling me about this tradition, and I was so confused as to why I didn't remember it. The seal was placed there in 1999, duh.
The evening before the first game of the season, and people already had their chairs out for the following day's tailgate.
Beautiful Samford Hall - if you're here around noon, you can hear it play the Auburn fight song each day.
Pretty flowers in front of Samford Hall make me happy.
Never thought I'd bring my babies here!
I stood here at this same spot on graduation day, August 1997 which was 26 years ago!
Four Bailey's, Samford Hall and the iconic Auburn University sign.🧡💙
Good old Tichenor Hall, where I took most of my major classes (except the ones that required us to be in the studio as Radio-TV-Film majors!)
One of the greatest Auburn players and coaches EVER! Go Crazy!
I am still sad that he was a JuCo transfer and didn't get more time as a player at Auburn but he lives there now and coaches at Lee Scott Academy.
Look! They even have super cool manhole covers in Auburn!
After we walked around the downtown Auburn area (and made a stop at J&M Bookstore), we drove over to the parking deck next to the stadium. Neither of my kids know how to smile, apparently. War Eagle!
We walked around Jordan Hare on our way over to the Lovelace Hall of Honor athletic museum which is over at Auburn Arena, and we passed the National Championship sign. Sure would like a few more years posted on that!
Sadly, the Lovelace Hall of Honor is under reconstruction so we didn't get to see it! But we did get to see the Auburn basketball arena.
And I got to see my boy, the Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley!
If you happen to be in Auburn the day before a football game, they open up the locker room at Jordan Hare from 4-6 pm so anyone can stop by and check it out. Super cool!
And I don't care what people say. I still like Gene Chizik. His dad was cool.
So exciting going into the Auburn locker room!
I liked this commemoration of all of the bowl wins we have accumulated.
We just followed Grant into the locker room...
... and then we followed our forever-captain Natalie onto the field! She was the captain of FC Bayern München and now is the captain of the Auburn football team!
Ok sorry, that last picture had to go out of order or the story isn't funny. Back to the locker room! Naturally, the "There goes Davis!" Kick 6 from the Auburn-Alabama game was featured prominently in the locker room, including the play by play by the late Rod Bramblett and his partner, Stan White.
And how could we forget Cam kissing the crystal!? (I saw this live!)
The locker room is really awesome and I was just kind of in awe at the facilities in general. This program has some money!
You can take a super cool picture of yourselves with the AU sign that's on the ceiling of the locker room, but you're gonna need to have a minimum of three chins to do it.
The backup center for Auburn this year is freshman Connor Lew, who is the son of one of my former co-workers at The Weather Channel! Pretty crazy! Glad he picked the best school!
I'm imagining the plays that have been drawn on this whiteboard. Currently there's a heart, some stuff that was wiped off and a "War Eagle!"
At this point, we did finally go out to the field! The scoreboard at Auburn is HUGE. Not as big as the one they are putting in down at Gillette Stadium, but still really massive.
It's just... sniff sniff... so... sniff sniff... beautiful!
How much will we beat UMass by??? Only the scoreboard will tell.
That is the student section (without the chair backs) - and they already had shakers out ready to go!
Back inside, we ran into two guys who used to play football for UMass (back around the year 2000 I think) who were excited to see folks down from Massachusetts (even if I WAS very emphatic that we were rooting for Auburn!). They were super nice and really funny - we kept running into them all over campus, too. I didn't know the Heisman trophies were in a room near the locker room, and they pointed them out to us - thank goodness! Pat Sullivan!
Cam Newton!
And of course... Bo Jackson!
Let's not forget that Coaches Trophy National Championship crystal!
On our way back to the car, it started raining but I needed to run over to the other side of the top level of the parking deck to snap a picture of Plainsman Park! I spent MANY days at this field during my time at Auburn (I was a Diamond Doll!)
The kids were begging for pizza, so we went downtown for some Mellow Mushroom - YUM! We also got to admire (???) the new Target. We needed some bottled water, so we ran in after dinner and it's pretty small.
We had a great first day touring around Auburn and can't wait for the football game!
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