I will admit after the fact, I had a good time at the graduation. I only say this because I was allowed to relax and do it my way, much like when we went a couple years ago for my nephew. I thought Wife overdid it a bit with the being there a whole hour early, but I guess that is fine, we got there, and it still looked semi empty. Because we got there so early, we were able to park as closely as possible to the trail one has to walk to reach the inside of the stadium. The design, from a customer point of view, is horrible! There is plenty of parking, but it goes into the parking lot by driving through the sleepy neighborhood, so those streets were never meant to carry thousands of cars at a moment's notice. Although going in was fine, leaving was another story. everyone, including little old ladies were losing their patience, I swear one even called me a mother F*cker as I passed her (she was being pushed in a wheelchair very slowly, and as soon as I saw an opening, I told Wife to go on one side of her while I passed her on the other. I think I may have stepped too close to her, I kind of heard her mutter something, but Wife told me she cussed at me, this happened inside before we even got in the cars).
I digress, we got there early, the concession stands were open, so we loaded up, Baby A got a hot dog, pretzel, Wife got popcorn, and sodas all around. This little snack was a hefty $41. We also got some souvenir dachshund stuffed animal (it was white and meant to be written on, so we wrote congrats and stuff on it) and Wife got flowers for the graduate (that did not make sense). We had plenty of seats to spare between us, so none of us felt crowded. Of course, idiots showed up right after the actual ceremony started, but they went and crowded each other several rows away, we were left alone, this time.
Our nephew was 14th or so to be called and once his name was called and we cheered, there was no reason for us to be there. Wife said she needed to go to the bathroom, and I followed her. It took Mijo another 10 minutes to figure out we were just hanging out in the background area. He came out, we got more nachos and drinks and sat out there until Wife got nervous. She headed back inside, Mijo and I stayed out and just walked around the whole stadium. He could not believe me that they play football in that stadium. I then showed him they had curtained off more than half the stadium off from visibility.
We walked around and hung out until they were almost done with the names, we then went and sat back down when they were on the Y last names. It took another five minutes before they got done, then we started our outward march. The family chose not to listen to me, and they all decided to go out the doors leading to the handicap parking area, I said they always go out the other doors, we have been to like 2-3 graduations here, it seems like. We stood there about 30 more minutes waiting for the graduate to make his way around and it was hot and nasty outside.
We stood around 10 more minutes taking pictures before deciding to go get to our cars. Of course, they have the handicap sticker because of my father-in-law, so they were right by their car, we had to walk a good half mile in 102-degree weather to find our car. It was a fight to get out of the parking lot, we actually saw a truck bump a car, the old guy got out all mad, but the truck just kept going, with cops directing traffic just 100 yards away. It was cheer mayhem, and nobody wanted to be orderly or nice.
We finally made it out, but Wife decided we wouldn't go eat with them and instead we headed back to Austin, but we id stop to eat at Sea Island, behind Buc-ee's, it is one of Mijo's favorite places to eat. Wife was willing to skip out eating with her family because they will have a reception/party next Saturday, so we will be going back for that, more than likely.
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