Fraaaaaaank

Our buddy Frank drove down to the bay area from Seattle last weekend. He came with a couple of his friends in order to cheer the UW Husky football team on against Stanford.

Frank arrived on Friday night and we met him (along with two other Dartmouth '02s) in Palo Alto for dinner and Friday night festivities. We ate at Nola's, a Cajun restaurant that had highly recommended Mojitos. The five of us tried a variety of traditional (and untraditional) Cajun fare including jumbalaya, etoufee, and a teriyaki skirt steak with mashed potatoes. Each dish was spectacular, we all left full and extremely happy. Frank was especially happy after polishing off a "Moron Bowl" beverage with his dinner - a drink that came with the caveat that the purchaser "may only order one and must have a ride home".

After dinner, the five of us went to Blue Chalk - a bar (and apparantly the local Palo Alto meat market) that has a bunch of pool tables and a mini shuffleboard table. We managed to score one of the pool tables upstairs and spent a couple hours cueing it up and then an hour or so sweatily dancing with the crowd downstairs.

We woke up late the next morning and had a leisurely breakfast. Then we decided to head on over to Stanford a couple hours before the game in order to see if there were any other sporting events occurring on campus. We found a field hockey game going on first - none of us really










knew much about the rules, but it was a fun, fast-paced game and we got to see a couple of good goals. Next we wandered over to the Stanford outdoor pool to take in a little men's water polo. Turns out Frank had played water polo at some point in his past (who knew?) so he filled us in on what was going on. Tom and I were really surprised at how violent a game Water Polo is - the players always seem to be kicking, pulling or whacking each other to the verge of drowning.

Anyway, after a couple hours wandering around, we headed to the Stanford Stadium for the football game. Neither Tom nor I really follows the college football scene, but Frank informs us that UW is an up-and-coming squad with a lot of young talent. They had only won two games coming into the game vs. Stanford (who knocked of #1 USC earlier this season), but Frank and his friends were all optimistic anyway. Frank brought Tom and I purple UW tee-shirts and a pair of tickets in exchange for a night on our pull-out couch and our enthusiastic cheers (or Woofs) at the game. The UW fans there were a force! They filled up an entire section (top to bottom) of the stadium and were every bit as loud as the Stanford fans the entire game. The Husky football team came through, too. Lead by a 255-yard rushing performance by Louie Rankin, the Huskies won 27-9. After the game, Frank and his friends started the long drive back to Seattle - glad that the football team could provide a happy ending to their pilgrimage.