47 Hours in Tampa, Part I

March 18, 2011
Lovely to see palm trees again

I recently spent just under 47 hours in Tampa. I touched down in The Sunshine State at 3:50 PM on Wednesday, March 16 and departed the following Friday at 2:30 PM – a duration only a few hours longer than the time between my decision to go and the journey itself. Why did I go to Tampa? Why, to watch my Alma Mater play in the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row – after an eight year dry spell – of course. How did I get to Tampa? Well, that is a bit less lucid.

Rewind to the Saturday prior. Since moving to Park City, I have had the good fortune to live next door to a private chef and former ski instructor… and, apparently, some kind of fairy godmother. I don’t know that he’d appreciate the title, but as you will soon see, I can’t think of anything more fitting. Anyhow, last Saturday, I passed the day’s hours as I have many other weekend days this ski season – gleefully pretending I live in the lap of luxury, spending a few hours on the mountain with professional instruction then indulging in a gourmet meal prepared just a few yards away. Needless to say, the combination has made for some perfect (albeit illusory) winter days. At some point on this Saturday that started and proceeded like any other, I mentioned to my neighbor – with all the pride in the world – that UCSB would be playing in the Big West Championship against Long Beach, a feat I had witnessed first hand just a year prior and one of my most cherished moments in college. 

When I showed up to dinner that evening, he had kindly found the game streaming online. Despite my best attempts to be polite and act as good company, by the last quarter of the game my dinner had gone cold. By the time the buzzer rang, I was a veritable vat of sentiment. Worse, it ran the gamut. On the one hand, I was ecstatic and excited for the team and all of UCSB. On the other, it was a jarring cue that that moment for me was a year old…and equally out of reach. Never again would I experience anything as I had all those days on the sidelines. It was unexpected to process all of this in front of my neighbor. The intensity of the desire to be there and share in the moment caught me off guard completely. I hadn’t even really followed their season.  “You HAVE to go,” he asserted. ‘Of course I should go home. He must think I’m a basket case!’ I thought, mortified. 

“Use my sky miles to go watch your team wherever they are playing in the tournament,” he clarified. Oh.  

March 12, 2011
Bree stuffed artichoke...
played second fiddle to 
the Gauchos

Wait – what? Despite my insistence that I could do no such thing, my neighbor recognized the emotional investment I had in the team and the moment, and assured me he’d book the ticket himself if I didn’t. Upon my departure, I told him I’d "think about it." Intoxicated with the idea of watching UCSB play again in a yet undisclosed location (New Orleans, maybe?), I immediately dialed the number to the first and only person I could think of crazy enough to join me in such a trek, in such short notice. I could barely spit out the proposal. Miraculously, by the end of the conversation (or rather, the many exclamations on my end), I had verbal commitment. He probably thought I was joking.

4:00 PM took forever to come around the next day. But there it was, on my computer screen: #2 UCSB would play #15 Florida. In Santa Barbara! Oh, wait. No. The opposite.

By 11:00 PM, after what felt like a hundred phone calls to sort out flights and shifts and other logistics, I had myself a travel companion, three days of work covered, a plane ticket, a hotel room, and a phone number for the UCSB ticket office (in that order). I was in business… but what the hell was I doing? As you may all attest, spontaneity is not my forte. But as soon as the bracket was announced, I just went with it, never pausing to consider the absurdity of the idea, channeling what was likely panic and uncertainty to pure thrill and enthusiasm. I was going to Tampa, land of the Gators...

(By the way, try explaining all of this to your boss. Or your mom.)

Details of the actual trip to follow… from what I can remember, those get a little more interesting.