Final day of this trip. Time to head home…
We were on the road by 9:30 or so; we stopped in Temecula and dropped off the Villa at Airstream Inland Empire for routine service and a few minor repairs. All its life this Airstream has been maintained by C&G in Bellflower; however, this past summer C&G closed, with Rod and Darlene retiring. So we are trying Airstream IE…
As we were approaching home we marveled at the mountains adjacent to Redlands:
The little rain “storm” we experienced at Pala left a lovely blanket of snow on the mountains down to about 4,500 feet… We’re happy the snow stayed in the mountains where it belongs…
We unpacked and cleaned up. I took our son John to the Apple store in Rancho Cucamonga to have his 2 week old iPhone replaced. We were in and out of the Apple store in about 10 minutes and we were soon back home.
I spent some time starting to begin planning our trip east in March… More on that coming soon…
We had a delightful evening watching the final college football game of the season – The championship game between Clemson and Alabama. (As usual)
Spoiler Alert: Rant Coming…
You’ve heard me rant before that these top football schools have gamed the system, scheduling their entire seasons with “cupcake” games, playing competitive teams as little as possible; the powers that be let them get away with this, and the sports writers and commentators do, too, rarely watching these games, merely looking at the numbers. So Alabama beat Citadel 50-17? Alabama beat Louisiana 51-14? Why is Alabama even allowed to play teams like this and get credit for it? Alabama beat Mississippi 62-7 in an SEC conference game? Ole Miss only won 1 conference game this year! For me it was a very boring season. On most Saturdays there was only one real competitive game. Back in the BCS days when strength of schedule actually mattered, there would be three or four, because schools knew they had to play these games to earn top rankings. No more. Now it’s all about the numbers… The sports writers and commentators all crowned Alabama as the Champion back before the season even started. Alabama football players were only going through the motions… And the same goes for all the “elite” football schools…
Don’t get me wrong – I like Alabama, probably more than any other SEC team. They are VERY good and are fun to watch most of the time…
So, as expected and predicted at the beginning of the season, Alabama and Clemson went at it tonight, going through the motions awaiting Alabama’s coronation. But a funny thing happened on Alabama’s first offensive drive: A pass was intercepted by Clemson and it was run back for a touchdown! Alabama fans and players were stunned and perplexed… And it went downhill from there, the final score being Clemson 44, Alabama 16; Alabama never scored a touchdown after the 1st quarter… It was a great game to watch two great teams play football!
And an enjoyable time was had by all, except for the Alabama fans…
Adventures in the Villa 