by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Four women still dressed in their Florida Gators pajamas spent Wednesday morning sitting inside their RV waiting to set up camp for the next few days in “RV Junction” — the parking lot across from Alltel Stadium that will hold about 165 RVs and serve as the home-away-from-home for hundreds of Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators fans in town for Saturday’s game.
Rewind 22 hours from 6 a.m. Wednesday. Linda Smith, Marlene Russ, Lucy Ciarcia and her daughter Latrice Lewis got in line to enter the parking lot for the weekend and somehow managed to be first. Starting at midnight on Wednesday, all campers were given a parking number to put on their windshield, and their’s said “#1.”
“This is the first time we were first in line,” said Smith. “We are really excited.”
The women, who all live in Jacksonville, have been in RV Junction for the past four years, but they have been going to the game for over 20 years. Ciarcia said none of them are graduates of the University of Florida, just big fans.
“We just knew from coming every year that we had to be here very early,” said Ciarcia.
The women said in order to pass the time, they socialized with the other people in the RVs.
“It’s neat because you see the same people every year,” said Ciarcia.
Even though there were only four of them, the group will grow much larger over the next few days. The women plan and organize the four-day tailgating venture each year and by Thursday evening their husbands arrive after everything has been done.
“The men are home sleeping right now. It’s about girl power,” said Russ. “We did the planning, the loading, the shopping, the setting up and tomorrow we’ll do the cooking.”
Russ said their husbands worked yesterday and today and once the food is ready and the beer has been iced down, they’ll show up.
The women have a menu planned for dinner each night. Tonight they are having low country boil; Friday night, pulled pork sandwiches; and Saturday it’s chili, hamburgers and hot dogs. Smith said their families will all be joining them Friday night for a big feast.
In addition to the food, Ciarcia said their group, also known as the “TailGators,” is known for their jello shooters. Last year they made 1,500, but this year they decided to scale it down to 800. She said they have tropical flavored shooters as well as blue, green and orange shooters to match the Gators’ colors.
Inside their RV, it’s nothing but blue, green and orange everywhere. They made shirts, pajamas and purses. If they need something from home, they have plenty of friends and family that can drop it off.
“Today (Wednesday) we’ll spend a good part of the day setting up and we have a couple of cars that we can use to drive to the Landing,” said Smith.
The women said they held three meetings to make sure they had everything they needed for their party this year.
“Every year it is a blast,” said Smith.
Ciarcia said until you come and experience this you don’t know what it’s all about.
“The atmosphere is great and the Georgia fans are fun, too,” said Russ. “Everyone gets along well. It’s the spirit of it.”
Even though they spend four days camping, Smith said they have stopped going into the game.
“We used to go to the game, but it is more fun out here to be with everyone,” she said. “You can’t always sit together inside the stadium and this way we can all be out here eating and drinking.”
Smith said they set up two TVs and their husbands just demand two things — no glare on the TV and a chair.
“This way we can all be together,” she said.