Going to the Emmys a dream come true for this Wichitan

Yea! One more thing crossed off the old bucket list. I have always wanted to attend an awards show, especially the Oscars or Emmys. So you can imagine I was just a little bit excited when my friend Sierra Scott got two tickets to the Emmys, and her fiance didn’t want to go. And bless her heart, she asked me.

If you watch Sierra on the “Brett and Sierra Show” or are a friend of hers on Facebook, you already know the trip was really fun. The woman was snapping photos and posting something every time I turned around. And since she has a gazillion Facebook friends, the word went far and wide. Personally, I am flunking Facebook. I look at it about every other month and don’t post a thing.

My traveling companion, who is the only person I know who takes more shoes on a vacation than I do, went to the Emmys last year so she knew the lay of the land. We had the perfect spot in the hotel lobby to watch for stars. She found out the Property Brothers from HG-TV were in the house and went on point. When she spotted them, she covered 50 feet in spike heels in a few seconds flat. I wished I’d had a stop watch. Of course, the photo of us with Jonathan and Drew Scott is really good of everyone – except me, who wasn’t sure what was going on. Nothing new there.

Here it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and people were dressed in evening gowns because they have to be in the theater by 4:30 or they don’t get in. Let me tell you it was a hot day in L.A. The Microsoft Theater was cool, but the long walk on the red carpet wasn’t. We weren’t on the same red carpet as the stars, but we were on a red carpet. It was maybe the best people-watching on Earth.

People in the television industry take this day seriously, but most of them seem to have a fine time. Jon Hamm dazzled his biggest fan. Me. I thought it was great that he crawled up onto the stage.

We had pretty good seats in the loge area of the Microsoft Theater, but you do see everything much better at home on your sofa. Part of the excitement of being there is during the commercial breaks when the first three rows look like a fire drill. They move nominees for the next categories up so it won’t take them long to get to the stage if their name is called. People who were just onstage have time to get back to their seats, and on it goes. You could tell when someone in our section had worked on a show that won because they would jump to their feet and hoot, holler, hug and high-five.

But the trip wasn’t just about the Emmys. On Saturday, we decided to go full-tilt tourist and get on one of the hop-on, hop-off buses. We went to Beverly Hills. We went to Hollywood. Did you know a couple from Kansas started the area now called Hollywood? Sierra and I about fell off the top tier of the bus when we heard that. We strolled down Rodeo Drive where we saw a Shocker-yellow Bentley in front of the Bijan store. It had its own yellow parking meter. You have to have an appointment to shop there. We took a pic of the car and moved on.

It was fun to go into the hotel where “Pretty Woman” was filmed. By that time, a cold glass of champagne was in order. Sadly, Richard Gere wasn’t there to pick up the tab, but we did love seeing the red dress that Julia Roberts wore in the movie.

We didn’t have much time to shop, but we did manage to purchase boots and shoes (what a surprise) before heading to the airport. Once on the plane, we both started looking at our day planners and knew it was time to get back to the real world. But we agreed landing at our new, beautiful airport made re-entry much easier.

This story was originally published September 24, 2015 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Going to the Emmys a dream come true for this Wichitan."