This year the football schedule had 3 off weekends. We were excited about it but knew that most of the time another sport has games or there is other work to be done and we would not able to take advantage of a full free weekend. But not this weekend! Jed didn't have to work on Saturday or Sunday so we decided to see what kind of trouble we could get into. He also found out that he didn't have to work a full day on Friday too! Last year with the bye weekend we headed to Tennessee to watch a UT game. This year we decided to head to The Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And as we were looking, we realized there were a few other games we could catch on the way.
So with our newly acquired Travel Bingo & Mad Libs (thanks Ben & Shelby), we headed west.
As we were driving and talking, we realized that we would be driving really close to Huntington, WV and one of my favorite Triple D restaurants, Hillbilly Hot Dogs. When Mathis, Nicki, my mom, Tom, Ryan and Caity went a few years back, Jed had to work and I have always wanted to bring him out here.
It was a quick stop but we both loved this place!
Our next stop was Louisville. We realized that Louisville was playing UCF on Friday night and it wasn't that far out of the way. So with no tickets in hand, we decided to see what we could make happen.
Thankfully, we were able to find tickets (and cheap parking). The seats were high, I mean higher then the video board/pressbox high but it was so fun.
It was an amazing game and UCF was able to score the go ahead touchdown with only 26 seconds left in the game to pull off the upset.
After the game, we immediately hit the road and were able to make it as far as Cincinnati, OH before calling it a night at 2am. We were so wired from the game that it never really felt that late.
Saturday morning we finished our drive to Ann Arbor. The views were beautiful and we saw some crazy stuff along the way. Like this...
Jed posted it on facebook and a few informed us that this is the second one. The first one was struck by lightning. I think getting stuck by lightning would be a clear sign from God that maybe you shouldn't have a big "idol" on display but clearly they felt different...but I digress.
We made it to Ann Arbor shortly after lunch. We had read about a must go to deli just north of campus so that was our first stop, Zingerman's.
We waited in line for a while and then found out that it would be over and hour and a half before we would have food in hand! We decided that we wanted to see a little more of campus and town so left Zingerman's empty handed. But I think we made the right decision. State Street in Ann Arbor was fun. It was fun to walk around and see different college towns and see how they do college football.
I think the craziest part was all the frat houses with tons of college students just drinking and partying. We kind of felt like we were on a movie set. Right across one of the frat houses was a little dive, Quickie Burger, that we stopped for lunch.
The weather wasn't the best but we were ready for it. As we were walking into the stadium it started hailing or sleeting not sure but it was definitely a memorable, cold & wet game day.
With the stadium holding over 110,000 fans, we figured the place would feel huge but it really didn't. We were pretty surprised at the size compared to the number of people it could hold. It was a surprise until we got to our seats. They jam you in there! I think your "seat" was half the size of any normal seat so we became good buddies with our "hip buddies". I think we can fit 110,000 people in Lane Stadium squeezing them in that tight. But it was such a fun experience. We might have been sitting on each others laps, had knees in our backs and our knees in other backs but it was so fun to watch the game set all kinds of records with passing yards and scoring a combined total of over 100 points.
After the game, we were again quick to hit the road. The next leg of the trip was short but there were 2 big games that we wanted to watch on Saturday night, FSU vs Clemson and game 6 of the Tigers vs Red Sox ALCS Championship series. Since we couldn't find a sports bar that was playing the FSU vs Clemson game, we decided to just order pizza and watch in our hotel room. It was perfect.
Sunday morning we woke to the disappointed new that the Tigers gave up the lead in game 6 and lost meaning the Red Sox were going to the World Series. It was quite a bummer. But we weren't going to let that mess up our last day. We left early to finish the drive to Detroit and mean my Uncle David, Aunt Janey and cousin, Lily for breakfast. They live just outside of Detroit and they are awesome! We went to breakfast at Jumps and time just flew by.
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| The view on the drive to breakfast |
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| So many fun memories riding through the neighborhood |
It was just so great to see them and hang out. We had to grab a few "selfies" before Jed and I headed to our final game.
We made it to the Lions game minutes before it started so we didn't see much around the stadium but we did get to walk past a lot of graffiti! These abandoned buildings had tons of it!
The Lions game was just way too much fun. The crowd really got into it. It was definitely one of those moments were I couldn't believe I was there and getting to watch my beloved Lions. Everything about it just seemed perfect.
Well, almost perfect, I wish Ben could have been there, he and I have been Lions fans for as long as we both knew what football was and maybe even before that. And then there was the issue of losing the game by the Bengals kicked the game winning field goal with time expiring.
After the game, we headed straight for the car to get on the road to head home. The road from Detroit to Christiansburg is not high traffic and mostly smaller roads so it was definitely a different feel then all the interstate driving we had done. It went pretty smoothly. We saw some interesting things...
And we made a pit stop for some highly recommended ice cream at Jeni's, in Columbus, OH, which was a fantastic move and a great recommendation. (Thanks Jackie & Evan)
Other then the near death experience we had with a deer, the drive home was a success and not much to write about. We had the best time driving all over the place and checking out both new and old places. I absolutely love doing this and I can't wait for our next opportunity.
