[This is my third extremely lengthy recap of a Michigan Football road trip. They are starting to wear me out, so I apologize if all of the stories don't appear coherent or are uninteresting. I'm too lazy to try to keep re-editing this anymore.

Long story short: We drove to Ann Arbor. Funny shit (at least to those of us there) happened. We got there and ate burritos. I bought a hoodie. We drank a lot. Funny shit happened. We continued to drink a lot, and funny shit continued to happen. We went to a football game. A guy threw hot dogs. Michigan won. We drank a lot, and funny shit happened.]

Contrary to popular perception after my last entry, I did not actually go to Ann Arbor just to buy a hoodie. I went for a football game- the hoodie thing was kind of a sarcastic-but-not-really-cause-I-did-need-a-new-hoodie thing.

Anyway, it was a last minute decision to go. Turner had planned a trip with his father a few months ago, and was flying out. This inspired Briggs and Gerard to plan another road trip a few weeks ago. I was on the fence about joining them until last week, when Michigan beat Penn State to go 7-0, and I found out some other friends would also be making the trip to Ann Arbor from around the country. After my boss cleared it, well, there was no reason not go.

So Thursday night, Briggs, Gerard, Eric (who went along for the ride but basically disappeared until it was time to leave again on Sunday), and I took off from New York, for our third Michigan football road trip.

After crossing into Pennsylvania, we took a random exit for a dinner break. Spotting an A&W/Long John Silvers, we decided to check it out, since none of us had ever been to either. Gerard saw an item on the menu titled “Chicken Strip”

Gerard: “What’s a chicken strip?”
Cashier: “Its a..strip..of..chicken”
Briggs: “Did you really just ask what a chicken strip was?”
Gerard: “I’ll have one of those, and a root beer float”

When his food came out, he found that by ordering “one of those,” Gerard had in fact ordered one, solitary chicken strip.

Me: “Gerard, that is the most pathetic meal I have ever seen.”
Gerard: “So that’s why it was so cheap.”

On our way out of the restaurant, we noticed a bell on the wall with a sign that said “Ring if you had great service,” which we rang. I feel like Taco Bell should have these.

Later that night, we encountered a ridiculous rainstorm. We were driving through the middle of Pennsylvania (rural, mountainous, dark), and were fearing for our lives (well, I of course was napping while everyone else feared for their lives- occasionally I’d wake up to watch when “Oh My GOD!” was yelled extremely loud). It was such an intense storm that we felt it deserved a name, a good old Pennsylvanian name, so I dubbed it “Hurricane Jebediah”.

We thought about pulling off the road and stopping for the night but decided against it. We weren’t that far out of New York, so if we had stopped, we would have had a long drive ahead of us the next day, delaying our fun in Ann Arbor. Plus, we were determined to revisit our former stomping ground at the Tallyho-tel in Youngstown, OH.

[And by determined, I mean we were so determined that Briggs had actually called in advance and made a reservation. Supposedly, the conversation went like this:

"I'd like to reserve two double bed rooms next to each other. We'll be there around 1am tonight."
"OK, you're all set"
"You don't need a name or credit card number or anything?"
"Oh yeah, what's your name?"
"Briggs"
"Ok, bye."]

In hindsight, I don’t know why we ever wanted to go back there, since we knew how big of a shithole it was. Aside from cheap prices, the place had absolutely nothing to offer. Well, unless you count cigarette butts in your sink as something to offer. I hope I never see that place again.

While hanging out in the rooms that night, we spent about 45 minutes debating the pros and cons of walking vs driving to the gas station across the street for food (”Its only across the street, but it’s raining, but we’ve been drinking, but not enough to matter, but its Ohio…”) In the end, I drove with Gerard over there. We had actually stopped in at the convenience store earlier that night to get mixers for our drinks, so the cashier remembered us and joked around with us while we looked for food.

Me: “Hey, what do you think about string cheese?”
Cashier: “What is that, Cheese Streamers?”
Me: [looking down] “Um, yeah”
Cashier: “Don’t eat that shit, it’ll tear your ass up.”
Me: “All righty then.”

Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect- we got there just as after the day’s order of Krispy Kreme donuts were being delivered. Did we buy a bunch of fresh ones to take back? Absolutely not. Did we snag up all (somewhere around 10 or 11) of the “day-old’s” that the cashier said we could have for free? Absolutely.

The next morning, we set out for Ann Arbor. Right after crossing the border into Michigan, Briggs spotted a sign for a Beef Jerky Emporium. Sure we were running late, but we just had to pull over. 30 bucks later, we were back on the road, 17 different flavors of beef jerky in hand.

Within minutes of reaching Ann Arbor, we stopped at Panchero’s for our first burrito. When paying for our food, the cashier handed me one of those “frequent eater” cards- buy 10 burritos, get one free. I made it my mission to try to fill that card during the trip (I wasn’t going to eat 10 myself- even I’ll admit that’s nearly impossible in 48 hours- but was going to get stamps for my friends’ food as well).

After paying for our food, Gerard and I “cheers’d” our burritos by tapping their ends together before taking the first bite. I only mention these things to try to get you guys to understand how good these burritos are.

After Panchero’s, Gerard seperated from the group to go visit a professor. Yes, he’s a big fucking loser and we did not let him live it down.

“Gerard, how was your date with your prof?”
“Gerard, stop kissing up, you already graduated.”
“Gerard, quit being a big fucking loser.”

While he was gone, I took the time buy a replacement hoodie. Its nice and blue and has a zipper and cost 50 bucks, so you can be sure I will not be (willingly) giving it away anytime soon.

We quickly checked into our hotel, got ready, and headed back into campus to party for the night. It was too early for Rick’s, so we hit up the Brown Jug for some Oberon. After a few beers and a round of shots, a lady came up to us and offered us free shots of Cuervo Tradicional as part of a promotional event they were holding at the bar. We all hate Tequila, but she told us Tradicional is (supposedly) made of real Agave or and is (supposedly) better than regular old Cuervo.

My opinion- tastes like fucking tequila. This night would not end well.

We later headed to Rick’s, and, well, I’m not really sure how the rest of the night went. I remember pieces (dirt cheap Long Islands and Sharkbowls, luckily I still know a bartender there who hooked us up), but in general we have no clue what else happened at the bar, what time we left, or how we got home. I woke up the next day in the middle of a King-sized bed, Gerard and Briggs on either side of me, neither of us with much of a clue what happend. I pondered whether or not we had made it to Panchero’s (I needed those stamps), but Gerard and Briggs both said we hadn’t, they would have remembered if we had.

Briggs, being the super-American that he is, turned on ESPN College Gameday and sat in bed in his underwear eating beef jerky. Did I mention it was 9am?

It took a while (there was a moment where I thought I might pull a Turner by throwing up and not making it to the tailgate), but we eventually got ready to start the prepartying. As I put my jeans back on, I pulled everything out of my pockets to make sure I still had my credit card, ID, etc.

“Guys…”
“What?”
“I think I went to Panchero’s last night.”
“No dude, we told you, we didn’t go.”
“Well….I have two more stamps on my card.”
“You’re joking.”
“No…I’m not.”
“Wow”
“Yeah”

We got to campus, ate some Bell’s pizza, picked up a 30 bomb of Busch Light, and headed to a house where some old frat buddies lived. Turner had not driven to Ann Arbor with us, but had actually flown in with his father for the game. He was out to lunch with his dad and other relatives, and later texted Gerard to try to meet up.

“Taking a dump at the UGLi [Undergraduate Library]. Where are you guys?”

We were perplexed as to why he needed to share that detail with us. Eventually Gerard wrote back “Amish took a monster dump at the hotel this morning. We’re on Arbor Street.”

The rest of the pre-game went like most tailgates go, drinking, walking around campus, eventually heading toward the game. Just before gametime, the skies cleared up and it became a perfect fall football day. God really does shine down on Michigan Football.

While walking to the game, my buddy Bier and I started commenting on girls that were walking around us. Apparently a new fashion trend in Michigan is to wear spandex/leggings with Uggz. One girl wearing such attire was walking in front of us, and as we walked along Hoover Street, Bier pointed out to that she had a flat ass.

Anyone who’s been to a Michigan game knows about the dreadlocked bongo player who plays along Hoover Street and provides on-the-spot rhyming commentary to the people walking past. His rhyme, less than a minute later:

“Look at that girl, dressed in the black
Looks good from the front, but not from the back”

She immediately got extremely embarrassed. She tried to cover her butt with her hands and tshirt, while her boyfriend tried to reassure her that her ass was fine. It didn’t help that Bier and I were standing right behind them dying of laughter.

The game was a blast. We had 11th row seats, so we had a great view of the field, the band, and of course, the cheerleaders. Iowa held their own during the first half, though occasionally they ran into some trouble. On one particular offensive drive, the Hawkeyes’ line got a head start on the play. Not sure who to assign the penalty to, the Ref announced “False Start. Entire…Iowa…offensive line.” Classic.

And now for my favorite story from the weekend:

During the lull at the end of half-time, a commotion broke out in our section and the ones neighboring us. We looked up to see what was going on, and saw that all the students were facing in the direction of one guy. Dressed in maize-and-blue confetti looking pants, he was holding a box from the concession stand and was dancing around crazily, eliciting cheers from patches of people around him as he pointed in different directions. He then reached into his box and pulled out a hot dog (at Michigan Stadium, the hot dogs come wrapped in plastic baggies), and heaved it at a group of students 20 rows above him. This went on…He would point toward a section, and they would start cheering louder. He’d point to different section, they’d cheer louder. Back and forth, creating an orchestra of cheers. And then another hot dog would be airborne, a lucky student ending up with pork from the skies. This went on for quite a while, more and more students getting into it, until 10 or so hot dogs were distributed to the masses.

The third quarter started, and a few minutes into it, we noticed another commotion. Looking up, we saw something going on in the same area. Apparently, the ‘Event Staff’ were not happy with him throwing things inside the stadium and were asking him to leave.

Within seconds, a chant broke out in the student section.

“Let him stay! Let him stay! Let him stay!”

They didn’t. So as he was escorted out, another chant broke out, this time directly at the Event Staff.

Aaaaaaasss-hooole! Aaaaaaasss-hooole! Aaaaaaasss-hooole!

Eventually that subsided. But a few seconds later, the students decided they missed their friend, the Hot Dog Man. Another chant broke out.

Hot. Dog. Man…..Hot. Dog. Man…..Hot. Dog. Man…..

I’ve never seen the student section get so unified behind something unrelated to the game. It was amazing. Even The Michigan Daily printed an article about it, calling him a “hero of the students”: Hot dog man, please step forward.

Standard football stuff: Yes Michigan won, yes we’re 8-0 now, yes that means our season is going to come down to one game, The Game. Gameday already started a countdown to it, and yesterday pictures and articles on Michigan were splattered all over ESPN.com’s college football homepage. Yes, we’re #2 in the BCS this week, and Ohio State is #1. Yes my head is about to explode. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a student in Ann Arbor right now, to experience that much excitement first hand on a daily basis.

Anyway, back to the weekend.

After the game, our group seperated. Turner went to dinner with his dad and relatives. Briggs went to a buddy’s place to watch the Tigers game. Gerard and I contemplated our food options, but eventually headed back to Panchero’s for some more burritos for dinner.

We found ourselves in somewhat of a bind. It was still a little early for the bars, but too late for us to try to get back to the hotel and back to campus in time to beat the lines. We killed some time by going to the UGLi to use the bathroom.

Of course, we sent Turner some text messages. “Taking a dump in the UGLi. Where are you?”

We met up with Alexis, another friend in town, and went to Scorekeepers, since we knew that even though it was early, it would have a good sized crowd for the Tigers game. By the time 10pm hit, we were bored with that bar, so we decided to go ahead and get to Rick’s. A bunch of other friends were meeting up there that night, so we knew it would be a good time.

My friend was bartending again. In the next four hours, we ordered round after round of shots beers, sharkbowls, more shots, and so on. It was too hard to count how many people were in our group, so drinks were ordered in bulk (”Gimme 15 SoCos, no, make it 20″). There were always extras, and I found myself doubling up on more than one occasion.

My friend Bier gave me shit for never mentioning him in the blog, so I will point out that this was one of the funnest nights I’ve had drinking with that guy. Credits also go to everyone else who was there that night (too many to name, you know who you are).

I don’t have many distinct memories from the bar, aside from the drinking, except for one. At one point, a girl walked past Gerard, and he propositioned her, dead serious, with “Come on ride that train, and ride it.”

We closed out the bar (they didn’t play “I love this bar” which pissed me off), and then my memory is hazy after that. I do remember walking around campus, eventually heading back to the SigEp house to find a party that had already ended. Pictures tell me that piggy back rides were involved. I don’t know.

Around 4am we got in a cab and headed back to the hotel. I remember nothing from the ride, aside from getting out at the BP station in front of our hotel. Where I exploded all over the pavement. Violently. And then passed out shortly after.

Sunday was a long and difficult drive back. After two straight weekends of intense Michigan football partying (and three for the season), my body is ready to shut down. I am done for this season. Until the Title Game, of course.