The Tailgate Plan to Win: The "What the heck just happened?" and "Jacob, more Skittles!" Edition

I was called a wimp Saturday morning. Pretty early on, also, I might add.

We had a small gathering at the camper this past weekend, mainly due to Auburn's opponent (Kentucky) and mostly due to the weather outside (frightfully chilly for Oct. 17, if you ask me). Robert Boully texted me pretty early on in the day and asked how the tailgate was going. I said we were all inside, to which he responded: "Wimps."

Little did I know that Auburn's football team would also play like wimps Saturday night. I'm beginning to think that there may be some correlations in our tailgates (there wasn't one in Arkansas, the team didn't show up for the longest time; there was a crazy, sloppy one for Ball State, the team played crazy, sloppy; the tailgate for MSU was unbelievable, the Tigers played pretty unbelievable for a Southeastern Conference opener with a new staff). Then again, we didn't have one at Tennessee and had probably our best game overall thus far.

I'm not going to go much into the loss to Kentucky. There's really not much to say and even less positive to draw from it. Neiko Thorpe's return on the blocked field goal in the first quarter was impressive, and Ben Tate is a manchild. That's about it (unfortunately). I called the loss back in the summer, and folks looked at me like I was crazy. The way that the two teams came out of the gates, I even doubted myself. Paul Crane called me out on it, and he was right - we really COULD lose to Kentucky.

But all that is in the past, because now, we have LSU and a trip to Baton Rouge. I love going there. I know that sounds crazy for any opposing fan, but Tiger Stadium (especially at night) is one of the nation's best atmospheres - especially as a visitor. Dad will be making his maiden voyage to the Louisiana capital, and we're going to be on the front row staring right down the hash marks on AU's sidelines. The Golden Band from Tiger Land and the Golden Girls; Mike the Tiger circling the stadium before stopping right outside the opposing team's entrance; the playing of "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks - I enjoy every minute of it.

For this trip, I did a little digging in my personal archives for research due to the fact that three years have passed since my last journey into Cajun Country. I re-read our old post from the tourdesec.livejournal.com blog Andrew and I kept for the duration of the 2006 Tour de SEC. I've decided to repost this to add some humor and some perspective on just what dad and I are getting ourselves into. I won't do this very often, so enjoy.

http://tourdesec.livejournal.com/3208.html

Saturday, October 14, 2006

LSU 49, Kentucky 0
Tiger Stadium – Baton Rouge, La.
TV: None – Attendance: 92,148 (announced)

Official Trip Song: "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts

BATON ROUGE, La. – It was just like old times this weekend as we made our way to Baton Rouge for the LSU-Kentucky game, a 49-0 shellacking by the Bayou Bengals in Death Valley. We were accompanied by our third roommate from Auburn Robert Boully and his wife Jennifer. The four of us met up in Brandon, Miss., Friday night and began our journey to LSU. However, first on the agenda was a stop at Lil Dooey’s in Starkville to take care of unfinished business.



Kyle Lewis, one of my best friends, was in Starkville for the first-ever Kyle Lewis Bowl, pitting the Bulldogs against Jacksonville State where he interned for a little over 1 1/2 years. We had talked during the week about getting to hang out for the first time since the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta back in December, and we thought Lil Dooey’s would be the perfect location for this.

Andrew met up with my family in Macon and rode up to Starkville with them so that he could leave his car at my parents’ house for the weekend. Meanwhile, I arrived in Starkville around 5:15 p.m. and went straight to the Bryan Building to catch up with Kyle and Tony Schmidt, another good friend of mine from Miss.
State. The three of us goofed off for a few minutes and went to the new bookstore across the street from the stadium while waiting on my family to make it to Starkville. After the bookstore, which features the only escalator in northeast Mississippi, we walked around the Junction where the dance team and cheerleaders were practicing for their Saturday halftime performance.

Kyle was in need of a restroom, so to his luck, we found the Junction Johnny and Junction Janie port-a-potties so that he could take care of things. Kyle was reluctant to enter through the car wash-like curtain because of other people possibly being in there, but we assured him that an old man had just left the building. Not three seconds after Kyle went in, another guy stumbled up the steps and followed suit. Kyle exited a couple of minutes later with a perplexed look on his face. I’m still not sure what the look was exactly for, but he did enlighten us that the potties inside were maroon and white. This is a fitting
touch, if you ask me.

We picked up mini footballs and shakers before heading over to Lil Dooey’s to meet my family and Andrew. Unfortunately, my mom, sister and her boyfriend Jaren were scared by the line inside and decided not to eat dinner with us, so we said our short hello and goodbye before we made our way inside. After placing our order and finding a table large enough for our group, I bought Kyle a shot of Crown & Coke for his birthday and the fun began.

I had the famous BBQ for the first time there, while Andrew enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich. I really don’t think you can get a bad meal here, so everything on the menu is recommended. It is truly a SEC traditional restaurant, even receiving the top Herbie Award on ESPN.com for the nation’s Best Gameday Meal.

We were joined over the course of the evening by Cassie Chance, her boyfriend Will, Amy Robertson, Susan Hughes and Jay Middleton. Our waitress was a lot of fun and had several hilarious comments such as “The Original Tony,” and randomly pointing out that she recognized Kyle by pictures scattered through his younger sister’s apartment. The best moment of the night, however, came when she alerted our group to a young man in a blue shirt named Ben stalking her throughout the restaurant. So, in her honor (and much to her displeasure, I might add), we began our own search for this Ben character. Alas, we were unsuccessful in our mission.



Just before we left, Kyle and I had to take care of a tradition we set a couple of years back at Lil Dooey’s by writing a certain message on the wall with a Sharpie. Andrew and I also signed the wall signifying that the Tour de SEC had made its stop at the Starkville landmark. After our goodbyes, it was time to get on the road.

Now, Andrew had a rough week and seemed a little somber at times, but when Robert and Jennifer joined us, he found his youthful spirit again. During the drive, I was constantly being showered with wet willies and objects sneaking through the crack between my backrest and seat in the truck. Robert even got me with an enormous ice cube down the back of my shirt, which didn't melt for like three hours. A new rule is to be formed from these shenanigans: No more riding in the backseat together for Andrew and Robert.

We arrived at our Red Roof Inn around 1 a.m. and checked into our rooms, nos. 204 and 208. The next morning, we woke up just in time for GameDay, being broadcast from Auburn, and got ready to go onto campus. After GameDay, we ate at TJ Ribs which was excellent. The atmosphere was great with Billy Cannon’s Heisman trophy as well as a replica of the 2003 National Championship
trophy on a spinning display in the center of the building with numerous LSU memorabilia on the walls. We split two slabs of ribs amongst the four of us and ordered several sides including red beans and rice, fries and a sweet potato.

After TJ Ribs, we parked for free on Lakeshore/Stadium Drive just shy of Highland St. Our first stop was the university bookstore where we made our ritual trip purchases and a little bit of walking around and exploring followed. We picked up schedule posters in the athletic administration building and made our way over to Alex Box Stadium where a baseball scrimmage was about to take place.

After watching a couple of innings, I got a phone call from Dennis Hodges, a good friend of mine who shoots athletic events for LSU, letting us know that he wanted to get us on a tour of the locker room and Bill Lawton Room – home to all of LSU’s trophies and awards collected over the span of their football history. We met up with Dennis and traded our upper deck tickets for a pair of lower level tickets with a scalper before waiting on the tour to start. One of Dennis’ good friends works in Event Management for LSU, and he was waiting on a family from Shreveport to show up before starting the tour. We waited for about 30 minutes before giving up and heading to one of our tailgate invitations.

Tim Parrott invited our group via e-mail earlier in the week after catching our post on tigerdroppings.com’s OT message board. After missing his set-up in our search, he sat us down and immediately fed us gumbo and smoked sausage. We stayed here for about an hour and had a great time. Tim, Pierre, Gary and the rest of the gang there really know how to throw a pre-game party. To top it off, they’re great people (and the food was excellent also).



We were trying to make it to a second tailgate with other members from tigerdroppings.com where they had a couple of TVs set up so that Robert and Jennifer would have somewhere to watch the Auburn-Florida game while we were inside the stadium. We couldn’t get up with Mike on the phone, and none of the
tailgates in the area where Tim directed us knew a Mike, so we gave up. We walked back to the truck to drop off our posters and bookstore purchases before parting ways with Robert and Jennifer as they headed to Walk-Ons to watch AU-UF.

We bought programs shortly after, and I returned to the truck to drop those off. On my way back to the program stand where Andrew was patiently waiting, I witnessed an arrest for “evading police” since a guy kept driving through a police barricade on Highland St. The female officer began yelling at him as he kept driving and finally grabbed ahold of his rearview mirror, pulling it off its hinge before pulling the driver out of the truck. After he parked his truck in the lot next to where he was stopped, he was cuffed and placed in the back of her partner’s squad car. To make matters even worse for him, he was given a citation and I’m pretty sure the truck was towed.

We entered the stadium and watched the closing moments of regulation and the overtime of the Alabama-Ole Miss game on the TVs located on the south endzone concourse. After buying our souvenir cup drinks, we located our seats behind the yellow S in the purple LSU end zone. We watched the game through the split of the uprights.

LSU’s pre-game march by the GOLDEN BAND FROM TIGERLAND is one of my favorite pre-game traditions in the SEC. When you hear the crowd erupt following the first four notes of “Tiger Rag,” it’s a thing of beauty. (Unless you’re my old co-worker and friend Rich Varner, who made a joke asking “You wanna know how to get 90,000 Cajuns to go nuts simultaneously? Play those four notes.”) Soon afterwards, the team ran out of the tunnel and kickoff was upon us.



The game was pretty boring, I’m not going to lie. There’s not much to report in a 49-0 blowout. LSU looked like they should have, and Kentucky followed suit when thinking about the competition they faced. The only negative on the night for LSU seemed to be that the defensive line had a hard time wrapping up on UK’s elusive quarterback Andre Woodson. I was impressed by his ability to turn what should have been a huge sack by Tyson Jackson, Glenn Dorsey and Co. into a 5- or 6-yard gain.



The halftime show was a tribute to New Orleans as the band rehearsed their halftime show for the Saints-Colts game the next day in the Superdome. In the second half, we saw our first action of Matt Flynn and Ryan Perilloux – LSU’s quarterbacks in waiting. Both of those guys are studs, but the offense did not flow as well with either behind center as when JaMarcus Russell was calling the signals.

A couple of more observations about LSU: Where is Alley Broussard? I know he had catastrophic knee surgery last season, but all I heard about him through fall camp was that he had regained his step and was back to bruising the LSU defense. On the same note, what happened to Justin Vincent? I’m shocked by
the fall-out these two have suffered since their phenomenal freshman seasons. When your leading running back is Jacob Hester, something is not fully clicking on your offense – especially with the recruiting Nick Saban and Les Miles have
done at that position.

Kentucky only had two good drives the entire game, but LSU’s swarming defense forced mistakes on both inside the redzone to preserve the shutout. It’s hard to believe that this team can go from beating someone 49-0, 45-3, 45-3, 42-17 and 41-7 to losing 23-10 and 7-3 against real defenses. They remind me a lot of Auburn from 2003. This does not bode well as Auburn’s hopes for a rematch with Florida in Atlanta somewhat rest on the shoulders of LSU’s ability to beat Arkansas in Little Rock.

With about 10 minutes left in the slow-moving game, we received word from Robert and Jennifer that Auburn had won 27-17 against Florida, and my celebration angered a few remaining LSU fans sitting around me. After I explained what we were doing with this trip, though, they understood completely and laughed about some of the stories from previous weeks. Once the final buzzer sounded, we trekked back to the truck where Robert and Jennifer
were waiting for us.

We walked down Highland St. to The Chimes restaurant for a post-game meal and waited out the seating delay by catching highlights of Auburn-Florida from Robert and Jennifer. Jennifer made a proclamation that she felt the two of them had watched different games, which I later agreed with after watching the replay on ESPN back at the hotel. After about 45 minutes, we were seated and ordered the Louisiana alligator appetizer.



I had a shrimp Po’boy while Andrew enjoyed the down home burger. Robert and Jennifer had eaten at Walk-Ons during the game, so they just enjoyed the appetizer and desert. We stayed around at Chimes for awhile, and I walked back to the truck so that not all of us would have to make the hike during the night. Once we loaded up outside the restaurant, we meandered back through campus to I-10 and returned to the hotel in the neighborhood of 2 a.m.

We were out of the Red Roof Inn at 11 a.m. and were in search of the Mall of Louisiana, which housed a Café Dumont to fix my craving for beignets. After not being able to find the exit, we retracted back to Perkins Road and tried to get a table at IHOP, but the line was way too long. By this time, food was a must and we finally found a McDonalds and hurriedly ate lunch before
getting back on the road to the Magnolia State.

The ride back was relatively uneventful as Andrew and Jennifer slept off headaches, leaving Robert and I to talk about the future of Auburn’s football program. I’m not sure when this happened, but Robert has suddenly gotten very interested in recruiting and can carry a pretty good conversation when talking
about some official and unofficial visitors, commitments, etc. We dropped the dynamic duo off at their house around 3 p.m. and hung out for about an hour before making our way to Macon.

During the drive, Robert alerted us to the first BCS standings released Sunday, and we discussed the possibilities for the rest of the trip. Andrew hung around for a couple of minutes before heading back to Birmingham. I had dinner with my family and watched football before leaving later that night to return to Tupelo.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “Yes! Fries at the bottom of the bag! Goldmine!” – Good ole Robert Boully. His love for food is surpassed only by his love of his wife Jennifer (we think). As an awkward moment came up during the ride to Baton Rouge on Friday night, Robert made this exclamation to break the ice a little bit (or he may have just been oblivious to everything).

Runner-up for favorite quote: “Oh no…” – Paul Crane, one of our Auburn buddies, said this to Andrew after he called and let him in on a little secret on Saturday night. We laughed the rest of the trip about this exchange.

I wanted the song of the trip to be “Calling Baton Rouge” by Garth Brooks. I mean, come on, who could argue with that selection? However, Andrew trumped this due to his disregard for all things Garth. I think he needs to get over whatever caused this because “Calling Baton Rouge,” like Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” is one of the classics.

Best Waiter/Waitress of the Tour de SEC Award: The unanimous selection for this award for the first half of the trip goes to Jacob, our waiter at Chimes following the game Saturday night. He rolled with the punches all night long and kept our drinks full despite the huge crowd. Well done, Jacob. Well done.

Best Louisiana Mullet Award: Hands down, this award goes to our buddy walking through the concourse during overtime of the Alabama-Ole Miss game before we made our way to our end zone seats. The guy was wearing a white wife-beater and had “the party in the back” all the way down to underneath his shoulder blades. We got a picture, but unfortunately, it came out blurry.

Mitch Sighting: Mitch sat in front of Andrew and me at the game on Saturday night. He and his buddy made colorful comments throughout the evening. However, nothing can top him calling for the post-pattern to one of LSU’s receivers (no one in particular) every snap of the ball. His buddy almost topped him when Matt Flynn entered the game midway through the third quarter when he proclaimed that all Flynn does is throw touchdown passes, which angered some of the LSU fans sitting in front of him. These guys were from Shreveport, and you would have thought that this would be something to be extremely proud of the way they talked about it. I now know of four Shreveport natives and nothing about them makes me ever want to spend an hour in that town.

Thanks to Paul, Robert, Jennifer, Andrew’s aunt and uncle as well as my dad for keeping us updated via text messaging on the Chris Rushing Bowl going on down on the Plains during the LSU-Kentucky game. Auburn is 2-0 when we were watching Kentucky play simultaneously with an important AU contest in 2006.

Rocky Top will always be home sweet home to me next weekend as we take in the Alabama-Tennessee Third Saturday in October grudge match.

More Trooper Pictures

I'll have the tailgate review in the next couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy a few more pictures of the lil' guy.

The Tailgate Plan to Win: The "Arkansas Review and Kentucky" Edition

Just a short disclaimer before getting too far into this thing: Elmer's BBQ in Tulsa gave me an idea for a tailgate food item later in the year. While it's too late for Arkansas, we'll definitely keep this in the arsenal for a later date. Thanks to Andy Staples (yes, that Andy Staples of SI.com), I now know the wonders of the Badwich. Google this thing, you won't be sorry.

That being said, it's time to get back to doing what we do: home tailgates. After a pair of road games (and trust me, we are extremely fortunate to come out of that stretch 5-1 and not 4-2), it will be nice to be back under the lights at Jordan-Hare. That being said, who would have thought that (should Ole Miss be a night game), five of seven home games would be night kicks? That's what you get with the new ESPN plan: Ball State, Louisiana Tech and Kentucky all playing after the sun sets.

Last weekend was an all-around good one, despite what happened on the turf at Razorback Stadium. Not to be a negative person or anything, but with a new staff, you have to be ready for a game like that to come at any time. Honestly, I'm just thankful that it a.) wasn't at home and b.) wasn't against two of our biggest home opponents this year. I don't think I have to go into detail as to which two teams I'm talking about here.

We left for Fayetteville around 8:30 a.m. and arrived in Little Rock for a very brief (i.e. time enough to take a couple of pictures) visit at the Monroe compound in Roland before returning to the road en route to the middle of nowhere. (I kid, Fayetteville actually has become one of my favorite road trips in the SEC. Just takes four days to get there.) With a quick meal at Burger King (which triggered bad feelings about AU's chances - it broke my string of philly cheesesteak Fridays), we followed Carl and Co. to John's apartment in Conway.

Most of the drive was uneventful as we attempted to dodge raindrops and thunderstorms throughout the Natural State. We stopped for a fill-up at Love's near the I-540 crossing, and the clientèle here was interesting to say the least. Nonetheless, it was an opportunity to catch up with John, Marisa and Kaitlin before separating vehicles for the remainder of the ride.

The drive on I-540 North is one of my top 10 favorites, as you pass alongside mountain towns and all the foliage across the forests littering the Ozark Mountains. It's truly a sight to behold, and only the desert from above 32,000 feet could top it as far as my travels in 2009.

We got to the outskirts of Fayetteville around 5:15 p.m., and Zack Higbee (who combined with his better half Jodi to be our hosts for the weekend) instructed us on where to exit and meet him to get to their house. So we pulled off and waited for the appearance of Zack and his gold Acura. A quick U-turn and some winding through a neighborhood and we were at the Higbee residence.

Dinner for Friday was some BBQ at Penguin Ed's. Those of you who have been following the blog efforts of your's truly dating back to the SEC road trip in 2006 know that Penguin Ed's was Andrew and my first restaurant. As always, we left full and satisfied with the food choice.

With the early 11 a.m. kickoff, there was little time to do any significant tailgating. We met up with the Monroes, Frank and Kathy Buttler at the on-campus RV parking center where that group spent Friday night. Frank was getting irritated by the "hospitality" shown by most of the Razorback community on the bus, and the frustrations heightened when there was a question as to the location of Tiger Walk for the second-straight weekend.

Things continued on a slow, downward spiral during the pregame festivities when Kaitlin wasn't allowed to take in her camera due to its telephoto lens. This led to a long walk to/from the RV for Kaitlin and Carl despite efforts to get the camera through security checkpoints. Then, the game started.

Now, one of my least favorite fanbases in the world is an Auburn one made up of frustrated bandwagon patrons. Seriously, I'd almost prefer to spend an entire Iron Bowl surrounded by nothing but Bama fans and us getting whipped physically, mentally and emotionally than be around those guys (I said almost). Luckily for all of us, we were in the presence of several in our section, but one guy took the cake (I think he still is screaming "you cheating bast***s" in his sleep). Look, buddy, I wasn't a fan of all the penalties, either, but the zebras had nothing to do with the fact that we lost by 21 points.

I'd rather not go into too much more details about the goings on inside the stadium other than to repeat an old adage given by Chizik a few weeks ago: "Things are never as bad as they seem, nor are they as good as they seem either." The sky, most definitely, is not falling and there are brighter days ahead for the program (under the direction of Chizik? Jury is still out on that one.). There may be a couple more days like last Saturday, though, before we get back to thinking about championships on an annual basis.

After the game, we drudgingly walked back through the hordes of jubilant Hog fans to our vehicles. In my fourth game at Razorback Stadium, the Woo Pig Sooies finally got a win. (Then again, it just didn't seem the same without Brad, Andrew, Andy Shores, et all there either.) After saying our goodbyes, dad and I moved through traffic and got back to the Higbee house to watch football the remainder of the day.

We had the Ole Miss-Bama game on and caught up some more with Jodi while we waited for Zack to get back from work. While I hated that one of the victims of a day like that was Auburn, I do know that days like that make it a better workplace for my friend, and for that, it made things a little easier to cope. Then again, as I said above, I had a feeling that game was coming any week. Zack was definitely in a great mood when he got back from the office.

Jodi made us some nachos and buffalo chicken dip for dinner as we watched the snoozefest also known as LSU-Florida. It was the first Gator game I got to watch with Zack since my internship finished up, and the night was filled with our own commentary concerning Verne, Tracy, Gary and Steve Addazio (amongst others).

Sunday morning, after I finished posting for the day, I got a quick shower and we got on the road back. We stopped for lunch in Lonoke, Ark., at a Mexican restaurant. What we did not expect was an AUTHENTIC Mexican restaurant complete with a "grocery," Spanish road signs and no English spoken by anyone inside. The food was good, but I felt a little out of place as the only Caucasians in the joint until some of the after-church crowd walked in. You could tell they had been there before, though, since they brought an interpreter in tow.

All in all, the morale following my vacation this year was much, much higher than after the West Virginia trip last season when it became glaringly evident that Auburn was really, really awful. There's renewed spirits amongst our football team, and I've seen enough from this coaching staff to not fear a losing streak (14-0, 21-10 deficits and yet still winning by double-digits against West Virginia give me enough evidence on that).

Now, in comes the Kentucky Wildcats. My good friend Coach Hal warns us to watch out for cheap shots and late hits from Rich Brooks' squad. They are extremely wounded, coming to the Plains without their top quarterback, cornerbacks and most versatile offensive lineman. I look for Auburn to come out and play its most complete game of 2009. If not, well, the trip to Baton Rouge is going to prove to be even more difficult.

We'll have a small tailgate this weekend with burgers, bacon and Momma G nachos. Brad and Jarrod are coming down Friday night and will be staying the entire weekend in the camper. Besides the three of us, only Andrew Monroe has RSVP'd but Super Rita needs to scale back a little bit in order to finish strong down the November home stretch. We'll get started around 10-10:30 a.m. Saturday.

Do what we do. War Eagle. Have a great weekend if you are spending it elsewhere.

Chris

Day 2 Recap: Las Vegas

No running diary style this time. We'll leave that to the experts.

So, yesterday was a lot of fun. I didn't walk nearly as much (just went about halfway down the strip to Caesar's Palace and The Bellagio. The plan was to watch some baseball at the sports book at Caesar's, but the place was too full for me to get a good seat. Therefore, I wandered around a little on the floor to take in what I consider to be Vegas' most popular casino and headed back out on the strip.

I was able to catch the fountains again at the Bellagio, this time in daylight. For lunch, I stopped at a little restaurant inside the Bellagio and had a nice philly cheese with onion rings. The order of onion rings was the largest I've ever had. Think large order of fries at Five Guys (that one was for you, Frank)...only bigger. After eating, I went to the sports book there and watched the last four innings of the Phillies-Rockies game and the first couple of innings of the Yankees-Twins matchup.

While watching, I received betting tips from Snake the Mexican, who had $40K riding on the Yankees to win straight up. Don't feel too scared, the dude made $10,000 easy and had already gotten another $20,000 earlier in the day for the Phillies' triumph. I'm glad I didn't take his advice on the Cards-Dodgers contest, otherwise I would have been out my $20 and felt awful about it. Then again, I would have stood to win something like 35 cents so it wasn't worth the time/effort to gamble. Next time, maybe, when I have more money to wager.

I also walked through the MGM Grand yesterday and New York, New York casino. The MGM was where one of my co-workers stayed last summer during his week-long visit, and I can see why people would enjoy being there. The place is massive. Also, the lion observatory was really cool. New York, New York rivaled the Bellagio and the Luxor as my favorites here in Sin City. There is a lot to do in there, and it seems to be the most family-friendly of the resort hotels in the city.

I was really up in the air as to what show I wanted to take in on my last night in Vegas. Jersey Boys was one that I have been wanting to see, but I decided that I'll wait until I can see that one on Broadway. Same goes for the Lion King. Either would have been great, but I wanted something that was Vegas-specific, which I had thought to be comedy or magic. I have already seen Wayne Brady during my year at UF, and I am not that big of a fan of Howie Mandel. If Frank Calliendo's show had started this week instead of next, it would have been a no-brainer (I probably would have gone to his both nights).

While in line at the first Tix-4-Less stand, I was behind a family that was waiting to go see Criss Angel's Believe. I had asked about O - the Cirque du Soleil show playing at the Bellagio - and got intrigued when the family asked about Angel's show. When I learned that it was also Cirque du Soleil, the decision was made.

When I got back from the Bellagio, I checked on a couple of things here in the room and changed before heading next door to the Luxor (the pyramid). That place was awesome, and I won $11 on a penny slot to bring my gambling losses on the week to only $4. Sure, I'm a wimp but I didn't find a single $5 blackjack table at my casino or any of the floors that I stopped on with an open seat, and I'm just not brave enough to drop $25/hand.

The Criss Angel show was a lot of fun, and it was very entertaining. The people around me left skeptical, but I wasn't going in expecting to be wow'd, just entertained. To me, he accomplished that goal, and I feel like I took in one of the Strip's best magic shows. Goal met.

Now, I wasn't that hungry after the show last night, but with my travel schedule today screwing with me, I didn't know how much I'd get to eat, so I went ahead and sat down at the Camelot Steakhouse here at the Excalibur. The steak was pretty good, but it's not like the ones momma makes. Really, it was just about being able to not have to pay $3 per Mountain Dew more than anything else. I just paid the $3 once, haha.

Before coming back up here to the room, I played one more penny slot and won back another couple of dollars, bringing my total losses to a measly $3. Not bad, not bad. Can I make it up next visit? I guess time will have to tell.

I have an 11:40 a.m. flight out of Vegas and the shuttle is coming by at 8:50 a.m. to pick me up. I've already gotten up to post articles on CollegeSportsMatchups, so there's no use in going back to bed for a couple of hours. This has been a lot of fun, and I'll catch ya on the flipside. During the flight, I plan to write the Tailgate Plan to Win: Arkansas Edition, but I can't make any promises at this time. I've done a whole lot of writing this week already.

Watch for texts and tweets with anything unusual or exciting from the last couple of hours out here in the desert.

Running Diary (C) Bill Simmons: My flight to Las Vegas

The following text messages were sent yesterday a.m.:

4:41 a.m.: On my way to Memphis and the airport.

6:57 a.m.: I will get going (posting for the website) when I get through security.

8:16 a.m.: About to board.

10:45 a.m. (PST): We just landed safe and sound.

So what happened in between? Funny you should ask. Here are my notes from the flight.

8:27 a.m.: I am in the geriatric section of the plane. Awesome.

(my Twitter activity around this same timestamp): VEGAS observation No. 1: Old people flock there. I am on the biggest plane I have ever ridden and in the retirement community.

8:25 a.m.: King of the Retirement Community: wearing a pink suit, white velcro strap tennis shoes, sunglasses and his Las Vegas hat. He was approaching 90 if I had to guess.

8:30 a.m.: All the shawls just came out when they announced the temperature in Vegas. A balmy 51.

(Note: From here, the timezones got all screwy so the actual time of the notes may be a bit off.)

8:31 a.m.: Is there anything more awkward on an airplane than getting stuck behind the drink cart when you need to use the facilities? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

9:24 a.m.: Had a State fan tell me War Eagle. Bammer on board who thinks the bear is still UA's coach was disgusted.

9:45 a.m.: Yep, there is something more awkward than waiting on the beverage cart to move forward. Using the facilities at 32,000 feet is darn near impossible. How a "Mile High Club" exists, I don't know. The stewardesses watch those doors like a hawk.

9:47 a.m.: How do you tell an old broad that she can't lean her seat back since it is complicating my use of my seatback tray while it is not in a locked upright position? Any ideas?

9:49 a.m.: Looking out over the desert. I could definitely live here in the land of cacti.

10:17 a.m.: If the Grand Canyon is cooler than this view, I can't imagine what it's like. We have made our descent into the Las Vegas area.

10:25 a.m.: The view? Desert, desert, desert, VEGAS.

I had a great first day, but I spent a lot of it walking. My feet are still killing me, but it's something I'm going to have to live with. After spending that much time on an airplane, I'll be able to rest them up for Arkansas.

- Went to eat lunch at Margaritaville near the Flamingo.

- Watched the Twins-Tigers game in the sports book at the Stratosphere. Real interesting experience, and I plan to catch most of today's baseball action at the top sports book in Vegas: Caesar's Palace.

- Saw the American Superstars show last night at the Stratosphere. It featured a mini concert from Elvis, Britney Spears, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood and Michael Jackson impersonators. I went for the Michael Jackson portion of the show, but all of the impersonators were dead on. Great way to spend $25 and 90 minutes of your Vegas experience.

- Walked the entire strip up and down yesterday, hence the feet killing me. It's about a 3-hour hike to/from Stratosphere and Excalibur.

- I stopped to watch the fountains at the Bellagio on my way back. That was worth this entire trip.

- The strip at night is also one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The lights and the weather make for a great stroll, even if your dogs are barking.

- My hotel room is straight out of the 70s. I think that's why its $92 for the entire trip, but it has served its purpose well.

- I had six alarms set for 4 a.m. PST to post this morning. I got done with my posting for CollegeSportsMatchups.com a short while ago and will now get back to sleep. Who goes to sleep at 10 p.m. during their Vegas vacation? This guy.

- I'll try to blog more tomorrow morning about today's goings on. Early favorites for my time: baseball at Caesar's Palace sports book, Vegas double-decker bus tour and Jersey Boys at the Pelazzo, although I'm thinking about catching a comedy show instead.

Tailgate Review - The "TJ is Tennesseean for c***head" Edition

From the Exaclibur's 18th floor in Tower 1, I bring you: The Tennessee recap.

Knoxville Thoughts:

- Left Brad and Ambers ~11 a.m. CT. Stopped just inside the Georgia state line to get gasoline. Spent some time visiting with Alex Dudchock, who was taking his son to Knoxville on a recruiting trip. His son is one of the top tight end prospects in the country from Oak Mountain High School.

- Kept in constant contact with Paul Crane, who was keeping us up to speed on parking availability near him. Paul earns tailgater of the week for his efforts (even though there was no formal tailgate).

- Amber further climbed All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk's ladder of favorite people for successfully navigating us to the Steak N Shake in Chattanooga. (It didn't pull up on the GPS.)

- Parked just below the church, but it is good enough knowing that their youth group got the money for the parking

- Knoxville is easily one of my top three favorite places in the SEC. It is a crying shame we have to wait five years in between trips there.

- The church folks were very helpful. They pointed out a nice shortcut to us to knock down walking time to the stadium to a mere eight minutes. Now, it was a treacherous shortcut, but a shortcut nonetheless.

- Saw Hillary Nowland in the parking lot when I was walking with Paul to get his sweatshirt. She is one of the nicest people I worked with at media relations. I am glad she is still around in the athletic department.

- Tiger Walk deserves it's own blog. Wow. I'd say there were between 5-6,000 people easy, and it was very loud still with an hour to go prior to the team arriving.

- TJ, the overzealous security guard, is a jerkface. He also deserves a blog to himself, but I will refrain.

- Whoever on the Bunker said that they don't know how to tailgate in Knoxville is full of it. I saw two of the coolest things: a checkerboard cornhole set and the ultimate tailgate trailer. It had a flatscreen, surround sound AND a beer tap mounted to the window flap.

- When you are looking for will call, people to trust are the folks in the green UT shirts. They were all great. Do not trust TJ's fellow security guards.

- Saw Frank and Kathy outside their gate following Tiger Walk. Got fired up with them for a minute before heading to our gate and our seats.

- The improvements made since I was last there in 2006 have really enhanced Neyland Stadium. The concourses are all spacious and the brick facade surrounding the playing field and sidelines is excellent.

- Our seats were almost directly behind where Andrew and I sat in 2004. Lots of good memories.

- Haber, who gave us the tickets, showed up about five minutes before kickoff. He left at halftime.

- There was a 9-year-old kid sitting next to me. It was his first UT game in person. He was a great kid, and his parents thanked us for being gracious winners.

- I promised him that he would see the Vols win a whole lot more than they lose in his lifetime. He got excited whn I told him I used to work in the athletic department and I got to watch games from the sidelines.

- The folks around us were great. However, Mr. War Chicken behind me got more annoying as the night went on. He was also more inebriated as ye night went on. Go figure.

- The University of Tennessee should change it's name to The University of Eric Berry and Lane Kiffin. They are in EVERY in-stadium ad, including a disturbing rap video aptly entitled "Eric Berry."

- I never felt like we would lose the game, and we played our most complete game of the year. Chris Todd has been unbelievable this year. If Franklin had gone about the QB competiton the same way as Gus...wait, never mind. Gus for Heisman.

- The Pride of the Southland Band playing War Eagle during pregame was a very nice touch. All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk still clamors for Auburn to pipe in the band throughout the stadium so all of us can hear them. Neyland just enhanced his desire.

- Following the game, we met back up with Brad and Amber then began the journey back to the Sequioya. We took the less treacherous route.

- For having so many people in town, traffic flowed pretty well all the way out the interstate.

- We stopped at Shoney's for their breakfast buffet after 75 split from 40.

- We got back to Brad and Amber's around 3 a.m.

(Note: this blog was written aboard the friendly skies of Delta's non-stop flight from Memphis to LAS VEGAS via iPhone. I apologize for any typos I may miss.)

Do What We Do. War Eagle. See you in Arkansas.

Chris

Tailgate Plan to Win: The "Brad's not stopping at any more redlights" Edition

With the impending trip to Knoxville, I think back to the greatest road trip of all time. Now, one must understand that throughout our college careers, my group of friends and I went to see Auburn play football in places such as Starkville, Oxford, Tuscaloosa, Orlando, Fayetteville, Baton Rouge, Athens and Nashville. From 2002-2004, there were only a pair of games that at least one of us didn't attend (at Southern Cal and at Georgia Tech). However, none of these (no matter how fun they were individually) could hold a candle to the Auburn-Tennessee game that special season.

It was a first for many of us: first GameDay experience, first time to see Brad's bare feet, first Super Target experience...However, there was so much more, such as:

- Mark's clutch decision to make the trip with us. After Mark's first road trip to Mississippi State a couple of weeks earlier, we were able to convince him to go to Knoxville. Mark's one of the best (and most quiet) people I know. His presence was essential to our group's fun and excitement levels.

- All five of us in my truck, in unison, performing the "Walk Like an Egyptian" dance moves during the song's playing on Sirius. Yep, we are that good.

- Six of us staying in a Days Inn hotel room off I-40 on Luvell Road. It has since changed to an American Inn, but we'll never recognize the difference in chains. That place was special.

- Following dinner on Friday night at the Bar and Brewery downtown, splitting up for two reasons: 1.) to stalk the campus for a prime parking spot for Saturday morning and 2.) to get the food for our tailgate the next day.

- Meeting back up at the hotel to find Brad wearing the receipt from Kroger. I do not have this picture on this laptop, but it remains one of my favorites from the 04 season.

- Robert sleeping with Mark; Paul on the floor between the beds; Brad and I in the other bed. Where was Andrew?

- Andrew sleeping in front of the door to make sure that hotel management did not kick us out of said hotel room for having six adults despite only putting one adult on the reservation.

- Saturday morning, Brad, Paul and I made the short trek to Super Target to get a couple of additional tailgate items and some chairs. Brad and Paul broke out the big bucks and bought Eddie Bauer footrest chairs. They were the envy of the rest of our group.

- With raindrops falling lightly, we were trying to figure out how to get all six of us onto campus without taking more than one vehicle. Paul insisted on riding in the bed of my truck. Andrew refused to allow this to happen. What ensued was a battle of positions in the front seat between Mark and Paul that is still legendary amongst our circle of friends to-date.

- After parking, we walked a little around campus in search of the campus bookstore and GameDay. We made a brief appearance at GameDay (the show was in full-swing when we got there), and we kept searching for the store. Upon entering the store, we were harassed by an elderly couple. The old lady then preceded to tell us that she was confused with all the orange but could tell the difference since our orange was "more faded." Colors are hard in East Tennessee.

- This was our first true tailgating experience. Andrew and I used research from our trip to Baton Rouge in 2003 to figure out some essentials. We had a small TV and converter box running off my truck's battery. This required multiple key cranks, but it made it worth it to watch LSU-Georgia, Arkansas-Florida and keeping Paul from being able to watch Notre Dame-Purdue.

- Because of the aforementioned rain, we sometimes had a tarp covering the TV.

- Did I mention that the Friday night receipt from Kroger was enormous?

- It seemed like things were going too good. Great tailgate, great parking spot at the United Methodist Church...No way we'd win the game. Brad had different thoughts. His pregame prediction? 56-3.

- We were spread out throughout the Auburn lower bowl section. Paul was over by the band with Mark a few rows ahead of him. Robert and Brad sat down to our left, while Andrew and I were directly behind the UT entrance from their locker room.

- It must be said that this night was the same night that I developed my man crush on Trooper Taylor.

- The game...well, I won't give a game story here. Let's just say Brad's prediction was looking rather good at halftime (31-3 Tigers). Kirk Herbstreit bowing to our fans still resonates in my mind when thinking back to this great night and great trip.

- I'd be depriving you faithful pair of readers if I didn't let you in on the 14-year-old Tennessee slutwhores (sorry, it's what we called them) that were well on their way to growing into the half bear/other half cat women their mothers wished for their future. They pranced in front of the Auburn section all night. They were also one of the first topics of conversation when all six of us came back together to sing the alma mater following the victory.

- Traffic awaited us after the game, but the Tennessee fans were much quieter than they had been on the way into the stadium. To avoid traffic, Brad and I made an ill-advised decision to take back roads back to the hotel out on Luvell Road. A 15-mile trip turned into an hour and a half long journey through scary parts of East Tennessee. On a bright note, we did get to see Carl Stewart's hometown.

- During the lost portion of the evening, more position battles in the front seat between Paul and Mark added hilarity to our ride.

- At some point during the trip back home, with Brad driving, the idea of stopping at red lights went out the window. It's also been rumored that the truck's speedometer exceeded 100 mph. These rumors will not be confirmed at this time.

- I find it funny that, despite the blatant disregard for the law that night, Brad is now a police chief.

We will return to Knoxville and Neyland Stadium five years almost to the day for another battle with the Volunteers. Much has changed for both programs since that early October night in 2004. While it would be great to have all six of us go back together, it's not going to be that way. I am, though, looking very much forward to the weekend with a new group.

Those that I know making the trip this year are Paul, Brad, Amber, All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk, Frank Buttler and his wife Kathy, as well as Andy Shores. While I promise the memories won't be the same, I just hope for a similar result on the field.

I hope this brings back some great memories for everyone that was with me that weekend. I can honestly say it was one of the best of my 27 years.

Do What We Do. War Eagle.

Chris