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
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