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.
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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment