Call it what you will.
One week ago I crowded into Crisler Arena to watch where I would spend my next weekend. If the Michigan Basketball team was going to the NCAA tournament I was going to follow them. After 11 years without a bid, I was prepared to make the trip. With the fifth to last announced selection Michigan was placed in the Kansas City for the first two rounds.
I spent most of Monday getting work done for St. Patty's Day and this trip. I had to get out of work, reschedule some group meetings and get all of my homework done for the next 4 days.
Tuesday I got up, did Irish Car Bombs, snuck into Charlies, ate at Dominic's, turned in homework, chugged a forty, watched Beauty and the Beast and put a couch on my roof.
Wednesday we left for KC. The 7 of us that went split up into two cars. The car I was in drove out to Iowa City and went out for a night in the IC, the girls we stayed with had gone on our cruise during our spring break so it was only fair that we visited them during their spring break. There weren't too many people in town because it was their spring break but we still had a good time.
Thursday we got up early and drove to Kansas City. We stopped at the hotel and went down to the arena to tailgate for a few hours before the game. We got a spot that was about 100 meters from the Sprint Center where the games are and broke into a case of beer. We met up with our other friends and went down to see the Marching Band in a sort of pep rally. Right next to the Sprint Center in KC is the Power and Light district, which is basically an outdoor plaza that is surrounded by bars and restaurants and takes up a city block. Given that Missouri has some of the most lax alcohol laws in the nation, you can walk around inside with booze. It was a pretty cool place. I took/found some pictures.
I went to 10 basketball games this year. I paid to get into Duke, Illinois and Ohio State. I didn't buy season tickets because I knew they would make most of the games free. My 4 years of fandom was rewarded from the Athletic Department by refusing to sell me a ticket to the opening round game of the NCAA tournament because I didn't buy season tickets. I understand giving those who bought season tickets first dibs on tourney tickets, but then there should at least be a lottery among the student body for the remaining tickets. They didn't sell all of the tickets they received. Also, I love how the Athletic Department punishes the fans - who are willing to make the trip and follow their team - by charging a $10 surcharge on the ticket, and automatically making you purchase a second round ticket if they win. I guess Bill Martin has to make his cut. Enough ranting.
So we got good seats off of the internets and went berserk as Michigan won it's opening round game. The Sprint Center is a really nice place to watch a game and is 1,234 times better than Crisler Arena.
Since Michigan's second game wasn't until Saturday we had all day Friday off. We decided to grab some Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet and then go to a movie. The movie theater was in a Casino so after laughing our asses off to I Love you Man we went a gambled for a bit. Saturday night for dinner we went to Arthur Bryant's barbecue. It was in the ghetto, but it was delicious. We then went down to a country bar in the Power and Light District. They had a mechanical bull and was billed as "cowboy cool meets urban chic". Some drunk dude started talking shit about Michigan, and I was about ready to fight him when his sister (who I found out later had a 11 year old son) came over to calm him down. He apologized and bought me a shot of Patron, and then the sister decided to take my bottle of Miller Light and deepthroat it. I'm still not quite sure what to make of that series of events. We got conned into meeting ugly girls, saw a drunk girl lift her shirt up for a bead necklace, watched a dude get the shit kicked out of him by a guy twice his size and made friends with a bachelorette party. It was a pretty awesome night.
Saturday we woke up at 8:30 AM for a game that tipped off at 4:50 PM. The day before the 7 of us had bought 3 cases of beer for pre-gaming the bars and the tailgate on Saturday. We had put it in the tub in the hotel.
When debating our beer purchase the 30 pack of 'Stones and rack of Silver Bullet was pretty default, but we weren't sure what to get for the last case. Then we saw some packaging for a case of Bud Dry. None of us had ever heard of it, so we invested in a case of it. I though it was pretty good, tasted like a good mix between Bud Diesel (Bud Ice to you) and Bud Light.We got downtown around 10am and started the tailgate on the roof of the parking structure across from the sprint center. We were just about to drop a bouncy ball off the side of the structure when a lady on a Segway told us we couldn't tailgate there, and that we need to find a new place to "squat". We would get kicked out of 2 more places before settling on the same parking lot we had tailgated in for the first game. We met up with some other Michigan fans that we knew were in Kansas city.
We made friends with the parking attendants and eventually our rowdyness lead to the cops showing up.We drank well into the afternoon when we left our spot to go watch another pep rally of sorts. Three of us without tickets had planned on scalping tickets but had a hard time finding tickets at a reasonable price so instead we watched the game in the Power and Light District with about 400 Oklahoma fans and maybe 3 other Michigan fans. We spent the money we saved by not getting tickets on beer, and snuck in some pints of Vodka. About halfway through the second half one of our brethren who had gotten kicked out of the game for his inebriation stumbled across the street to our location. He looked like he was in bad shape, and the thousand or so people watching the game there all seemed to think that because I was also a Michigan fan that I would take care of him. I have known him since freshmen year, so I got him a water and a complementary towel. As everyone around him moved to a safe distance he got up, walked under the screen towards one of the exits and vommed all over without breaking stride. He then kept walking into the sunset. There was a collective groan from about 700 people. Then two other Michigan fans got removed by security for their own drunkenness. While I was pretty plastered, I wasn't exactly too proud at this point. I managed to keep my composure as we bogusly fouled the game away.
After the game, we got in our cars, didn't pay for parking and drove off to Iowa City for the night. We got into IC kinda late, but still went out and had a decent time. Then this morning we got up and drove back to Ann Arbor.
After eating trash meals, drinking large quantities of beer, and consuming lots of fast food and Red Bull I spent most of today feeling like the inside of a garbage truck. I want to eat nothing but vegetables for a week. But I'll probably end up grabbing a CIAYCELB (figure it out) tomorrow.
With this trip I have road tripped over 8,000 miles in the last 6 months (according to The Google). That is roughly the same distance as the diameter of the Earth. I've traveled by car a distance that is equal to the distance from New York to Hong Kong or about 1/30 of the distance to the moon. Also according to The Google, I've spent about 124 hours in a car just on road trips. Which is over five full days, or 15.5 working days. But the things I've seen and done have made it all worth it.
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