Took
a look down a westbound road, right away I made my choice. Headed out to my big
two-wheeler, I was tired of my own voice. Took a bead on the northern plains,
and just rolled that power on.
-
Bob Seger
It’s hard to believe that this is only the
end of the first week of our trip. It seems much longer than that, in a good
way. We’ve seen so much and covered so many miles. The trip has been awesome so
far, and is only going to get better over the next three weeks.
Black Friday is like Boxing Day in
Australia – it’s the day when every man and his dog ventures to the shops to
spend big. They call it Black Friday because shops tend to get back into the
black as a result of the business they do today. I saw a humour picture on the
internet this morning that said: Because, only in America, people trample
others for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already
have!
I’ve seen Chicago downtown on Black Friday
once before, three years ago, and I’m not at all disappointed that we didn’t
head down there today. Instead, whilst Jamie, Lauryn and Debbie did their
shopping thing, we slept in late – I wasn’t up until after 10am – after a big
day of eating and drinking on Thanksgiving and went down to Buffalo Wild Wings
to watch football, eat wings, drink beer and hang out with some of the cool
Americans we’ve met on previous trips. Again, it’s humbling that when we come
back into town, even on a holiday weekend, so many people want to move their
schedules about to fit in a few hours to hang with us.
Aside from being a big shopping day, Black
Friday is crazy with football. This is Rivalry Weekend in college ball, and
between today and tomorrow a bunch of big rivalries, some between in-state
schools (Washington vs. Washington State, Ole Miss vs. Mississippi for example)
will play for trophies and bragging rights. These are the sorts of rivalries
that make college football so great.
To take in as much action as we could, we
went to Buffalo Wild Wings with Mike, Matt, Brian and another really cool guy,
Kevin Donahue. B-Dubs, as it’s known colloquially, is a big bar with about 40
different screens showing every single game of football, basketball and hockey
(and some gold) taking place across the country.
Later in the day we picked up Lauryn and
drove from Chicago through Indiana and into Michigan, to the town of Kalamazoo. We’re staying here overnight at a Super 8
motel and in the early morning driving 90 minutes to Ann Arbor, the town where
the campus of the University of Michigan is located. Kalamazoo is also a college town, home to
Western Michigan University, though their program is dwarfed by the one in Ann
Arbor.
We’re in Michigan because, tomorrow at high
noon, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, the greatest college football rivalry, the
Ohio State University Buckeyes vs. the University of Michigan Wolverines will
be renewed for the 109th time in a storied history that dates back
to October of 1897. Michigan Stadium is known as The Big House and holds in
excess of 100,000. It will be off the chain tomorrow.
It’s gonna be loud and cold – and I can’t
wait!
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