A Short Road Trip with My Wife
Friday, my wife, and I got the word that we would be able to take a short spur-of-the-moment trip to see our beloved Memphis Tigers football team play on the road. Honestly, it has been over a decade since we have had that opportunity in our lives. But that’s a story for another day. So, with a whirlwind of planning, we took off on the worst best trip you can imagine.
Our beloved Tigers were playing in Starkville, MS versus Mississippi State. So, the first order of business was to secure tickets for the game. That turned out to be quite easy and we got great seats for under $70 total. So off to a good start.
Second order of business, find a room for one night. Not as easy. The game was going to be a sellout. As such, most good rooms at a reasonable rate were long gone. What rooms were left were at least double what they are normally. Still, I found some good ones available. However, the $300 price tag was more than we could mentally justify for a night where we would be in the room for less than eight hours. Finally, I was able to secure a room that was under $150. The pictures looked ok, and the reviews were at least not terrible. So, one ok room reserved.
With those tasks accomplished, the last order of business was to get packed and organized for a quick jaunt into Mississippi. With a couple of small bags and a little fan gear, we were packed and ready to hit the road first thing Saturday morning.
When morning came, we were both ready to go. But I was especially ready. I was heading off with the love of my life for a short last-minute adventure. The funny part is that it turned out to be more of a misadventure than a true adventure. However, with her with me, even the worst trip is fantastic when we are doing it together.
The drive was uneventful and quick – thanks to Google Maps. Of course, the beginning of the still-to-be-discovered misadventure reared its ugly head as we pulled into the hotel’s parking lot. The hotel looked a lot more run down than the pictures suggested. Then came the fun part – inspecting the first room. A King with a very slick floor, an odd smell, and mold growing on the handrails of the bathtub. Oops. Back to the front desk. With a little mild complaining, we got a second room. Better tub, still slick floors, and a barely noticeable odd smell. So, a room that went from no stars to almost a full star.
Now in any normal time, in any normal situation, I would have just moved on down the road and paid whatever it took to find more appropriate accommodations. However, because of several factors that normal option was just not a card I could play. Besides despite the card I gave them to secure the room had already been charged long before we got there. Finally, time was not on our side, or so we thought. In hindsight, time was not the biggest factor.
So, we unloaded what little we brought with us. To describe the room is easy. The king mattress sat on top of this platform which was a combination of a rusted sheet metal box with what appeared to be a large, rugged luggage rack to hold the mattress. The flooring seams were stained – a clear sign that the wood lament had water seeped up from the structure below it, probably more than once. In a sentence, the room was basically – “prison chic.” Not bad for $140, heh?
With the unpacking done, we set off in search of a bite to eat. It took us a minute of wandering around, but then we were fortunate enough to find Zachery’s. I know the title says bad food, but that wasn’t here. At Zachery’s, we had their Cajun Chicken Club sandwich – excellent. My wife had a bowl of lobster bisque that she thoroughly enjoyed. As for me, I chose the gumbo and was incredibly pleased I did. It was some of the best I’ve had outside of New Orleans.
Then off to the game. Go Tigers Go!
As with all sporting events, finding parking can be a bit of fun. This game was no different. Of course, since I have myasthenia gravis, I sometimes have trouble walking distances. So, our search usually leads us to find handicapped parking, not always easy. Fortunately, at this stadium, it existed. It was just a little harder to find than most places but again thanks Google Maps. The parking was in probably the farthest reaches of the outer limits of the Bulldog universe. Fortunately, the cost of parking included the shuttle, which was easy to use, and the drivers were friendly and excellent. So, after finally finding the parking, getting back to the stadium was easy.
We arrived early and waited with anticipation as the sun beat down on us. The seats were metal stadium bleachers – a little tough on this old geezer, but this old man was thrilled to be with his lovely bride of almost forty-five years to watch the Memphis Tigers play an away game, a first for us.
From the first play, the game looked to be challenging at best for our Tigers. Early on it was bad – at least if you were a Memphis fan. We couldn’t run any offense and we couldn’t stop the Bulldogs from tearing through our porous line and secondary. They were not only bigger, stronger, and faster, but they also played smarter. So, by halftime, it was 28-3.
Yet the big news of the first half wasn’t the game. The big event even before the end of the first quarter was the over two-hour rain delay. As the first drops fell and the first flash of lightning streaked across the sky in the distance, the players and refs left the field. We were encouraged to do the same.
Of course, exiting the seats to a safe and dry area was easier said than done. There is nowhere near enough room under the stadium seats for the number of people who were there. So, as we all filtered under the seats, the space filled beyond capacity. In fact, at times, the crowd looked like a sea of vagabond drifters looking for a two-by-two space to call their own. A problem that became more apparent as the wind-swept rain blew under the outer parts of this sparse shelter.
But my wife and I took the rain in stride. We found one of the few unoccupied pillars to lean against. We then engaged in various conversations with fellow Tiger fans, and even a few Bulldog fans who graced us with their presence.
Yet the rain delay had another interesting effect. We got to discover and endure the worst stadium food fare we’ve ever had. I kid you not. The first interesting thing was that we discovered that no one sold pronto pups, one of the things my wife looks forward to at any stadium game. To my wife, this amounted to an affront to southern decency. So, off we took to in search of an acceptable alternative – the underappreciated hot dog.
Our search took us further into the bowels of the stadium as we sought out a line that wasn’t a hundred deep. After finding such a line, we got our two hot dogs, a pretzel, and two drinks. After retrieving our gourmet meal, we sought out and found a small piece of asphalt to sit done and enjoy a simple bite. Enjoy turned out to be the worst choice of words. I would have thought after twenty years of service and too many hot dogs of dubious distinction, I would have had the worst hot dogs available on the face of the earth. To my utter amazement, I had not. So it was that my wife and I choked down a dog I wouldn’t feed a dog and paid the $4 each for the privilege. The good news is that so far, we have not died of food poisoning. Not sure if those dogs were the norm for the concessions, but the school might need to check out their mystery meat vendor before the next home game.
But at least at our new spot of asphalt, we got “lucky.” The weather got worse, so more people left. So, finally, as the crowd spread out, we were able to find a better “nice” spot of asphalt. There was even enough room for me to lay on it. So it was that at this particular football game I was able to relive the essentials of military life – bad weather, bad food, and long waits while laying on hard asphalt. Such a nostalgic memory that made me wonder why I retired from it.
Finally, the lightning end. The announcement was made. The stands refilled with less than half of the crowd remaining. And the game got back underway. When we had taken to the shelter, Memphis was “only” down 14-3 in the first quarter. With the hope that they would have used the long delay to regroup, we were back to the stands ready to cheer on their comeback. Of course, that false hope slipped away with Mississippi State’s next drive and touchdown. By halftime, our poor Tigers were soaked to their bones and down 28-3.
Yet despite being wet and a little down on the game, my wife and I stuck it out through halftime. We were still hopeful and ready for a Tigers comeback. Of course, that bubble burst within a few minutes of the third quarter. So, it was with a heavy heart, soggy clothes, and a lot of tiredness that these old bones made the trek out of the stadium, to the shuttle stop, to the car, and took the half-hour drive back to the hotel.
Of course, once we left, the Tigers did pep up a little. We heard about it the next day. But as was evident even after the first quarter, the Tigers were only going to offer up too little too late.
Back at the hotel, the saga of that room continued. We did manage to sleep ok – more from our tiredness than our comfort. When we woke up, we went to explore the free breakfast. Of course, the pictures from the website were not accurate. The fare ended up being cheap sausage and scrambled eggs with not-so-fresh biscuits (again a blast from my military past). But the oddest part was the coffee machine that produced a brown concoction that was a step below hospital waiting room fare.
So it was that finally, we loaded up the car and thankfully left the premises and headed home. A trip that filled all the checkboxes. Bad food, bad game, bad weather, and a bad hotel. Yet it was the perfect trip. In the mess that was this trip, I got to spend a quick get-out-of-town, short-notice trip with the love of my life. In that mess, we got to enjoy each other’s company and laugh a lot even as we complained about the whole experience. So as for this trip, I would take it again. It checked off the only box that mattered – I got to take it with her.