Nashville - No Music City Miracle For The Lions

The tour headed south this weekend for some self abuse supplied by our beloved Lions. And they delivered in grand fashion! But before we go into that debacle, we need to rewind to Friday evening as two fellas from the "D" rolled into the Music City. I had read about the many live music bars in the area but seeing it in person was quite impressive. Bar, bar, bar, bar, bar.......  There had to have been fifty or so (more?) on the two streets where it all went down. No cover in most places with band tips welcome. Good music too. We met up with Jim's friend Cat and her husband Stephon and checked out five or six clubs. We even made it past midnight; look out world! And yes, we did pay for it Saturday morning as the train slowly got moving.

Rather than work the tourist route and seeing the Opry scene Saturday, which didn't have me that excited anyway, Jim worked his magic and we ended up going out on his friend Russell's boat on J. Percy Priest Lake, a reservoir just outside of Nashville. Out on the boat (very nice boat) was Cat, Russell's girlfriend Nicky, me, and five guys with various scars in their backs with a story behind each one of them. They may be in wheelchairs but damn can they water ski. A great day on the water it was; however, it felt weird being out there without a fishing pole. Something missing here!

Tennesseans are quite the hospitable bunch. One of the guys on the boat, Rocky, has been a Titan season ticket holder since they moved to the area and invited us to his tailgate. He had the rock star location with some good eats and was only about a quarter mile walk from our hotel. Luck again was on our side as we exchanged the four upper level tickets for some handicap access on the club (fancy) level; no extra charge and no bathroom lines! Woo woo! 

If only the Lions could have finished off what would have been a victory, although an ugly one, for the ages, the weekend would have been complete. I am happy to report we did stay until the end of the game as 50,000 or so Titan fans almost missed the best comeback ever. Detroit was represented well as Honolulu blue and silver was abundant in the city all weekend with no donkey behavior to report.
Nashville, thanks for the scene.
Trail Head

 

 

 

no, we didn't need to dial 877-GRUMPYS

 

Rocky setting up the tailgate scene

 

Cat and the Jager girls

 

 

Lion pride

heard Johnny Cash WAY too much on Sunday

  

 

 

Chip River Float - domestic bliss gone bad

Floating down a river with friends on a beautiful late summer afternoon, how much better could it get? It was utopia for some, hell for others as the five of us witnessed.

The story begins as we hit the canoe livery in Mt. Pleasant at around 11 AM Saturday morning to descend on our 2 1/2 hour ("projected time") float. We'll get back to that topic in a moment. There was another group of four, two couples, also heading out at the same time. The party must have started early for them that morning as they were....hammered! The one guy had gone to Buzztown and back it seemed. He had death in his eyes as he was talking to Al. So the float starts and we separate from them for awhile while we slowed down to fish. An hour or so passes and we see the one couple's canoe flipped (pictured) and they are cussing up a storm at each other. The "F" bombs were aplenty. The girl ended up jumping in another canoe and I wouldn't be surprised if the guy is still floating down the river. Good entertainment there.

yep, that canoe is submerged

The other entertainment was of course the fishing. Chippewa River veteran Jim D. slapped on the waders, walked the river, and put on a clinic on how to work the river holes. So with the fish hitting and the people watching better than a Judge Judy episode, our "projected" 2 1/2 hour float turned into a 6 hour experience. No complaints as you couldn't have asked for better day. Well, I guess the two pictured here might have a few of them.

Trail Head



F!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fire Up....Spartans, I Mean Chips!

The scene was Mt. Pleasant as five of us piled into Mike R.'s behemoth RV for the MSU-CMU game. None of us had tickets but quite honestly, we were probably better off without them. We had a VIP parking pass that had us within 100 yards of the south end zone and the RV had all the bells and whistles you would expect an RV to have. In addition, the modified Spartan bus next to us had a big screen television mounted to the side of it with satellite access so the game was on there.

The gathering was a reunion of sorts for the famed "Blue House" residents that went to Central in the late 80's. I never lived there but was in attendance for some of their parties. Good people throughout. I finally found out why so many of them went by last names. Three (maybe more) are named "Mike" so that makes sense. After too many "Which Mike?" scenarios, I can see the need to say, "How about I just call you 'Smith' from now on?"

A great time it was; and State won! The food was plentiful and thankfully the students and alums from East Lansing and Mt. Pleasant know how to have a good time without the need to put their donkey suits on. As someone who attended both schools (flunked out of CMU so State took me - ha), I know first hand that both student bases are pretty much the same in terms of being "social" universities, if that makes sense. You have to learn the books but you also need to learn to interact with people. Both schools accomplish that aspect quite well; with a few soda pops mixed in...

Ooh Waa Chip-a-Spartan!
Trail Head

The "Blue House" posse

nice access to the game right next to our setup

Anna from Fairview with the two sided/two team shirt

 

sausage presentation

 

Johnny Spirit in the house!

found out Danielle lives two blocks away from me in Novi

Raj singing along with a total stranger

girl in the yellow was the leader of the "woo" girls