My Saturday in A2

Yesterday, we (my mom, brother, nephew and I) got together at 7am and headed out to start our day. The plan was to hit some Taco Bell for breakfast before we got on the toll road but for some reason, it wasn't open. So we went high class with some Arby's breakfast instead. Certainly not as good as Taco Bell, but you do what you have to do. After that, we hit the road for our 2 1/2 hour drive to Ann Arbor.

We made good time, as we usually do, with not a whole lot of traffic since we left so early. Once we got there, we pulled around the back of the stadium to find the handicap parking (my mom has a bum leg). Once we get out of the van, we grabbed an attendant and asked where Schembechler Hall was. Apparently, it was quite a ways away and my mom wasn't going to be able to walk it. The attendant was cool and told us to go ahead and drive over (he gave directions) and he would save us a spot at the stadium.

We drove down to the hall and got in line to go through. For those that don't know, Schembechler hall has a kind of museum to Michigan football in it. None of us had ever been and I had read that it was going to be open so we made it part of our day. It was pretty cool, especially seeing all the nostalgic stuff from way back when. There were all kinds of old tickets and programs, along with older jerseys and stuff like that. I was really hoping to see the championship trophies but they weren't there, I'm not sure where they keep those. I took a few photos.

Legends jerseys - #21 Desmond Howard, #87 Ron Kramer, #47 Bennie Oosterbaan, #48 Gerald Ford, #98 Tom Harmon and #11 Francis, Albert and Alvin Wistert.

Desmond Howard's Heisman Trophy and Anthony Carter's MVP Trophy.

A football for every game played. Each ball has the teams logos and the score of every game played in Michigan football history.

After going through Schembechler Hall, we headed back to the stadium.  We got there with a little more than an hour before the actual game. Most of the people there were sitting on the west side of the stadium in the sun, we came out on the east side and there were a lot less people so we went down a bit and took some seats in the shade. I think we ended up in the 39th row on the 40 yard line, pretty good seats. It was very chilly out, just above freezing.

Hour before the game from our seats.

We waited it out for about half an hour and then we were in the sun. It made a difference, although not a whole lot since it was so windy. Before the game started, they were showing pictures on the scoreboard of people who hashtagged #GoBlue on Instagram and Twitter so I posted a picture to my Instagram and 3 of my Twitter accounts to see if I could get it posted up there. It worked, my picture made the board. I'm not much of a selfie person, but I took one anyways.

My selfie made it on the Big House board.

The game wasn't too bad, about what I expected. Very little offense, great defense. After the game when we went to leave, we realized our mistake. You always learn from your first trip (this was our first Spring Game). By parking in the handicap area on the backside of the stadium, it took forever to get out. For one, we needed to get to the other side of the stadium (which is where we normally park for games) and that took 45 minutes. Once we got there and we thought it would be smooth sailing, we figured out why it wasn't. When you go to games, they shut down the north side of traffic on the road that leads to the Interstate so all 5 lanes flow south and it clears out the stadium quickly. Apparently they don't do that for this game. That could be because last years Spring game had a total attendance of 15,000. Well, I guess they didn't think that since it was Jim Harbaugh's first year and the fact that it was an actual game and not a practice, they weren't expecting the 60,000+ people that showed up.

Another tradition of going to Ann Arbor is hitting Joe's Crab Shack because we don't have one near us. We figured, 3:00 in the afternoon, should be in and out. Wrong. It was packed, we had to wait 25 minutes to get a seat and then because it was so busy, everything was slow getting to the table. Food was great, as always and we weren't in a hurry so it was no big deal, just surprising.

With all the delays, I had to push back the time I was picking up the kids from theEx since I wasn't getting into town until the time we were meeting and I have to drive so far to get them again. I got home, went inside to pee and grab my music phone and headed back out to go grab the kids. I finally made it home to my recliner just before 9. It made for a long day but it was enjoyable. It's always good times when my mom, brother and I get together.