Road Trip: Ole Miss – From the Bird’s Nest

From a “get work done” standpoint, it was great that Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns opened with two straight games at home.  As a result, we were all kind of looking forward to the season’s first road trip.

Well, maybe not Gerald Broussard, who had been on the road with his “real” job all week in Denver.  He had just enough time to land in Lafayette, grab a bag, and head to the airport.

It was going to be a different kind of trip in that I wasn’t flying with Steve and Gerald.  Because it was the first road game with our new technology, our engineer Matt Gholston wanted to make the trip…but it was too late to get him on the plane.  So I offered to ride with him and Steve offered to ride back after the game.

Cuz we’re nice guys like that.

Matt and I got on the road about 9:30, which was perfect timing for lunch.  In a previous road trip blog, I’ve mentioned The Dinner Bell in McComb, MS as one of my favorite places to eat on the road.  Last Thursday I mentioned it to Gerald during our weekly conversation on “Bird’s Eye View” and was surprised he’s never been there.  Matt and I arrived just after 12 noon and were seated right away.

As a refresher, the Dinner Bell is only open for lunch.  You are seated “family style” at a table for eighteen.  The servers come out with platters of food, including an ungodly amount of different vegetables.  It’s put on a lazy Susan and you grab the plates as they go by and get as much as you want of whatever you want.  Dessert and drink are included in the $15.00 price.

During lunch I looked across the table and there were three couples seated with the guys all in Ragin’ Cajuns gear.  We acknowledged each other and one of the men said “Thanks.”  As it turned out, he had been listening to the show Thursday and heard me mention the place.  And, they took my recommendation and thoroughly enjoyed lunch.

Just one more reason to listen to the radio show, M-F, 3-5pm on ESPN1420.  Sports talk AND culinary reviews, absolutely free.

It was back on the road after lunch (although a nap would have been great after eating so much.)  The drive up I-55 is a long one and we were driving to Olive Branch, near the Tennessee border, about an hour north of Oxford.  We got off the Interstate right around 5pm and hit the Southaven traffic.  It took nearly an hour to finish the drive into Olive Branch.

Steve and Gerald had been there a while.  Matt and I got our room keys and headed to our respective rooms.  As it turned out, my room was right next door to athletic director Scott Farmer’s suite, where he holds a Friday reception shortly after check-in.  They had been at the suite almost an hour when I got there.  I said hello to the travel party (I knew just about all of the guests and had a beverage…well…I had two.  It was time for the travel party to head to dinner.  Not only was my room next door to Scott’s suite, there were adjoining rooms.  I suggested to Scott he leave the door unlocked and he said it was okay with him.  (After all, I needed to catch up.)

I was rooming with photographer Brad Kemp for the second straight year.  Now, if you

follow these football blogs, you know Coach Mark Hudspeth's wife Tyla always has a "good luck" candy bar for me on road trips.  If the Cajuns win, we do it again the next road trip.  If not, we'll change it to something else.  (Pumpkin shaped Snickers were the charm in the last few road games of the season last year.) The candy bar was a 4 1/2 ounce Mr. Goodbar and it was waiting for me in the roomj.  There were a few other people who came into the room as well.  But, we were disappointed to discover there was no door handle leading into the suite.

But it’s amazing what you can do with a room key.  Even if the adjoining door is closed. I promised I would keep the guilty party anonymous.

We closed things back up after getting a beverage.  All of us were going to dinner with SIDs Matt Sullivan and Jeff Schneider.  Gerald and Steve decided to walk to a place for dinner which took away some of the entertainment in that we didn’t get to watch Steve eat.  .The Commissary in Germantown is a highly recommended barbecue restaurant and that’s where they decided to go.  It was an excellent choice.  Besides, Germantown is across the Tennessee border.  Which means they serve Yuengling.  I think TV3's Travis Webb ate one bite and took the rest back.  Oh...and there was banana pudding for dessert.  The seven of us thoroughly enjoyed dinner and then it was back to the hotel.  Scott and his crew got back around the same time and we had a nightcap before heading to our rooms for the night.

We stayed at the Whispering Woods Hotel in Olive Branch, which was well off the road and kind of secluded.  Coach Mark Hudspeth told me most of the teams that travel to Ole Miss stay there now rather than Memphis.  (Oxford and the surrounding area really don’t have the accommodations necessary to house a football team…meeting rooms, catering and the like.)  The grounds at the WW were really nice, but there was nothing special about the place.  Matt, G, Steve and I planned to leave around 10:30 for the trip to Oxford.

It was Ole Miss’ home opener and the fans were out in full force.  Like many places (now including Cajun Field) the media parking lot was a pretty good distance from the stadium.  In this case it was in the parking lot of a shopping center.  There was a shuttle that took us to the stadium.  (At Cajun Field, media parking has been moved to the Cajundome, where a shuttle transports the media to the stadium).

It was a cool, cloudy day and was going to feel great in the open air booth we were in.  We got things set up and checked out.  During the recorded segments of the first hour of pregame we were able to grab something to eat.  Press box cuisine is always interesting.  In the case of Ole Miss, it was pretty darned good.  Pasta salad, grilled chicken strips and pulled pork sandwiches with barbecue sauce.  There was also cole slaw and bread pudding.

I’m not a big barbecue sauce guy.  But let me slap a big spoon of cole slaw on a pulled pork sandwich and that’s downright heavenly.  And, that’s exactly what I did.  The first batch of bread pudding, while tasty, wasn’t really moist.  But the next batch was great, as Gerald and I discovered, oh, about three different times…twice in pregame and again at halftime.  (I had another pork and cole slaw sandwich at the half as well.)  After the game we packed up and got ready to leave, but not before G got another fork full of bread pudding.

We headed outside and put the equipment in the rental car and G and I said goodbye to Matt and Steve.  It wasn’t long after when Sully and Jeff showed up and we got in the van and headed to the airport.  The team had just gotten on the plane when we arrived and we went through security.  Timing was perfect.  It wasn’t long after that we were ready to take off.  I got to sit next to Jim McGehee, who, along with his wife Penny, has been a friend of mine for more than twenty years.  Jim and I visited and reminded each other we were once strong in Memphis.  Penny reminded us about a road trip to California years ago.

Don’t ask.

The flight was smooth (except for the double bounce on the landing) and we pulled up at Landmark Aviation.  My car was at the office and I road with G to pick it up.  I was home at 11:45.

Matt and Steve pulled in around two am.