St Louis Recap

Nate and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. for our long day of travel to St. Louis.  I drove the first four and a half hours and Nate took over the second four and half. Nathan completely failed during the early morning. As we walked to the car he dropped several items; at the car he took literally about 15 minutes to put some clothes in his bag, then we stopped at a gas station just outside of Dallas to get ice for the cooler, he dropped the cooler and spilled some of the ice…..needless to say he struggled.  The drive to St. Louis was real smooth. Being early in the morning, the traffic was very light so we cruised through Texas and entered the wonderful vast land of Oklahoma where casinos run rampant. Literally, all we saw in Oklahoma was hills, one huge factory, and a bunch of casinos. 

Up next was Missouri where we first had a bad impression of the state seeing how all we saw was tons and tons of adult video stores, however, this would later change when we entered in to St. Louis. I must say that St. Louis is a really cool place. Driving up to the city the older buildings and skyline combined were really cool. Of course the arch was also really cool to see. Nate and I rolled into St. Louis about 3 o clock, so we had some time to spare before we finally got to reunite with our boy Collin at the airport. We decided to go to a local favorite Crown Candy, where Man Vs. Food did a milk shake challenge. Nathan got a chocolate milkshake, and I got a vanilla one. I can speak for Nate that they were seriously the best milkshakes we had ever had. If you ever get a chance to go to St. Louis hit up Crown Candy for sure.   After the milkshakes, Nate and I went to our hotel downtown, unloaded all of our stuff, and headed to the airport to get Collin. After a slight delay in his plane, Collin finally got to join us. We greeted him with total manly hugs and handshakes with of course manly deep voices (I think Nate and Collin teared up but I stayed strong of course). We threw Collin’s military bag into the car and headed to the ballpark. We arrived slightly late but in plenty of time to enjoy the awesome ballpark.

As we drove up the park from the highway, we could see into the stadium with a really cool view. Inside the stadium we went up pretty high to some actually really cool seats and enjoyed several innings of great baseball. During the 6 th inning, we decided to all go get some Budweisers since we were at Busch Stadium. We then walked down to the first deck to get a better view of everything the stadium had to offer. Along the way, we saw some bleacher seats in centerfield that were not occupied so we decided to enjoy the action from a much better view (this turned out to be an epic decision). 

In front of us sat a group of Cardinals fans, two of which had guitars. They were partying and having a great time at the game.   Phil was lead vocalist screaming out in a less then perfect Usher voice several baseball songs that the crowd loved….we of course quickly joined in. As the game continued on, Phil began to really take form. He was partying having a good time when he spotted a younger guy in a Boston Red Sox hat. We quickly learned that Phil is not a big fan of Boston. He believes that Bostonians do not work hard and believe more in Union’s than working 12 hours shifts.  He felt this young man was a good person to take his hatred on and began bashing him with funny and witty comments. Nate, Collin, and I were cracking up so hard. Eventually one of the guys that was with this young man and a small group got up and flashed a police badge and told Phil to stop talking and sit down….did this work??….absolutely not!! Phil as well as his partner in crime continued to berate the young man as well as the off duty officer. We all thought something was about to go down, but the officer just sat down and Phil went on cracking everyone besides the young man up.  We had a lot of fun at the game. The Pirates ended up winning pretty handily scoring 14 runs and were just crushing the ball. The group Phil was a part of asked us if we wanted to come have a beer with them at their van in the parking lot and we of course obliged. As we rolled up to the wife and kids mini van that Phil owned, we were greeted with beers and friendly high fives. Collin quickly got on the guitar and started owning while Nathan and I held conversations with several of the guys. One of the guys (Randy) asked me what I did, and I told him I taught special education, which spurred a great conversation. His daughter was born with Autism and Cerebral Palsy. We discussed Autism and techniques to help his daughter. It was really cool discussing something we were both mutually passionate about. We as well as Nate then moved on to more trivial conversation about A&M moving to the SEC. They were all Missouri fans, so they were pumped with us about the move. We talked a lot of mess about TU and again enjoyed Phil going nuts about how much he hated the people of Boston as Collin led some songs and had the group singing. Phil would go on ridiculous rants with such enthusiasm. It was fun to watch. 

As the night moved on to about midnight the town was getting a little shady, so we decided to move on back to our hotel for the night. Overall St. Louis is definitely a top favorite city of ours. We met some awesome people that shared some great laughs and stories with us. Great success! On to Chicago and glad to have our boy Collin with us.  Below our all our pictures that we took. Check them out for sure because we have some really great pictures. 

The mileage before leaving for St. Louis

Nate was struggling all morning with just about everything. Must have been that 3:30 wake up time

The famous Crown Candy Ice Cream parlor that was on Man vs. Food. Best milkshakes we have ever had

THE Busch Stadium. Easily the best ballpark we had been to thus far

View from our original (and assigned) seats

Our seats from the 6th inning on. Bleacher seats in left-center field. Best decision we ever made

Busch Stadium post-game. Awesome stadium set-up

Very hard stadium to get a picture of with us in it. Trees everywhere and it was right in the middle of downtown

The view when we first got to our level of seating

Budweiser is brewed in St. Louis so naturally they are a large sponsor.

Didn't have time to go to the Arch but this makes up for it

Nodding Donkey koozie pic

This. Is. Phil. An epic person to enjoy a baseball game with. 

Action shot of the angry bro who was getting pissed off at Phil's yelling

Only stadium I know of that let's people bring guitars in. PUT ME IN COACH! I'M READY TO PLAY!

Post-game party with the crew. I don't think anybody knew Phil hated Boston so much

Their post-game push-up contest. Supposedly they battled against Marines last week

St Louis was an absolute blast and now it's off to Wrigley

Arlington/Dallas Recap

Wednesday June 27^th-

After an epic time at the Astros game, Nathan and I left early Wednesday morning for Dallas to meet up with Alan Terlip and Joe Brown II for the Rangers game. Our first leg of the road trip went really smooth. Nathan drove the entire way, allowing me to blog about the Astros game. As we rolled up to the awesome area of DFW where the great Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys, and Dallas Stars reside (Collin and Nathan don't appreciate this fact), we decided to watch the Portugal vs. Spain futbol matchup at the Nodding Donkey in Uptown Dallas. This turned out to be a great decision. We met the bartender Ronda and began discussing our road trip and about our Parkinson’s charity. Ronda was very nice and gave us free rounds of beers as well as coming up with a promotional idea for the bar and our charity. She gave us a koozie for us to take a picture with at every stadium. She is then going to put it on their website as well as information about our charity. The pictures we took are below.

Ronda was gracious enough to listen to our story and give us two free rounds of beer as well as give us a koozie to promote at every ballpark for the Nodding Donkey.

Joe Brown met up with us at the bar and enjoyed some free rounds of drinks as well. After the bar we went to Alan’s place of living to meet up with him.  He graciously opened his place up to us for two nights.  We all got ready for the game by taking a shot of my favorite whiskey Crown Royal. It was a little warm from the car ride but that just gave it an extra kick. We drove down to the ballpark and found our seats 3 rows up in the 1^st deck of the right outfield section. 

We lucked out and got really good seats once again. This time third row seats in right field. For those that do not know, Alan (our host) is on the left and Joe is in between Josh and I

Had to get in the koozie promotion for the Nodding Donkey

Rangers baseball and the Nodding Donkey promotion

The view we had at the Rangers game. Not quite the one we had in Houston, but still really good seats.

We immediately took advantage of Dollar Hot Dog Night and 8 dollar cheap beers lol. The game was a lot of fun and completely opposite of the pitching duel that was the Astros game. The final score was 13-9 with David Murphy hitting two home runs. During the game, this woman wearing a Tigers Jersey came and sat by Alan and immediately said “Oh ya’ll got a Tigers fan by y’all” and Alan responded with “uhhhhhh um uhhhh…….welcome?” We all immediately started laughing and mocking him. To his credit she was really awkward and sounded like the mom of the Stuart Mad TV Skit.  After the game, Chick Fil A handed out the most incredible chocolate chip cookies ever that lead to all of us screaming out O YEA!! YEA! SO GOOD! People stared but the rich chocolatey goodness had overtaken our ability to be mature.   Overall Day 2 was really great and glad we got to hangout with Alan and Joe. We did however miss not having our boy Collin with us, but thankfully he will be able to join us for the St. Louis game. Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to him and his family. Love the Mulcahy family.

Thursday June 28^th-

Thursday we did not have a game , and we decided to stay in Dallas for another night. Alan had to go to work while Nate and I slept in…..Josh “great to be a teacher”..Nate “great to be fresh out of college”.  Nate and I got up and used our free Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast coupons we got from David Murphy’s second inning home run. Our waiter looked like Bruce willis in 5^th Element

Minus the tank, our waiter looked very much like the blonde-tipped Bruce Willis

After Denny’s we traveled to this weird what looked like a Walmart/Sam’s Club megalopolis that ended up just being a Walmart on the second story and Sam’s Club on the first….very disappointing. We bought our groceries and snacks for the roadtrip and then headed back to Alan’s apartment. We watched Italy dominate Germany (Nate didn't like that one very much) in the Euro Cup semifinal match and then worked out to prepare our bodies for 7 games in 7 day stretch.  After working out, I took Nate to Mia’s Tex Mex for the best Brisket Tacos/just tacos in general, I and now he has ever had. If you ever get a chance make sure you go to get those tacos. We then went to Alan’s softball game where they dominated some scrubs…..I (Josh) say that knowing I am terrible at softball and a scrub myself.  Last stop for the night was at Sherlock’s Pub where we played shuffle board, drank down some pitchers, and played bingo. Overall DFW stop has been a lot of fun. We are ready to move on to St. Louis tomorrow. Epic 11 hour drive here we come!! Want to send a thanks out to my boy Alan Terlip for letting us stay 2 nights with him.  Collin we cant wait to have you join us tomorrow!!

The crew that we joined at Sherlock's Pub

Houston Recap

Yesterday was the first of our 15 MLB games. Astros vs. Padres……two highly competitive and winning teams (for you that don’t follow baseball this was sarcasm because both teams are two of the bottom four teams in baseball). To quote Sportscenter “Is that bad??….It's not good”.  Even though the teams are not that good, we lucked out and got some awesome tickets. Collin’s uncle was able to get us four Diamond Club seats. Our seats were first row just to the left of home plate. We also go all the free food we could eat including some fried macaroni that was absolutely incredible. They also had ice cream snicker bars, pints of blue bell, popcorn, peanuts, hot dogs, sausages, and a lot of fancy food that I did not care to take part in while being at a baseball game.

The unbelievable view from the seats that Collin's uncle graciously gave us.

The Astros actually got the W. I (Nathan) had been to two other games this year but didn't see a winner until tonight.

Tad bit blurred but you get the idea

The game itself was a lot of fun. We were able to talk to the Padres players when they were on the on deck circle. Mark Kotsay gave a little boy next to us a bat, two baseball gloves, and a ball….must be nice to be a cute five year old.  Cameron Maybin and I had two run-ins with his back pocket. He kept coming up to bat with his pocket hanging out, so I said “Hey your back pocket is out bro” he responded with a wink and head nod….Really Cameron? You can't use your words, you have to wink at me? Will Venable came up to the on deck circle, and I notice that his pants had been sewn up where there had obviously been a hole. I asked him “What's up with the patch on the pants Venable” he responded with “I know right? I’m in the big leagues you would think I could get some new pants.” It was really funny.  I told him that if he hit a home run I wouldn’t make fun of his pants anymore…..wouldn’t you know he goes up and hits one out. Needless to say I did not make fun of his pants again. 

I don't know how many times in his career that Cameron Maybin had been heckled about how his back pocket was out but Josh definitely made him hear about it, even getting a response (a wink.....) from him

Will Venable was one of the Padres who took the time out to talk to us while waiting for his at-bat.

We met two very nice people that were sitting next to us, so I wanted to give a shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Puff.   Hope you guys found our blog and website. 

During the game the little boy that had received all the items from Kotsay asked me if I was Nathan’s Dad……so while teaching at my school I have almost had my phone taken up and almost given a tardy pass, but at the Astros game this little boy thought I was old enough to be Nathan’s father…lol.  

As we were getting up to leave for the game, the Astros owner Jim Crane was going onto the field to take a picture with the Astros newly signed draft pick. When he came off, I asked him if we could get a picture with him, and he said yes and asked us if we wanted to take it on the field. We of course said yes, and got a really awesome picture (see below).  The game was a lot fun . 

Astros owner Jim Crane was kind enough to take a picture with us after the game on the field. I told him we were going to Chicago to take in the game against the Cubs on Saturday, hoping to get an invite to the box I know he will be sitting in. But no dice. Oh well.

Nathan and I are currently in Dallas to meet up with Joe Brown II and Alan Terlip for the Rangers game tonight.  Due to personal reasons Collin will have to miss this game, but he will be meeting up with us in St. Louis. We can’t wait for him to join us.  

Josh and I in our new home for the next three weeks. 5,000 miles is a long, long way to go. Josh even set up a bed in the back to sleep on.

The Arlington recap will be posted tomorrow night.

Please feel free to comment as well. We will definitely respond. Peace.

Dixie Chicken Recap

Nathan and I traveled to College Station on Monday for our kickoff event at the Dixie Chicken. The Chicken graciously gave us three hours of free pool and a cheaper burger deal as well as reserving the back section for our party. We had a plethora (yes plethora) of Aggies come and go throughout the night. Nathan hustled me at pool, saying “I am not very good at pool and don’t play much” then wiping the floor with me. I mean I suck lets get that straight, but I went into the game with some hope and left without my dignity. For the last hour, we played 42…..well by played I mean I taught 2 chicas to play while my partner, and I just owned. I was able to gain some dignity back by beating up on the 2 girls…at 42 not like Chris Brown vs. Rihanna’s eye….too soon?  Overall the night was a great success. We had a lot of fun spending time with fellow Aggies and hanging out at the Chicken. Thanks to everyone that came out and a special thanks to the Chicken for helping us and making the event a success. 

The Dixie Chicken is a bar where Aggies old and new can go and enjoy a pitcher of beer as well as reminisce on the good old college days. The Aggie Rings symbolize four (or five or six) years of hard work at Texas A&M.

We would like to thank all of those who came out to support our event. It means a lot to us that people care about what we are trying to accomplish.

6/22 Astros Event Recap

Before I start the blog about the Astros Event, I want to ask that everyone keep my best friend Collin Mulchay and his family in your prayers as they have lost a loved one yesterday. Collin and his family mean so much to Nathan and I, and we are very saddened to hear this news. We wish them well and will keep them in our prayers as well.

We want to first start of by saying thank you to everyone that came out to the Astros game yesterday. We had a total of 37 participates show up and raise 275 dollars for the game and received 3 more separate online donations that totaled 60 dollars from people that could not go to the game but wanted to help for a total of 315 dollars. We were also graciously given 300 dollars from the Houston A&M Club for a grand total of 615 dollars whoop!!! We want to again thank everyone that participated and donated as well as the Houston A&M Club for showing us so much support. It is a blessing to know there are so many Aggies out there willing to help out. 

We had a great time at the game, but unfortunately, the Astros fell short and lost 2-0.  I was able to recurite a little girl into the Aggie Family throughout the game, and had her saying Gig'em as well as telling her Dad he would have to pay for her Aggie Ring.....I left out the dunking of the ring for now...she was 5.  Nathan's posse showed up and accidentaly found themselves in a Suite where they were given free adult beverages. However, they were quickly found out about because of their apparent failed rookie slyness and were made to chug there beverages and asked kindly to leave...still a success in my book.  We enjoyed 9 innings of very little exciting baseball, and we stumbled upon some great information thanks to Nathan's posse. Apparently, you can bring in a large zip lock baggie of snacks into the ballpark. This will become very useful on our upcoming trip. However, I will say that again the posse was very rookiesk. They brought in trail mix, strawberries, carrots, and some dip.....I felt like we were at a tea party of some sort. Ladies next time you must bring ribs or some sort of meet, cheese, sunflower seeds, greasy chips (not baked or low sodium of any sort), and of course beef jerky....COME ON!! We had a great time at the game and were able to get a couple of pictures

This is a picture of all the Aggies, siblings, and friend that were in attendance at the game. It was tough getting the picture as you can tell from not everyone looking, but overall successful pic.

This is a photo of a man attempting to take a picture with his phone by holding it up to binoculars. I am very interested and wish I could see how the picture turned out.

The game was a great succes, and we had so much fun with everyone. I hope everyone had a great time. Thanks again for everyone that supported. We will be blogging more as we start our trip. This Monday we will be doing an event from 5-8 at the Dixie Chicken in College Station, so if your in CS come out and join us for free pool and cheap hamburgers. Hope to see everyone there.

Josh, Collin, and Nathan

One More Week!

One week from today, Collin, Josh and I will begin the trip of a lifetime. A trip that men dream about doing. Three weeks full of baseball, bars, new cities, and meeting new people, including various Aggie Clubs.

Today we finalized our event with the Aggie Club in Boston among other things such as buying tickets to the Cardinals game, which is one of the first destinations in our 5,000 mile journey.

Our first event will be this Friday at Minute Maid Park, where Josh bought 40 tickets to let each of us invite a certain amount of people to enjoy the beginning of our journeys. We wanted to be able to share some of the experience with everybody so we felt doing this in Houston (with its very low attendance so we would all be able to sit together) would be the best way of doing that. Tickets are still available if you would like to join us!

We also have an event in College Station on Monday, June 25 at the Dixie Chicken from 5-8 pm so if you read this and want to join us, please feel free to. I will provide more details about that as soon as the day gets closer.

Until then, keep following our blog because we will be adding pictures, stories, experiences and anything else cool that will catch your interest to this blog in the coming weeks!!

Peace out peeps.

The Pre-Introduction to an Adventure

Howdy to all of my future readers for my first ever blog attempt. Next Tuesday, June 26, my buddies Collin Mulcahy, Josh May and I will be embarking on an epic three-week road trip covering a good amount of the good ole USA. Our trip will involve going to 15 different MLB parks around the country in 21 days. We decided a few months ago to add a cause to our trip to try and make it more worthwhile. To those that do not already know, we have teamed up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to try and get people to donate and to raise money for Parkinson's Disease. Our goal is to raise $10,000 when it is all said and done and we are at around $3,100 at this very moment so we are on our way. Here is the link to our cause if you want to learn more about it or would like to donate:

http://www2.michaeljfox.org/goto/bthop

Along with this trip, we have set up events with different Aggie clubs along in the way in the various cities we are going to, hoping to meet as many people as we can, because they say Aggies are everywhere and any connection could help you out one day.

For those of you wondering, here are the different cities we will be going to on our baseball extravaganza.

-Houston, Arlington, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City (for the Mets and Yankees), Boston, Baltimore and Washington DC.


Over those three weeks, we will be taking pictures of our travels and be keeping you up to date on everything that is going on so it feels as though you guys are on the trip with us!

We hope that you will want to follow us throughout our travels! I will be posting again in a couple days once more things are finalized.

Peace out.