“I bet I can beat you guys back!” I yelled, breaking into a sprint (see: jog). 

“Tim, wait!” my friends yelled as I ran around the corner. 

They were too late. I was off on my own in a neighborhood in Boulder, CO. 

In September 2021, I traveled with some friends to Boulder, CO, to watch the University of Minnesota Gopher football team play against the University of Colorado. 

Few things match the energy of traveling to a college town to watch your team play. It opens up a sense of community in people. People you see wearing your team’s colors from the airport to the stadium are no longer strangers. They are your friends, if only for 72 hours. 

From smiles and head nods to “Go Gophers,” “Row the Boat,” and “Ski-U-Mah,” said in passing, a strange city starts to feel much more inviting. If you choose the right hotel, all the other guests are fans of your team. 

Come game day, the excitement in the air is palpable. You know you are in enemy territory when you leave your hotel. Usually, the opposing fans greet you with good-natured jeers; a “boo” is shouted with a good-natured smile, for example. 

Unless you are in Wisconsin or Iowa, those people are savages that take out their frustration of living in the worst two states in the country on opposing fans. Some of the worst things I’ve heard from opposing fans have come from the mouths of sixty-year-old women wearing Wisconsin red. 

In Colorado, we heard the same thing repeated all weekend leading up to the game from the female Colorado students, “Sko buuuhfs!”

The first time we heard it, my friends and I looked at each other in confusion and simultaneously asked, “What did she say?”

By the third time we heard it, we realized it was a shorthand for “Let’s Go Buffs.” For those of you not up on your college team names, the University of Colorado team name is the Buffaloes.

As it turns out, shouting, “Sko buuuhfs!” at an unsuspecting group of Colorado fans as they pass by is massively entertaining. Watching the excitement melt from their faces as they realized the cheer came from three men in their late thirties from Minnesota made for endless fun. 

What completes a road trip to watch your team is a win. The Gophers delivered on that front blowing Colorado out 30-0. The ten thousand Gopher fans that made the trip were ecstatic. 

When your team wins a road game you traveled to see, it makes money spent on travel, hotel, food, and massive amounts of beverages feel like an excellent investment. 

Before I tell you about the post-game celebration, I must tell you about the day before the game. 

My friends and I set out in the morning to visit the campus sites and find a bar. That bar led to a brewery, which led to a wine bar. By 4:00 PM, we were having a great time. 

We connected with a couple of other friends who made the trip and made plans to meet them for a drink and some appetizers. 

We went to a restaurant on Pearl St. in downtown Boulder to grab cocktails. We sat at a table on the sidewalk, sharing laughs and cheering with every Gopher fan that passed by. After a few beers and fireball shots, my friends needed to return to the hotel around 6:00 PM.

This is the responsible thing to do. However, I have spent twenty years training for marathon day-drinking days. I knew returning to my hotel room could lead to an abrupt end of the day. 

 No, thank you.

As we got up from the table, my friends mentioned getting an Uber. 

“Our hotel is a mile away. Let’s walk,” I said.

My friends saw through my plan. They knew my strategy would lead to me convincing them to stop at another bar. They explained that the night wasn’t ending and needed to “reset.” I probably would have submitted until I heard the word “nap” uttered. 

I have never started a good story with, “So I laid down to take a nap.” 

“Let’s just take an Uber to the hotel and find a bar to go…” 

“I bet I can beat you guys back!” I yelled, breaking into a sprint. 

“Tim, wait!” my friends yelled as I ran around the corner. 

I sprinted for a few blocks until my limited energy ran out. I found myself in a residential neighborhood walking down the street with the sun setting behind the mountains. 

I knew if I walked a couple of blocks south, I’d be back where the action was. However, I understood a walk and a break from cocktails were necessary, so I continued down the quiet street. 

I wasn’t sloppy by any means. I was in the day-drinking sweet spot. I had my wits about me and found humor in almost everything I saw. Like this gnome carved into an old tree. 

After a few blocks, I stumbled upon a park with a basketball court. Eight guys were playing a game of 4-on-4. I stopped to watch because, well, I had nothing better to do. 

One of the guys playing clearly had the lion’s share of talent. I watched silently as his teammates took terrible shots and turned the ball over. Eventually, their ineptitude became too much to handle.

“Kick it to short shorts in the corner,” I yelled through the fence. 

The best player was wearing running shorts. You know, the shorts you see those runners wear when they fly past running faster than you sprint, but they are on the seventh mile of their daily run. Then you think, show off, because you can’t remember the last time you ran more than a mile, let alone with your shirt off.

No? That’s just me? 

The guy with the ball threw a wild layup that gonged off the backboard. 

I shook my head in disgust. 

On their next possession, I figured they didn’t hear me and, with a little more gusto, yelled, “Feed shorts shorts!” 

The team again ignored their new inebriated coach, turning the ball over. “Come on,” I said in frustration, running my hands through my hair.

The sound of movement stopped. I looked at the court, and all the players stared at me.  

“Do we know you?” asked one of the players.

“No,” I said.

“Then shut the hell up,” he said.

“Sounds good,” I said, deciding to move on with my journey back to the hotel. 

I walked a couple of blocks trying to get my bearings, when a familiar aroma hit my nose. 

I’m in Colorado!

I scanned the area for a dispensary. I was slightly confused since I was still in a mostly residential neighborhood, but I was like a bloodhound on the scent. I spotted a blue and red neon sign that read, Open, illuminated in the window of what looked like a small house. 

I entered, learned some new things about marijuana from the lovely woman behind the counter, bought a souvenir, and continued my journey. 

I was confident I knew how to return to my hotel, but I checked my phone for directions. My phone died as the route pulled up on my Google Maps. 

If I can direct your attention to the graphic (below), I have highlighted (in case it needed to be clarified) where I got a little lost. Fortunately, after a few minutes of standing at the intersection of Pearl and 28th St., I remembered the Apple Watch on my wrist could lead me home. 

When I returned to my hotel room, I started texting my friends who took the Uber home. When they didn’t respond, I walked out the sliding glass door to the hotel courtyard and down to their room. 

In the courtyard, I noticed a glass pipe filled with marijuana. I looked up at the hotel and realized someone must’ve dropped it from their balcony. I continued on to the back patio of my friend’s room. They didn’t answer, so I started texting again.

Here’s what that looked like. 

Those are the texts from a man desperate for a good time. 

Eventually, they got up and going and appeased me by going out for a couple more drinks. 

The following morning, game day, we went to a bar near campus with a couple hundred other Gopher fans. 

It is hilarious watching Colorado fans walk away from a campus bar in disappointment when they realize it has been overrun by Gopher fans chanting, “M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A!” Which we did a lot. 

By the time the game ended, we had put in a full day’s worth of drinking. We opted to head back to the hotel to regroup, shower, and decide what the night would bring. 

Fortunately, we had the foresight to stock our hotel room with beer and snacks for just this occasion. 

We watched more college football and listened to music for a while, but I could feel the energy being sucked out of the room. I could feel the mood of the evening reverting to what I had encountered the night before. We needed to make decisions. 

“Where should we head?” I asked, hopping out of my chair. 

I didn’t receive the enthusiasm from my friends I was looking for. Then I got an idea. 

I walked out the sliding glass door to the courtyard. Walked into the grass and found the glass pipe I had seen the night before. I walked back to the patio of my hotel room with the pipe in hand.

“There’s no way you’re going to smoke that,” one of my friends said. 

I can’t remember my exact intentions when I walked out of the room, but that sounded like a challenge to my drunken brain. 

“Do you have a lighter?” I asked.

I had barely finished asking the question before a lighter sailed through the open sliding glass door. 

Without hesitation, I lit the remaining weed in the pipe and inhaled deeply. 

Look, I’m not proud of doing this. It wasn’t my finest decision. It was a calculated risk to get a rise out of my friends. And, yes, it was run-of-the-mill marijuana.

I’ve realized I am addicted to getting attention on my own terms. Hell, it’s why I write these stories. I don’t care if people are laughing at me as long as they are laughing.

Also, it worked. I don’t know if my friends were worried I would find other drugs in the courtyard or if they decided I needed an activity to keep me busy. We went out to a bar and got some pizza. 

We chatted with a guy at the bar who was nice enough, but I grew bored of his stories quickly.

“I smoked yard drugs!” I shouted in a mostly empty pizza restaurant. 

That put a quick ending to our conversation. 

It’s a fine line between being a gainfully employed husband and father of two and a bum smoking things you find on the ground and yelling about it to strangers. I, for one, think that is an important lesson to take away here. 

Although it should go without saying, don’t do what I did. There are much wiser ways to entice your friends to hit the town on a Saturday night.

That said, I regret nothing. 

Cheers.