I had been planning on going to this first road game of the year for a while now. With my schooling finally coming to an end, and a potential national championship year on the horizon, I felt obligated go. The night before the commencement of my trip, disaster struck when my driving plans fell through. I was very disappointed and I quickly called anyone and everyone I knew that was interested. Luckily, two of my buddies that recently graduated from UF agreed to go and I was set.Unfortunately, they were both in Atlanta, one working (Sterling) and the other attending grad school at Georgia Tech (Nick), so it would mean a long trip by myself before reaching them. However, Sterling told me that we would also have a place to stay at a hotel nearby, the only cost being a bottle of liquor for the room. It was settled, I was heading to Knoxville!

I left around 11:00am from Gainesville, very tired from the night before (combining the anticipation the trip and the fact that I crashed on a futon the night before didn't help!) I got the trip started by getting a few slices at the Italian Gator, known both for their great pizza and being swamped(pardon the pun) after the bars let out in midtown around University and 17th. They are really underrated, and I'm sure I will miss that place when I'm gone from here. As my friend Darshi would say: "Pizza by the slice, ooh it's so nice!" I headed off to the greater Atlanta area and had some things to take care of. I had a job interview planned for the Friday before the Arkansas game in Atlanta. I talked with the travel agency and found that it was cheaper to fly from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Fayetteville back to Jacksonville than it was to fly from Gainesville to Atlanta and back. So the company approved the former and now I can go to the Arkansas game this year! Very good start to the strip! After "Thinking Tifton" for 100 miles or so, I still had a long way to go.

I had a lot of time to waste by myself. So I decided to listen to a bunch of new albums (last 6 months or so?) that I had downloaded the day before. "Tha Carter III " by Lil Wayne had some really good songs. Mr. Carter, A Milli, and Lollipop are great, but the end of the album lacks a lot. I've loved Weezy since his days with the Hot Boyz, but this album doesn't do it for me. The second album was "Trilla " by Rick Ross.It was a really surprising job by "the boss". The music is good and the rapping is great. I really like Speedin', w/ R Kelly. The next is "Death Magnetic " by Metallica. After really disappointing with their last album"St. Anger", I was very impressed by this album. It sounds like it belongs right around the time of "...And Justice For All". Very good album with a ton of solos. After that, I listened to the new Nelly album "Brass Knuckles ", which hasn't been released in stores yet (shhhhh don't tell nobody...) It has a ton of guest appearances and a bunch of really catchy songs. Right off the bat, I liked Hold Up, Party People,and Body On Me. It comes out in a couple of weeks, so take a listen at that time. My iPhone died shortly thereafter...

I arrived in Atlanta around rush hour. I have to say that downtown Atlanta traffic sucks. We were bumper to bumper for a good 30 minutes,and that added up to about 10 miles of driving. I stayed at Sterling's until about 6, when Nick got out of his test. While picking him up, I drove right past GT's stadium and I was kinda unimpressed. The stadium,although nestled nicely between downtown and campus, looked like a high school stadium. Really, how are you going to rally the crowd to cheer wholeheartedly for your team and intimidate the opponent if your stadium lacks the size and sounds of a real school? I love the swamp and everything it represents. But I digress...

After a night trip through north Georgia and Tennessee, seeing some pretty funny things, including a massive sign for a real business called "Terd Furgeson Auto Sales". I can't make this stuff up! We finally arrived in Knoxville at our hotel: the Hilton in downtown. To my surprise, this hotel was literally like 4 blocks away from Neyland Stadium!!! We drank a couple of strong drinks and we headed down to Cumberland Ave, which is Knoxville's equivalent to University Ave.After taking a picture with our drinks in front of the police station,we made it to the bars. There were a ton of people out, all having the times of their lives. We started the night at New Amsterdam, where there was a Journey cover band playing, which couldn't be beat. After a few drinks and a few songs, we left there and headed to Bar Knoxville.There were plenty of good times and good people around. Knoxville bars are open until 3:00am. This is great. On that note, I wish Bernie Mac wasn't such a downer. 2:00am is too early to shut down fine establishments in Gainesville! Although, I must say how impressive it is that we are the #1 party school in the nation with no help from the city or school. We headed back to the hotel for the night. Good day 1.

The alarm we set didn't work properly and we ended up waking up at11:45am. Although this took away from our big plans for tailgating, it was probably a blessing in disguise, because we needed the recovery from the night before. We got ready and made some more stiff drinks and headed back to Cumberland Ave, looking for tickets along the way. The street was filled with both Tennessee and Florida fans, and it made me proud to be a student at an SEC school! After countless tries, we finally found four tickets together in the Florida section at a reasonable price. We drank a bunch of beer, and made a necessary Moe's stop, and headed down to the stadium.

Neyland Stadium is massive. You can tell that they started small and then just started expanding, and expanding, and expanding. It's nestled right in a curve on the Cumberland River, with mountains in the distance. It's a really nice location for a stadium. I wish Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was on a nice river, but we've got is the Santa Fe! Our seats were in the top level in the endzone, about 4 rows from the top.Not the greatest, but at least we were with all of our fellow Gator fans!

The game started out with so much emotion from all fans. Rocky Top was blaring already, but luckily that changed in a hurry. The Gators received the kickoff and Brandon James took it past midfield. after a bunch of running plays and misdirections the Gators muscled their way down to the goalline and Tim Tebow performed one of his patented jump shot passes to Aaron Hernandez and the Gators struck first. The Vols got the ball and ended up fumbling after a few plays and the Gators turned that into three more points. After driving a bit, the Vols were forced to punt on the next possession. The Gators lined up with both Brandon James and Percy Harvin back to receive the kick, maybe the two fastest players in the country. Everyone knew that something special was about to happen. James received the kick, and did his best Tecmo Bowl impression, shook off some tacklers, and took it to the house. The Gators were up 17-0 with 4:43 remaining the FIRST QUARTER! I yelled "Hang a hundred on 'em!"

The Tennessee fans were livid. They were booing after every bad play. Phil Fulmer was a bad word in these parts. Their fans do NOT like him. The Vols had a chance to score inside the five yard line twice in the first half. The first was a fumble and the second was an interception, the latter right before the end of the half. The boos rained down onto the field. 20-0 at the half. It was scorching hot in that stadium, with not a single breeze in the air. I took some pictures at the half and returned to my seats. The second half was just more of the same: mistakes by Tennessee and clock control by the Gators. Midway through the 3rd quarter, Tebow found Percy for a 15-yd pass to make it 27-0. Tennessee fans had had enough, as they started to file out of the stadium. Mind you, it was still the 3rd quarter! I have never seen that in the swamp, even when we've looked terrible (LSU a few years back,etc...) The Tennessee fans have completely given up on their team.Before the game, there were so many comments like "Go easy on us today" or "Try to keep it close and give us hope" or "Phil Fulmer sucks!" The game ended with a 30-6 score and everyone remaining in the stadium was wearing blue. It was great!

We left the stadium and went back to the hotel to watch some evening football. FSU looked awful against Wake at home, LSU and Auburn were in a battle in Auburn, and Georgia looked pretty impressive at Arizona State. As the games were drawing to a close, we decided to hit the strip again. We started at Long Branch and then headed back over to New Amsterdam's. The night was great, but I left a little early to rest up for my long drive home.

We left at around 9:30am and I dropped the gang back off in Atlanta and then drove the remaining 5 hours alone. I listened to a few more albums. OAR's new album "All Sides " was really disappointing. I've been a fan of theirs for a long while and they just don't have that college jam band feel that they used to have, which is the whole reason that I started to listen to them in the first place. The second album was Pepper's "Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations ". I liked it a lot, but it's still not as good as "Kona Town". The third album was Donavon Frankenreiter's "Pass it Around ". Very chill and laid back, and much better effort than his last album, but not as good as his first. Then I listened to the new Metallica album once again, which is still REALLY good!

It was a wonderful trip to Knoxville and I got to see my first road win(previously only going to Auburn in 2006). As a town, Knoxville was very fun and the fans were pretty good. The bars were fun and the stadium was real nice. I hope to go again in the future, and I'm very excited about the remaining road schedule, which I plan on attending! Now on to Ole Miss at home. GO GATORS!!!